Subtitle: A Case of Mistaken Racial Identity in Antebellum New Orleans
Author: Carol Wilson
Subject: History / African American Studies
Paper ISBN 0-8135-4058-5
Cloth ISBN 0-8135-4057-7
Pages: 168 pages. 9 b&w illustrations
Publication Date: July, 2007

"This book is an original and provocative exploration of a purported case of mistaken identity. Wilson offers a unique look at questions of racial identity under the law in the early republic."-Timothy S. Huebner, author of The Southern Judicial Tradition: State Judges and Sectional Distinctiveness, 1790-1890

"In this carefully researched volume Wilson deftly deals with all aspects of a case that challenged 'both the Louisiana legal system and white southerners' notions of race." Chapters illuminate antebellum New Orleans, the redemptioner system and German immigration, the complicated legal code in Louisiana, and the question of white slavery and its use by abolitionists and authors ... Wilson also provides original insights on the meaning of race and gender in the antebellum South and their impact on the case."-Matthew Mason, Journal of Southern History

In 1843, the Louisiana Supreme Court heard the case of a slave named Sally Miller, who claimed to have been born a free white person in Germany. Sally, a very light-skinned slave girl working in a New Orleans caf, might not have known she had a case were it not for a woman who recognized her as Salom Muller, with whom she had emigrated from Germany over twenty years earlier. Sally decided to sue for her freedom, and was ultimately freed, despite strong evidence contrary to her claim.

In The Two Lives of Sally Miller, Carol Wilson explores this fascinating legal case and its reflection on broader questions about race, society, and law in the antebellum South. Why did a court system known for its extreme bias against African Americans help to free a woman who was believed by many to be a black slave? Wilson explains that while the notion of white enslavement was shocking, it was easier for society to acknowledge that possibility than the alternative-an African slave who deceived whites and triumphed over the system.

Carol Wilson is an associate professor of history at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.