Slavery Days in Old Kentucky

Slavery Days in Old Kentucky PDF

Author: Isaac Johnson

Publisher:

Published: 2020-06-17

Total Pages: 60

ISBN-13:

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Isaac Johnson - a former slave. He was a man who escaped the South, fought in the Civil War and found success as a stone mason and writer. In 1897 (published in 1901), he writes his book. The book begins, "So many people have inquired as to the particulars of my slave life and seemingly listened to the same with interest, that I have concluded to give the story in this form." Johnson used proceeds from the book to finance the college education of some of his seven children, one of whom became a chemistry professor at Syracuse University. He also hoped that his long lost siblings might see the book and find him. They never did.

Slave Life in Virginia and Kentucky

Slave Life in Virginia and Kentucky PDF

Author: C. L. Innes

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2010-11

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 9780807138052

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In 1854, faced with the threat of yet another brutal beating, a fifty-year-old slave in Mason County, Kentucky, decided to try again to escape. His first attempt had ended in his near starvation as he hid for nine weeks in a swamp, before hunger compelled him to return to his master. This time the slave sought the help of a neighbor with abolitionist sympathies, and he joined the hundreds of other fugitive slaves fleeing across the Ohio River and north to Canada on the Underground Railroad. After his arrival in Toronto he discarded his master's surname (Parker), renamed himself Francis Fedric, and married an Englishwoman. In 1857, he traveled with his wife to Great Britain, where he lectured on behalf of the antislavery cause and published two versions of his life story. Born in Virginia circa 1805, Francis Fedric was not unlike thousands of other African Americans who escaped slavery in the southern states and sought refuge in Britain. Many of his fellow ex-slaves also joined the abolitionist lecture circuit and published memoirs to support both the cause and themselves. Addressed to a British audience, these memoirs constitute a distinctive subgenre of the slave narrative, and an essential continuation of the narrative tradition established in England by Olaudah Equiano, Ottobah Cugoano, and Mary Prince. The first of Fedric's two memoirs, Life and Sufferings of Francis Fedric, While in Slavery: An Escaped Slave after 51 Years in Bondage (1859), offers a brief but vivid and dramatic twelve-page description of his escape. Slave Life in Virginia and Kentucky; or, Fifty Years of Slavery in the Southern States of America (1863) provides a much more detailed account of life as a slave and of plantation culture in the southern states. Together the two works present a mesmerizing and distinct perspective on slavery in the South. Amazingly, these narratives, among the most interesting of the genre, remained out of print for nearly a hundred and fifty years. Collected here for the first time and meticulously edited by C. L. Innes, Slave Life in Virginia and Kentucky: A Narrative by Francis Fedric, Escaped Slave includes a contextual introduction, substantial biographical information on Fedric, and extensive annotations that situate and illuminate his work. Long forgotten and never before published in the United States, Fedric's narratives are certain to take their rightful place alongside the most recognizable accounts in the canon of slave memoirs.

Black Liberation in Kentucky

Black Liberation in Kentucky PDF

Author: Victor B. Howard

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2014-07-11

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 081315071X

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Kentucky occupied an unusual position with regard to slavery during the Civil War as well as after. Since the state never seceded, the emancipation proclamation did not free the majority of Kentucky's slaves; in fact, Kentucky and Delaware were the only two states where legal slavery still existed when the thirteenth amendment was adopted by Congress. Despite its unique position, no historian before has attempted to tell the experience of blacks in the Commonwealth during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Victor B. Howard's Black Liberation in Kentucky fills this void in the history of slavery and emancipation. In doing so, however, he does not just chronicle the experiences of black Kentucky, because as he notes in his introduction, "such a work would distort the past as much as a book concerned solely with white people." Beginning with an overview of the situation before the war, Howard examines reactions to the emancipation proclamation and how the writ was executed in Kentucky. He also explores the role the army played, both during the war as freed black enlisted and after the war as former slaves transitioned to freedom. The situation for former slaves in Kentucky was just as precarious as in other southern states, and Howard documents the challenges they faced from keeping families together to finding work. He also documents the early fights for civil rights in the state, detailing battles over the right to testify in court, black suffrage, and access to education. As Black Liberation in Kentucky shows, Kentucky's slaves fought for their freedom and rights from the beginning, refusing to continue in bondage and proving themselves accomplished actors destined to play a critical role in Civil War and Reconstruction.

A History of Blacks in Kentucky

A History of Blacks in Kentucky PDF

Author: Marion Brunson Lucas

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2003-06-01

Total Pages: 458

ISBN-13: 9780916968328

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"A History of Blacks in Kentucky traces the role of blacks from the early exploration and settlement of Kentucky to 1891, when African Americans gained freedom only to be faced with a segregated society. Making extensive use of numerous primary sources such as slave diaries, Freedmen's Bureau records, church minutes, and collections of personalpapers, the book tells the stories of individuals, their triumphs and tragedies, and their accomplishments in the face of adversity.

Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad in the Kentucky Borderland

Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad in the Kentucky Borderland PDF

Author: J. Blaine Hudson

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-05-07

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1476604223

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Between 1783 and 1860, more than 100,000 enslaved African Americans escaped across the border between slave and free territory in search of freedom. Most of these escapes were unaided, but as the American anti-slavery movement became more militant after 1830, assisted escapes became more common. Help came from the Underground Railroad, which still stands as one of the most powerful and sustained multiracial human rights movements in world history. This work examines and interprets the available historical evidence about fugitive slaves and the Underground Railroad in Kentucky, the southernmost sections of the free states bordering Kentucky along the Ohio River, and, to a lesser extent, the slave states to the immediate south. Kentucky was central to the Underground Railroad because its northern boundary, the Ohio River, represented a three hundred mile boundary between slavery and nominal freedom. The book examines the landscape of Kentucky and the surrounding states; fugitive slaves before 1850, in the 1850s and during the Civil War; and their motivations and escape strategies and the risks involved with escape. The reasons why people broke law and social convention to befriend fugitive slaves, common escape routes, crossing points through Kentucky from Tennessee and points south, and specific individuals who provided assistance--all are topics covered.

A History of Blacks in Kentucky: In pursuit of equality, 1890-1980

A History of Blacks in Kentucky: In pursuit of equality, 1890-1980 PDF

Author:

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 1992-01-01

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 9780916968212

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" Published by the Kentucky Historical Society & Distributed by the University Press of Kentucky This is the second part of a two-volume study which covers the entire spectrum of the black experience in Kentucky from earliest exploration and settlement to 1980. (Click here for information on the first volume, From Slavery to Segregation, 1760-1891.) Mandated and partially funded by the Kentucky General Assembly in 1978, this pathbreaking work is the most comprehensive consideration of the subject ever undertaken. It fills a long-recognized void in Kentucky history. George C. Wright describes the struggle of blacks in the twentieth century to achieve the promise of political, social, and economic equality. From the rising tide of racism and violence at the turn of the century to the civil rights movement and school integration in later decades, Wright describes the accomplishments, frustrations, and defeats suffered by the race, concluding that even in 1980 only a few blacks had actually achieved the long-sought toal of equality.

Slaves, Slaveholders, and a Kentucky Community's Struggle Toward Freedom

Slaves, Slaveholders, and a Kentucky Community's Struggle Toward Freedom PDF

Author: Elizabeth D. Leonard

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2019-02-15

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 0813176670

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Countless lives were transformed by the war that split the nation, and many stories are yet to be revealed about how the Civil War and the Reconstruction era affected Kentuckians. One such narrative is that of Sandy Holt, who, in the summer of 1864, joined tens of thousands of former slaves and enlisted in the United States Colored Troops. He put his life on the line to secure the Union's survival and the end of slavery. Hundreds of miles away in a federal office, Sandy Holt's former owner, Joseph Holt, worked to achieve the same goals. No one could have predicted before the Civil War that these two very different but interconnected Kentuckians would be crucial participants in the Union war effort. Joseph Holt's radical transformation and the contributions of black Kentuckians in the United States Colored Troops have long been underestimated. In Slaves, Slaveholders, and a Kentucky Community's Struggle toward Freedom, author Elizabeth D. Leonard examines a community of black and white Kentuckians whose lives were intertwined throughout the Civil War era. Bringing new insights into the life and legacy of Breckinridge County native Joseph Holt, Leonard exposes the origins of Holt's evolution from slave owner to member of Lincoln's War Department, where he became a powerful advocate for the abolition of slavery and the enlistment of former bondsmen. Digging deep into Holt's past, Leonard explores the lives of Holt's extended family members and also traces the experiences and efforts of Sandy Holt and other slaves-turned-soldiers from Breckinridge County and its periphery. Many ran from bondage to fight for freedom in the Union army and returned, hoping to claim the promises of Emancipation. The interwoven stories of Joseph and Sandy Holt, and their shared Kentucky community during and after the war, show how a small corner of this border state experienced one of the most defining conflicts in American history.

Evil Necessity

Evil Necessity PDF

Author: Harold D. Tallant

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2021-10-21

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0813184452

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In Kentucky, the slavery debate raged for thirty years before the Civil War began. While whites in the lower South argued that slavery was good for master and slave, many white Kentuckians maintained that because of racial prejudice, public safety, and property rights, slavery was necessary but undeniably evil. Harold D. Tallant shows how this view bespoke a real ambivalence about the desirability of continuing slavery in Kentucky and permitted an active abolitionist movement in the state to exist alongside contented slaveholders. Though many Kentuckians were increasingly willing to defend slavery against northern opposition, they did not always see this defense as their first political priority. Tallant explores the way in which the disparity between Kentuckians' ideals and their actions helped make Kentucky a quintessential border state.