4.0
Open LibraryAbout this book
Slave narratives are extremely rare, with only 55 post-Civil War narratives surviving. A mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away and freed themselves. Now two newly uncovered narratives join that exclusive group. Handed down through family and friends, they tell gripping stories of escape: Through a combination of intelligence, daring, and sheer luck, the men reached the protection of occupying Union troops. Historian Blight prefaces the narratives with each man's life history. Using genealogical information, Blight has reconstructed their childhoods as sons of white slaveholders, their service as cooks and camp hands during the Civil War, and their climb to black working-class stability in the North, where they reunited their families. In the stories of Wallace Turnage and John Washington, we find portals that offer a rich new answer to the question of how four million people moved from slavery to freedom.
Themes & subjects
African AmericansBiographyFugitive slavesHistorySlave narrativesSlaves
Characters & people
Setting
FredericksburgGreen CountyNorth CarolinaUnited StatesVirginiaCivil War, 1861-1865
About the author
David W. Blight
1949
David William Blight (born 1949) is the Sterling Professor of History, of African American Studies, and of American Studies and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University.
Reviews
No reviews yet — be the first to write one from the Log screen.
Quotes
No quotes yet.
