|
Showing 1 - 5 of
5 matches in All Departments
Public Law 105-203, the National Underground Railroad Network to
Freedom Act of 1988, directs the National Park Service (NPS) to
commemorate, honor, and interpret the history of the Underground
Railroad. The Underground Railroad-the resistance to enslavement
through escape and flight, through the end of the Civil War-refers
to the efforts of enslaved African Americans to gain their freedom
by escaping bondage.
During the antebellum years, over 750,000 enslaved people were
taken to the Lower Mississippi Valley, where two-thirds of them
were sold in the slave markets of New Orleans, Natchez, and
Memphis. Those who ended up in Louisiana found themselves in an
environment of swamplands, sugar plantations, French-speaking
creoles, and the exotic metropolis of New Orleans. Those sold to
planters in the newly-opened Mississippi Delta cleared land and
cultivated cotton for owners who had moved west to get rich as
quickly as possible, driving this labor force to harsh
extremes.Like enslaved people all over the South, those in the
Lower Mississippi Valley left home at night for clandestine parties
or religious meetings, sometimes 'laying out' nearby for a few days
or weeks. Some of them fled to New Orleans and other southern
cities where they could find refuge in the subculture of slaves and
free blacks living there, and a few attempted to live permanently
free in the swamps and forests of the surrounding area. Fugitives
also tried to returnto eastern slave states to rejoin families from
whom they had been separated. Some sought freedom on the northern
side of the Ohio River; othersfled to Mexico for the same purpose.
Fugitivism provides a wealth of new information taken from
advertisements, newspaper accounts, and court records. It explains
how escapees made use of steamboat transportation, how urban
runaways differed from their rural counterparts, how enslaved
people were victimized by slave stealers, how conflicts between
black fugitives and the white people who tried to capture them
encouraged a culture of violence in the South, and how runaway
slaves from the Lower Mississippi Valley influenced the
abolitionist movement in the North. Readers will discover that
along with an end to oppression, freedom-seeking slaves wanted the
same opportunities afforded to most Americans.
"A Documentary History of Arkansas" provides a comprehensive look
at Arkansas history from the state's earliest events to the
present. Here are newspaper articles, government bulletins,
legislative acts, broadsides, letters, and speeches that, taken
collectively, give a firsthand glimpse at how the twenty-fifth
state's history was made. Enhanced by additional documents and
brought up to date since its original publication in 1984, this new
edition is the standard source for essential primary documents
illustrating the state's political, social, economic, educational,
and environmental history.
Bringing together the work of prominent scholars and rising stars
in southern, western, and Indian history, A Whole Country in
Commotion explores lesser-known aspects of one of the better-known
episodes in U.S. history. While the purchase has been seen as a
great boon for the United States, doubling the size of the new
nation and securing American navigation on the Mississippi River,
it also brought turmoil to many. Looking past the triumphal aspects
of the purchase, this book examines the "negotiations among
peoples, nations and empires that preceded and followed the actual
transfer of territory." Its nine essays highlight the "commotion"
the purchase stirred up-among nations, among Louisiana residents
and newcomers, even among those who remained east of the
Mississippi. Many of these essays look at the portion of the
Louisiana territory that would become Arkansas to illustrate the
profound impact of the purchase on the diverse populations of the
American Southwest. Others explore the woeful commotion brought to
many thousands of lives as Jefferson's "noble bargain" set the
stage for the forced migration of native and African Americans from
the east to the west of the Mississippi.
|
|