Landscapes of Freedom : Restoring the History of Emancipation and Citizenship in Yorktown, Virginia, 1861-1940.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Toy, Rebecca Capobianco.

Series:

Reconstruction Reconsidered Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Collective memory--Virginia--Yorktown.

Collective memory.

Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)--Virginia--Yorktown.

Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877).

African Americans--Virginia--Yorktown--History.

African Americans.

Freed persons--Virginia--Yorktown--History.

Freed persons.

Yorktown (Va.)--History.

Yorktown (Va.).

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (274 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Columbia : University of South Carolina Press, 2025.

Summary:

"Revelations of the profound effect and long legacy of America's post-Civil War Reconstruction. In Landscapes of Freedom, Rebecca Capobianco Toy tells the story of an emblematic community of freedpeople during the Civil War era. Some of the earliest acts of wartime emancipation happened in the Tidewater of Virginia, where enslaved people voted with their feet and escaped the Confederacy by crossing into US Army lines. At Yorktown, Virginia, freedpeople developed their own self-governing enclave near (and in some cases on) the Revolutionary War battlefield. Toy describes that Black community, its formation, and its development well into the twentieth century. She traces the effect of Reconstruction policy and the consequences that its subsequent rollback had on the lives of Black citizens. Toy also documents the Black community's attempts to commemorate its members' role in the Civil War. The Black community fought to retain that memory, one that challenged not only the Lost Cause interpretation of the war but also the federal government's efforts to privilege the Revolutionary memory of Yorktown while ignoring its ongoing role in the story of American freedom"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

"They Appear like Freemen"

"How Much We Can Do Ourselves"

"We Can Take Care of Ourselves Now"

"They Were Now Citizens"

"We Have a Right to the Land"

Landscapes of Freedom, Landscapes of Memory

"We Build Our Memorial in Our Lives"

Conclusion: The Coming of the National Park Service.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-64336-582-7

OCLC:

1515176194