Freedom by Any Means : Con Games, Voodoo Schemes, True Love and Lawsuits on the Underground Railroad (Hardcover)
by Betty Deramus
|
|||||
In stock. Ships in 24 hours.
|
Overview
"Much of what we think we know about African American history isn't completely true," says Betty DeRamus in the introduction to "Freedom by Any Means."
"According to the usual story, slaves gained their freedom by running away, being freed by their owners, buying their way out of bondage or having someone else buy them. But how do we account for people like John Bowley, who bluffed his and his family's way to freedom, or Althea Lynch, whose cooking sprang her from jail? And what about all those who managed to win their freedom by sidestepping tricks and traps or winning lawsuits?"
Bowley, Lynch and dozens of others are as vivid and surprising as the very real characters who made the veteran journalist's first book, "Forbidden Fruit," a best-seller. "Essence" magazine described "Forbidden Fruit" as "a rich collection of true slave-era tales that are at times haunting, often riveting, but always triumphant in the end."
The same can be said of "Freedom by Any Means," which takes a broader look at the various extraordinary ways that enslaved and dehumanized people achieved freedom and the means to a self-determined life. Among these people are visionaries who not only survived against the odds, but prospered -- building businesses, owning land and other property.
The historical research that grounds this beautifully written narrative is drawn from unpublished memoirs, census records, government reports, periodicals, books and much more. The story of slavery and the African American experience before the Emancipation Proclamation "isn't one story," according to DeRamus, but rather a multitude of stories. This book reveals how men and women were willing not just to risk their lives to escape the slave system, but able to use their intelligence and cunning to manipulate the court system, outwit slave traders and brave the unknown in order to assert their humanity.
Paperback for Club Price: $10.80
Related Categories:
Books > History > United States - 19th Century
Books > Social Science > Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - Histor
Books > Social Science > Slavery
- ISBN-13: 9781416551102
- ISBN-10: 1416551107
- Publisher: Atria Books
- Date: February 2009
- Page Count: 320
Customer Reviews
Publishers Weekly® Reviews
- Reviewed in: Publishers Weekly, page 45.
- Review Date: 2009-01-05
- Reviewer: Staff
Arnold Gragston ferried slaves across the Ohio River, “freeing other people while remaining enslaved himself”; Nelson Gant was tried for attempting to steal his wife from slavery; Althea Lynch, cook and escaped slave, set off “a crisis that involved one military governor, two posses and a U.S. Marshal.” That’s just a sampling of the “stories of former slaves and freedmen who were agile enough to... sneak through holes in the system and take what seemed like very little and turn it into more than enough” in award-winning journalist DeRamus’s salute to the daring and the inventiveness of those who made history, while not making it into history books. DeRamus’s touch is light and journalistic, close in tone to Sunday supplement pieces, and a bit jazzy (“It was love bubbling on a stove, love shouting at the low-slung midnight moon”). Entertaining and easy reading it is, but as DeRamus reaches beyond the famously heroic figures into the lives of the little known, she enriches and alters our perspective on 19th-century African-American daily life. (Feb.)
- ISBN-13: 9781416551102
- ISBN-10: 1416551107
- Publisher: Atria Books
- Date: February 2009
- Page Count: 320