Excerpt from A Bridge From Slavery to Freedom I know not where the call is most urgent. It is urgent everywhere; and in some places it is the voice of distress. Wherever our arms have prevailed the old social system has been destroyed. Masters have tied and slaves have assumed a new character. Released from their former obligations, and often adrift in the world, they naturally look to the prevailing power. Here for instance, is testimony which I take from an excellent report made in the department of Tennessee, under date of April 29, 1983: "Negroes, in accordance with the acts of Congress, free on coming within our lines, circulated much like water: the task was to care for and render useful. "They rolled like eddies around military posts: many of the men employed in accordance with Order No. 72, district West Tennessee: women and children largely doing nothing hut eating and idling, the dupes of vice and crime, the unsuspecting sources of disease." From this statement Senators may form an idea of the numbers who seek assistence. But the question is often asked as to the disposition of these persons to labor. Here, also, the testimony is explicit. I have in my hand the answers from different stations on this point. "Question. 'What of their disposition to labor? "Answer. Corinth. So far as I have tested it, better than I expected; willing to work for money, except in waiting on the sick. One hundred and tiny hands gathered five hundred acres of cotton in less than three weeks, much of which time was bad weather. The owner admitted that it was done more quickly than it could have been done with slaves. When detailed for service, they generally remained till honorably discharged, even when badly treated. I am well satisfied, from careful calculations; that the contrabands of this camp, and district have netted the Government, over and above all their expenses, including rations, tents, &c., at least $3,000 per month, independent of what the women do and all the property brought through our lines from the rebels. "Cairo. 'Willing to labor when they can have proper motives' "Grand Junction. 'Have manifested considerable disposition to escape labor; having had no sufficient motives to work.' "Holly Spring and Memphis With few exceptions, generally willing, even without pay. Paid regularly, they are much more prompt.' "Memphis. 'Among men, better than among women. Hold out to them the inducements, benefit to themselves and friends, essential to the industry of any race, and they would at once be diligent and industrious.' "Bolivar. 'Generally good; would be improved by the idea of pay.'" Here, also, is a glimpse at Newbern, North Carolina, under date of February 26, 1864: "Immediately on my return here, on the 12th of October, I instituted measures for placing the different abandoned plantations within our tines in this State under proper management and cultivation. As soon as it became known that as supervising Treasury agent I had charge of this property, I was visited by hundreds (and I might correctly say thousands) of contrabands, along with numerous white persons, desiring to obtain privileges to work upon the same." And here is the testimony of General Banks, in Louisiana: "Wherever in the department they have been well treated and reasonably compensated, they have invariably rendered faithful service to their employers. From many persons who manage plantations I have received the information that there is no difficulty whatever in keeping them at work if the conditions to which I have referred are complied with." I do not quote further, for it would simply take time. But I cannot forbear from adding that the report from the commissioners on freedmen, appointed by the Secretary of War, accumulates ample testimony on this head, all showing that the freedmen are anxious to find employment. Your Trea

Since its original publication in Portuguese in 2008, this first English translation of Divining Slavery has been extensively revised and updated, complete with new primary sources and a new bibliography. It tells the story of Domingos Sodré, an African-born priest who was enslaved in Bahia, Brazil in the nineteenth century. After obtaining his freedom, Sodré became a slave owner himself, and in 1862 was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen goods from slaves in exchange for supposed 'witchcraft'. Using this incident as a catalyst, the book discusses African religion and its place in a slave society, analyzing its double role as a refuge for blacks as well as a bridge between classes and ethnic groups (such as whites who attended African rituals and sought help from African diviners and medicine men). Ultimately, Divining Slavery explores the fluidity and relativity of conditions such as slavery and freedom, African and local religions, personal and collective experience and identities in the lives of Africans in the Brazilian diaspora.

In Between Slavery and Freedom, Julie Winch explores the complex world of those people of African birth or descent who occupied the “borderlands” between slavery and freedom in the 350 years from the founding of the first European colonies in what is today the United States to the start of the Civil War. However they had navigated their way out of bondage – through flight, through military service, through self-purchase, through the working of the law in different times and in different places, or because they were the offspring of parents who were themselves free – they were determined to enjoy the same rights and liberties that white people enjoyed. In a concise narrative and selected primary documents, noted historian Julie Winch shows the struggle of black people to gain and maintain their liberty and lay claim to freedom in its fullest sense. Refusing to be relegated to the margins of American society and languish in poverty and ignorance, they repeatedly challenged their white neighbors to live up to the promises of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Winch’s accessible, concise, and jargon-free book, including primary sources and the latest scholarship, will benefit undergraduate students of American history and general readers alike by allowing them to judge the evidence for themselves and evaluate the authors’ conclusions.

A biography of a man born into slavery in South Carolina who became a master bridge builder and, during Reconstruction, served in the Alabama state legislature.