2 records matched your query       

Author:

Baumgartner, Alice, 1987- author.

Title:

South to freedom : runaway slaves to Mexico and the road to the Civil War / Alice L. Baumgartner.

Edition:

First edition.

Publisher:

Basic Books,

Copyright Date:

2020

Description:

xi, 365 pages : illustrations, map ; 25 cm

Subject:

Fugitive slaves--Mexico--History--19th century.
Fugitive slaves--United States--History--19th century.
Slavery--Mexico--History--19th century.
Slavery--United States--History--19th century.
United States--Causes.--Civil War, 1861-1865--Causes.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-342) and index.

Contents:

Defending slavery -- The meaning of liberty -- The right to property -- An antislavery republic -- In accordance with the laws, they are free -- The Texas Revolution -- Annexation -- Compromise lost -- Liberty found -- The balance of power -- Citizenship -- War.

Summary:

"The Underground Railroad to the North was salvation for many US slaves before the Civil War. But during the same decades, thousands of people in the south-central United States escaped slavery not by heading north but by crossing the southern border into Mexico. In South to Freedom historian Alice Baumgartner tells the story of Mexico's rise as an antislavery republic and a promised land for enslaved people in North America. She describes how Mexico's abolition of slavery challenged US institutions and helped to set the international stage for the US Civil War. In 1837, shortly after Texas rebelled against Mexican rule, Mexico's Congress formally abolished slavery, and enslaved people began to head south. Some were helped by free blacks, ship captains, Mexicans, Germans, gamblers, preachers, mail riders, and other "lurking scoundrels," but most escaped by their own ingenuity -- with stolen rifles, forged slave passes, and, in one instance, a wig made from horsehair and pitch. As they fled across the Rio Grande, and the US government failed to secure their return, their owners began to suspect an international conspiracy against the "peculiar institution." Meanwhile, Northern Congressmen balked at reestablishing slavery in the Southwestern territories taken from Mexico after the Mexican-American War. Feeling increasingly embattled, slavers in Texas and Louisiana came to believe that their interests would best be protected outside the union. With the Southern slave regime under pressure from both the north and south, the conditions were in place for the coming of the US Civil War. Today, our attention is fixed on people seeking opportunity by moving north across our southern border, but South to Freedom reveals what happened when the reverse was true: when American slaves fled "the land of the free" for freedom in Mexico"-- Provided by publisher.

ISBN:

1541617789
9781541617780

OCLC:

(OCoLC)1139149012

LCCN:

2020011978

Locations:

USUX851 -- Iowa State University - Parks Library (Ames)

GBPF771 -- Ankeny Kirkendall Public Library (Ankeny)

KSPG296 -- Burlington Public Library (Burlington)

SAPG074 -- Cedar Falls Public Library (Cedar Falls)

TYPH572 -- Cedar Rapids Public Library (Cedar Rapids)

WKPE185 -- Cherokee Public Library (Cherokee)

CDPF771 -- Clive Public Library (Clive)

XXPH787 -- Council Bluffs Public Library (Council Bluffs)

BAPH771 -- Des Moines Public Library (Des Moines)

FXPH314 -- Carnegie-Stout Public Library (Dubuque)

OVUX522 -- University of Iowa Libraries (Iowa City)

KAPF566 -- Keokuk Public Library (Keokuk)

TKPE492 -- Maquoketa Public Library (Maquoketa)

GOPG641 -- Marshalltown Public Library (Marshalltown)

GZPE631 -- Pella Public Library (Pella)

LAPH975 -- Sioux City Public Library (Sioux City)

PMAX975 -- Morningside University - Hickman-Johnson-Furrow Library (Sioux City)

SFPH074 -- Waterloo Public Library (Waterloo)

GEPG771 -- West Des Moines Public Library (West Des Moines)