Download or read book "Myne Owne Ground" written by T. H. Breen and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2005 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the earliest decades of Virginia history, some men and women who arrived in the New World as slaves achieved freedom and formed a stable community on the Eastern shore. Holding their own with white neighbors for much of the 17th century, these free blacks purchased freedom for family members, amassed property, established plantations, and acquired laborers. T.H. Breen and Stephen Innes reconstruct a community in which ownership of property was as significant as skin color in structuring social relations. Why this model of social interaction in race relations did not survive makes this a critical and urgent work of history.