Happy dreams of liberty : an American family in slavery and freedom /
"When Samuel Townsend died at his home in Madison County, Alabama, in November 1856, the white cotton planter left behind hundreds of slaves and an estate worth approximately $200,000. In life, Samuel had done little to distinguish himself from other members of the South's slaveholding eli...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York, NY :
Oxford University Press,
[2022]
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | "When Samuel Townsend died at his home in Madison County, Alabama, in November 1856, the white cotton planter left behind hundreds of slaves and an estate worth approximately $200,000. In life, Samuel had done little to distinguish himself from other members of the South's slaveholding elite. But he made a name for himself in death by leaving his fortune to his five sons, four daughters, and two nieces: all of them enslaved. Happy Dreams of Liberty is the story of these former slaves, a mixed-race family that migrated across the American West and South in the second half of the nineteenth century. Searching for communities where they could enjoy their freedom and wealth to the fullest, the Townsends homesteaded in Ohio and Kansas, fought for the Union Army in Mississippi, mined for silver in the Colorado Rockies, and, in the case of one son, returned to Alabama to purchase a part of the old plantation where he had once been enslaved. Their travels map a landscape of opportunity and oppression where meanings of race and freedom, as well as concrete opportunities for social and economic mobility, were dictated by highly local circumstances. During the turbulent period between the Civil War and the rise of Jim Crow at the turn of the twentieth century, the Townsends carved out spaces where they were able to benefit from their money and mixed-race ancestry, pass down generational wealth, and pursue their dreams of advancement and equality"--Publisher's description. |
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| Item Description: | Also issued in print: 2022. |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xii, 319 pages) : illustrations (black and white, and colour) |
| Audience: | Specialized. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780197531822 0197531822 9780197531815 0197531814 9780197531808 0197531806 |