The 36th Infantry United States Colored Troops in the Civil War
During the Civil War, African American war correspondent Thomas Morris Chester was so inspired by the men of the 36th United States Colored Troops that he declared the group to be "a model regiment." Composed primarily of former slaves recruited from Union-occupied areas of eastern North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, the 36th USCT participated in large-scale expeditions to liberate slaves, guarded Confederate prisoners at major POW camps, served in the trenches before Petersburg and Richmond, and stood as one of the first units to enter the abandoned Confederate capital on April 3, 1865. This volume, which includes a complete regimental roster, explores the background of these former slaves and their families, examines their initial recruitment and chronicles their military contributions throughout the war. More than a unit history, the story of the 36th USCT offers a vivid portrait of the challenging transition from slavery to freedom.
The Black West: a documentary and pictorial history of the African American role in the westward expansion of the United States by
This entirely new edition of a famous classic has glorious new photographs; many never before seen; as well as a revised and expanded text that deepens our understanding of the vital role played by African American men and women on our early frontiers.Inspired by a conversation that William Loren Katz had with Langston Hughes,The Black West presents long-neglected stories of daring pioneers such as Nat Love, a.k.a. Deadwood Dick, Mary Fields, a.k.a. Stagecoach Mary, Cranford Goldsby, a.k.a. Cherokee Bill; and a host of other intrepid men and women who marched into the wilderness alongside Chief Osceola, Billy the Kid, and Geronimo.Featuring captivating narratives and photographs (many from the author's world-famous collection),The Black West enriches and deepens our stirring frontier saga. From slave runaways during the colonial era, to the journeys of Lewis and Clark, to the charge at San Juan Hill, Katz vividly recounts the crucial contributions African Americans made during scores of frontier encounters. With its stirring pictures and vivid eyewitness accounts,The Black West is an exhilarating treasure trove.
Black Women in American History. From colonial times through the nineteenth century
A Nation Within a Nation: organizing African-American communities before the Civil War by
John Ernest offers a comprehensive survey of the broad-ranging and influential African American organizations and networks formed in the North in the late eighteenth century through the end of the Civil War. He examines fraternal organizations, churches, conventions, mutual aid benefit and literary societies, educational organizations, newspapers, and magazines. Ernest argues these organizations demonstrate how African Americans self-definition was not solely determined by slavery as they tried to create organizations in the hope of creating a community.
Slavery and the Making of America
The history of slavery is central to understanding the history of the United States. Slavery and the Making of America offers a richly illustrated, vividly written history that illuminates the human side of this inhumane institution, presenting it largely through stories of the slavesthemselves. Readers will discover a wide ranging and sharply nuanced look at American slavery, from the first Africans brought to British colonies in the early seventeenth century to the end of Reconstruction. The authors document the horrors of slavery, particularly in the deep South, and describe the valiantstruggles to escape bondage, from dramatic tales of slaves such as William and Ellen Craft to Dred Scott's doomed attempt to win his freedom through the Supreme Court. We see how slavery set our nation on the road of violence, from bloody riots that broke out in American cities over fugitive slaves,to the cataclysm of the Civil War. Along the way, readers meet such individuals as "Black Sam" Fraunces, a West Indian mulatto who owned the Queen's Head Tavern in New York City, a key meeting place for revolutionaries in the 1760s and 1770s. Indeed, the book is filled with stories of remarkableAfrican Americans, from Sergeant William H. Carney, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery at the crucial assault on Fort Wagner during the Civil War, to Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, a former slave who led freed African Americans to a new life on the American frontier. With more than one hundred illustrations, Slavery and the Making of America is a gripping account of the struggles of African Americans against the iniquity of slavery.
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