DOC Liberty; Fraternity; Exile: Haiti and Jamaica after Emancipation by Matthew J. Smith in History

Description

After the Civil War; African Americans placed poignant "information wanted" advertisements in newspapers; searching for missing family members. Inspired by the power of these ads; Heather Andrea Williams uses slave narratives; letters; interviews; public records; and diaries to guide readers back to devastating moments of family separation during slavery when people were sold away from parents; siblings; spouses; and children. Williams explores the heartbreaking stories of separation and the long; usually unsuccessful journeys toward reunification. Examining the interior lives of the enslaved and freedpeople as they tried to come to terms with great loss; Williams grounds their grief; fear; anger; longing; frustration; and hope in the history of American slavery and the domestic slave trade. Williams follows those who were separated; chronicles their searches; and documents the rare experience of reunion. She also explores the sympathy; indifference; hostility; or empathy expressed by whites about sundered black families. Williams shows how searches for family members in the post-Civil War era continue to reverberate in African American culture in the ongoing search for family history and connection across generations.