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Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War

Product ID : 17612461


Galleon Product ID 17612461
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About Israel On The Appomattox: A Southern Experiment In

Product Description WINNER OF THE BANCROFT PRIZEA New York Times Book Review and Atlantic Monthly Editors' ChoiceThomas Jefferson denied that whites and freed blacks could live together in harmony. His cousin, Richard Randolph, not only disagreed, but made it possible for ninety African Americans to prove Jefferson wrong. Israel on the Appomattox tells the story of these liberated blacks and the community they formed, called Israel Hill, in Prince Edward County, Virginia. There, ex-slaves established farms, navigated the Appomattox River, and became entrepreneurs. Free blacks and whites did business with one another, sued each other, worked side by side for equal wages, joined forces to found a Baptist congregation, moved west together, and occasionally settled down as man and wife. Slavery cast its grim shadow, even over the lives of the free, yet on Israel Hill we discover a moving story of hardship and hope that defies our expectations of the Old South. Review “Fascinating . . . . No less than a systematic deconstruction of the ways in which many Americans have come to think of race, slavery, and the Old South.” –The Boston Globe   "Fascinating . . . . Ely’s story is so rich and compelling–and so persuasively documented–that it is sure to leave its mark on Southern history for years to come." –The Washington Post Book World   “Israel on the Appomattox [is one of] the first works that attempt to describe with precision the texture of day-to-day interaction across the color line. . . . A remarkably rich story.” –Atlantic Monthly   “[An] absorbing story . . . . The value of this book lies in the many stereotypes the author has debunked.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch   "Previous historians have described the limits of free blacks' freedom. But none has examined the quality of their lives in the detail or with the sophistication of Melvin Patrick Ely in Israel on the Appomattox . . . . A striking portrait . . . . Ely hopes to shift the emphasis in the study of free blacks from disempowerment to accomplishment, and he goes a long way toward reaching this goal." –Los Angeles Times   “A remarkable civics lesson in hope, strength, endurance and quiet courage that most will find important and uplifting.” –Rocky Mountain News   “Compelling, well-written, and thoroughly researched. The author knows Israel Hill and Prince Edward County inside and out, and his study is clearly a labor of love. . . . [Ely] challenges many of our assumptions concerning white and black Southern life in the antebellum period.” –Civil War Book Review   “Ely brings to life the black personages who demonstrated that self-determination was possible in the South prior to the Civil War . . . . A rare slice of history recounted by an uncommonly fastidious historian who is as passionate about the Hill as he is about the Israelites who dwelled there.” –Black Issues Book Review   “[Ely] explores as few others have done the meaning of independence, of the metaphor of a river in America, and the role of faith and brotherly love.” –Decatur Daily   “An astonishing act of historical research and imagination. Ely has given us the fullest and most humane account we have ever had of free black people.” –Edward L. Ayers, author of In the Presence of Mine Enemies: War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863   “Israel on the Appomattox recovers a fascinating biracial world–right in the middle of the slave-based Old South. . . . The book shows whites, enslaved blacks, and, most especially, freed blacks working, living, trading, competing, cooperating, fighting, and (at least occasionally) loving together, in and around a special little place called by the freedpeople Israel Hill. The story stretches from the Virginia of Thomas Jefferson to the Virginia of Appomattox Court House. And it is extraordinary–inspiring and heartbreaking by turns.” –John Demos, author of The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America   “This remarkable account . . . is rich with new insights on