Around 1785; a woman was taken from her home in Senegambia and sent to Saint-Domingue in the Caribbean. Those who enslaved her there named her Rosalie. Her later efforts to escape slavery were the beginning of a family's quest; across five generations and three continents; for lives of dignity and equality. Freedom Papers sets the saga of Rosalie and her descendants against the background of three great antiracist struggles of the nineteenth century: the Haitian Revolution; the French Revolution of 1848; and the Civil War and Reconstruction in the United States. Freed during the Haitian Revolution; Rosalie and her daughter Elisabeth fled to Cuba in 1803. A few years later; Elisabeth departed for New Orleans; where she married a carpenter; Jacques Tinchant. In the 1830s; with tension rising against free persons of color; they left for France. Subsequent generations of Tinchants fought in the Union Army; argued for equal rights at Louisiana's state constitutional convention; and created a transatlantic tobacco network that turned their Creole past into a commercial asset. Yet the fragility of freedom and security became clear when; a century later; Rosalie's great-great-granddaughter Marie-José was arrested by Nazi forces occupying Belgium.Freedom Papers follows the Tinchants as each generation tries to use the power and legitimacy of documents to help secure freedom and respect. The strategies they used to overcome the constraints of slavery; war; and colonialism suggest the contours of the lives of people of color across the Atlantic world during this turbulent epoch.
#590485 in Books 2009-04-15 2009-03-02Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.24 x 1.06 x 6.07l; 1.29 #File Name: 0674032543416 pages
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Scribal Culture for post-modern audiencesBy CustomerIt is difficult for a person living in our post-modern culture to understand the lives and point of view of people who lived just 100 years ago. Yet the majority of the bible was written by and for a priestly class in a pre-literate culture. Not only that; but a culture that pre-dates the Greco-Roman era. When we try to apply our post-modern ideas of authorship to to bible; we get some very strange results---like thinking Moses wrote the entire five books of Moses; when some were parts were clearly written after his death; like how we deal with scribal insertions in books where the divine inspiration of the single author is assumed. These issues and more are simply not a problem if we have a proper understanding of Scribal Culture.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Wow what a fantastic volumeBy ConsumerAnyone who wants to know anything about the origin of the Old Testament simply cannot afford to leave this book aside.2 of 3 people found the following review helpful. The book relies too heavily upon other ancient scribal practices and less on what intrinsic evidence exists in the Hebrew BibleBy John S. HarrisI chose this book because I was wanted to both understand scribal culture that Hebrew scribes were influenced in writing literature and what internal textual structures and devices exist within the Hebrew Bible itself that would assist me in my textual criticism study. While he greatly demonstrates the true nature of literature as it was understood in its own time and explains who and why texts were written; he didn't give enough examples from the Hebrew Bible itself that suggested "loose threads" and "seams" as he did for things like the Enuma Elish and so forth. So I felt that he did very well in demonstrating ancient scribal culture (as the title says) but could have done more for the rest of the title "the making of the Hebrew Bible" as he seems to run with his conclusions from documentary hypothesis and the like but didn't give enough of nitty gritty as I would have hoped. For example; it would have been very interesting to read he we could give exhaustive evidence within say; Isaiah; that shows it was written by multiple people by giving an analysis of change of themes; differences in style; changes in vocabulary; etc. But I would recommend this book for someone what to better understand the nature of scribal practice and culture in the ancient near east rather than recommend it on for study of Biblical criticism.
