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Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Atlantic Bonds: A Nineteenth-Century Odyssey from America to Africa

Atlantic Bonds: A Nineteenth-Century Odyssey from America to Africa

Paperback

Series: H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman

Historical Figures19th Century United States HistoryGeneral Racism & Ethnic Studies

ISBN10: 1469652153
ISBN13: 9781469652153
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: Feb 1 2019
Pages: 328
Weight: 1.12
Height: 0.74 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
A decade before the American Civil War, James Churchwill Vaughan (1828-1893) set out to fulfill his formerly enslaved father's dying wish that he should leave America to start a new life in Africa. Over the next forty years, Vaughan was taken captive, fought in African wars, built and rebuilt a livelihood, and led a revolt against white racism, finally becoming a successful merchant and the founder of a wealthy, educated, and politically active family. Tracing Vaughan's journey from South Carolina to Liberia to several parts of Yorubaland (present-day southwestern Nigeria), Lisa Lindsay documents this free man's struggle to find economic and political autonomy in an era when freedom was not clear and unhindered anywhere for people of African descent.

In a tour de force of historical investigation on two continents, Lindsay tells a story of Vaughan's survival, prosperity, and activism against a seemingly endless series of obstacles. By following Vaughan's transatlantic journeys and comparing his experiences to those of his parents, contemporaries, and descendants in Nigeria and South Carolina, Lindsay reveals the expansive reach of slavery, the ambiguities of freedom, and the surprising ways that Africa, rather than America, offered new opportunities for people of African descent.

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Historical Figures