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Black Life on the Mississippi: Slaves, Free Blacks, and the Western Steamboat World
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All along the Mississippi--on country plantation landings, urban levees and quays, and the decks of steamboats--nineteenth-century African Americans worked and fought for their liberty amid the slave trade and the growth of the cotton South. Offering a counternarrative to Twain's well-known tale from the perspective of the pilothouse, Thomas C. Buchanan paints a more complete picture of the Mississippi, documenting the rich variety of experiences among slaves and free blacks who lived and worked on the lower decks and along the river during slavery, through the Civil War, and into emancipation.
Buchanan explores the creative efforts of steamboat workers to link riverside African American communities in the North and South. The networks African Americans created allowed them to keep in touch with family members, help slaves escape, transfer stolen goods, and provide forms of income that were important to the survival of their communities. The author also details the struggles that took place within the steamboat work culture. Although the realities of white supremacy were still potent on the river, Buchanan shows how slaves, free blacks, and postemancipation freedpeople fought for better wages and treatment.
By exploring the complex relationship between slavery and freedom, Buchanan sheds new light on the ways African Americans resisted slavery and developed a vibrant culture and economy up and down America's greatest river.
DESCRIPTION:
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 977.020496073
EAN: 9780807829097
ISBN: 0807829099
Label: The University of North Carolina Press
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 264
Publication Date: 2004-11-29
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Release Date: 2004-11-17
Studio: The University of North Carolina Press
SIMILAR ITEMS:
• Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life
• The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War (Vintage Civil War Library)
• The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South
• A Divided Heart: Letters of Sally Baxter Hampton, 1853-1862
• The Origins of the Southern Middle Class, 1800-1861
CUSTOMER REVIEWS:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended!
Comment: Having grown up back in a day when we were taught Antebellum life was a monolithic experience for African Americans, books like this - opening an entirely new door on that era - always fascinate me even though by now, I know better. For example, who knew that some slaves hired themselves out on steamboats for a few weeks or months with no intention of escaping, but simply as respite from the hardships of plantation life?
The title is obviously a play on Mark Twain's nostalgic memoir. Though Buchanan does find some similarities between Twain's liberating experience of the Great River and the opportunities afforded African Americans by the western rivers - for example, mind broadening mobility, communication networks, accumulation of assets by both slave and free persons through labor or trade, and of course, escape routes for fugitives - he notes the dark side absent from steamboat nostalgia is the fact that the horrible "Second Middle Passage" broke up families and transported thousands of slaves in deplorable conditions into the Deep South.
Whether exploring the lives and culture of steamboat workers, free black travelers, abolitionists or scoundrels, the author draws upon the experiences and observations of many individuals through a variety of primary and secondary sources (including slave narratives and travel accounts) demonstrating how multifarious and uncategorizable the experiences of these men and women were. Even many of the laws and customs attempting to control black movement were circumvented in this fluid economy.
Buchanan's writing is concise, and his narrative flows smoothly. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in maritime history as well as those interested in African American Studies.
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Summary: Important contribution to the study of black antebellum life
Comment: Thomas Buchanan follows David Cecelski's study of North Carolina's black maritime sailors with this excellent study of black steamboat workers on the Mississippi. Buchanan describes the culture in which the free black and enslaved steamboat crewmen lived, their importance to the southern antebellum economy, as well as, their impact on the institution of slavery. It is in this area that Buchanan an important contribution to our understanding of African American resistance to slavery.
John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger's book on runaway slaves is the most extensive treatments of the subject. Unfortunately, they give short shrift to the importance of the Mississippi River and the steamboat trade as a means of escaping slavery. Buchanan corrects this omission by arguing that African Americans, both free and slave, were a vital part of the steamboat industry's labor force. Runaway slaves from throughout the South often made their escape by blending in with other black steamboat workers and riding steamboats out of slavery. Although aware of the problem, and although numerous measures were enacted to stop it, Southerners were never able to completely stop the flow of slaves escaping by riverboat.
In addition to this book, Buchanan has written two articles on this subject. I recommend all them to anyone interested in the study of African American antebellum life.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fascinating read
Comment: Buchanan weaves the compelling narratives of slave, free black, and white workers and passengers on Mississippi steamboats with extensive archival information.
He shows how the river network and steamboat work allowed them to craft multiple ways to resist slavery, poor labor conditions, and the separation of families.
This is a history book with broad appeal to non-historians as well.
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