In search of the promised land : a slave family in the Old South /
Franklin, John Hope,1915-2009.
Schweninger, Loren.
New York ; Oxford : Oxford University Press,
2006.
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.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 281-282) and index.
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 -- Afterword: through the prism of a black family -- Appendix 1. Petitions of Ephraim Foster and James Thomas to the Davidson county court -- John Rapier Sr. to Richard Rapier, April 8, 1845 -- Appendix 3. John Rapier Jr. to James Thomas, July 28, 1861.
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.
Thomas, Sally, 1787-1850.
Thomas, Sally, 1787-1850
Thomas family.
Rapier family.
Slaves
African Americans
African American families
Slavery