Bibliograph

In search of the promised land, a slave family in the Old South, John Hope Franklin, Loren Schweninger

Type

Label

In search of the promised land, a slave family in the Old South, John Hope Franklin, Loren Schweninger

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 281-282) and index

resource.biographical

collective biography

Illustrations

mapsillustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

In search of the promised land

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

56922466

Responsibility statement

John Hope Franklin, Loren Schweninger

Series statement

New narratives in American history

Sub title

a slave family in the Old South

Summary

Sally Thomas went from being a slave on a tobacco plantation, to a "virtually free" slave who ran her own business and purchased one of her sons out of bondage. This book offers a portrait of her extended family and of the life of slaves before the Civil War. Based on family letters as well as an autobiography by one of her sons, the detective work follows a singular group as they walk the boundary between slave and free, traveling across the country in search of a "promised land" where African Americans would be treated with respect. This small family experienced the full gamut of slavery, witnessing everything from the breakup of slave families, brutal punishment, and runaways, to miscegenation, insurrection panics, and slave patrols. They also illuminate the hidden lives of "virtually free" slaves, who maintained close relationships with whites, maneuvered within the system, and gained a large measure of autonomy. --From publisher description

Table Of Contents

Sally Thomas: a life in bondage : Virtual freedom ; Sally's children ; Sally's son James ; Sally's grandchildren: the Rapier boys -- From slavery to freedom : The domestic slave trade ; James Thomas: the boyhood years ; Barbershop -- Travels in the north and west : Nashville's Black community ; The changing attitudes of whites ; A fugitive slave in the north ; The California gold rush ; The epidemic's shadow -- In search of Canaan : Bound for Nicaragua ; The dilemma of John Rapier Sr. ; The Minnesota territory ; Canada West and James Thomas Rapier -- The Midwest, Haiti, and Jamaica : Into "Bleeding Kansas" ; Steamboating on the Mississippi ; John Rapier Jr. in the Caribbean -- This mighty scourge of war : James Thomas in St. Louis ; John Rapier Jr.'s continuing odyssey ; The war's end -- Epilogue -- Afterword : Through the prism of a black family -- Appendix 1. Petitions of Ephraim Foster and James Thomas to the Davidson county court, 1851 -- Appendix 2. John Rapier Sr. to Richard Rapier, April 8, 1845 -- Appendix 3. John Rapier Jr. to James Thomas, July 28, 1861

Classification