Although the Antebellum South has traditionally been regarded as a two-tier--free white and enslaved black--society, this innovative study charts what has been a largely unexplored part of U.S. history--the free women of color caste. Distinct yet influenced by the free European, enslaved African, and colonized Native American past, free women of color offer a valuable opportunity to challenge contemporary notions of gender, race, and class in U.S. culture. In Afristocracy: Free Women of Color and the Politics of Race, Class, and Culture, Angela Johnson-Fisher makes an important contribution to the study of women by tracing the transcendent history of a group of women who not only lived but thrived in the Antebellum South.