Lines in the Sand

Dominated politically and economically by a planter elite and outnumbered by slaves, lowcountry poor whites in antebellum Georgia often found that their closest allies were on the opposite side of the color line. Timothy James Lockley looks at evidence from travel accounts, slave narratives, newspapers, and court documents to reveal that poor whites and blacks formed numerous kinds of relationships in such pursuits as work, recreation, trade, religion, even crime. Sometimes they came together out of mutual affection, sometimes for mutual advantage - but always in spite of the disapproving authority of the planter class.