Freedom's Promise: Ex-Slave Families and Citizenship in the Age of Emancipation

by Elizabeth Regosin

Overview

Emancipation and the citizenship that followed conferred upon former slaves the right to create family relationships that were sanctioned, recognized, and regulated by the laws that governed the families of all American citizens. Elizabeth Regosin explores what the acquisition of this legal familial status meant to former slaves, personally, socially, and politically.

The Civil War pension system offers a fascinating source of documentation for this study of ex-slave families in transition from slavery to freedom. Because the provisions made to compensate eligible Union veterans and surviving family members created a vast bureaucracy—pension officials required and verified extensive proof of qualification—former slaves were obliged to reproduce and represent the inner workings of their familial relationships.

Regosin reveals through both their personal histories and pension narratives how former slaves constructed identities as individuals and as family members while they negotiated the boundaries of "family" as defined by the pension system. The stories told by ex-slaves, their witnesses, and the government officials who played a role in the pension process all serve to provide us with a richer understanding of life for newly emancipated African Americans.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813921730
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	03/29/2002
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	239
File size:	362 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Elizabeth Regosin is Assistant Professor of History at St. Lawrence University.

What People are Saying About This

"An important piece of scholarship, Freedom's Promise represents a closely argued and elegantly written examination of the Civil War pension process as experienced by African-American veterans and their families." -- Joseph P. ReidyHoward University, author of From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South

Joseph P. Reidy

An important piece of scholarship, Freedom's Promise represents a closely argued and elegantly written examination of the Civil War pension process as experienced by African-American veterans and their families. (Joseph P. Reidy, Howard University, author of From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South)

Joseph P. ReidyHoward University

An important piece of scholarship, Freedom’s Promise represents a closely argued and elegantly written examination of the Civil War pension process as experienced by African-American veterans and their families.

Peter Bardaglio

Regosin has produced a major contribution to the literature on the transition from slavery to freedom, using the pension records in an imaginative and intelligent fashion to explore how emancipation set in motion a struggle by former slaves to make their citizenship meaningful on a daily basis. (Peter Bardaglio, Goucher College, author of Reconstructing the Household: Families, Sex, and the Law in the Nineteenth-Century South)

Editorial Reviews

Rogosin (history, St. Lawrence U.) uses the Civil War pension system as a rich source of documentation for enhanced understanding of how ex-slaves made the transition from slavery to freedom. She uses personal histories and pension narratives to show how former slaves negotiated the system, constructing and communicating their familial relationships for the bureaucracy in order to quality for the Union veteran benefits that were their entitlement. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

An important piece of scholarship, Freedom’s Promise represents a closely argued and elegantly written examination of the Civil War pension process as experienced by African-American veterans and their families.

Joseph P. ReidyHoward University