Author: Abdelmajid Hannoum
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812251725
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
How Moroccan society, especially in the city of Tangier, has been affected by the flows of migrants from both West Africa and Europe Since the early 1990s, new migratory patterns have been emerging in the southern Mediterranean. Here, a large number of West Africans and young Moroccans, including minors, make daily attempts to cross to Europe. The Moroccan city of Tangier, because of its proximity to Spain, is one of the main gateways for this migratory movement. It has also become a magnet for middle- and working-class Europeans seeking a more comfortable life. Based on extensive fieldwork, Living Tangier examines the dynamics of transnational migration in a major city of the Global South and studies African "illegal" migration to Europe and European "legal" migration to Morocco, looking at the itineraries of Europeans, West Africans, and Moroccan children and youth, their strategies for crossing, their motivations, their dreams, their hopes, and their everyday experiences. In the process, Abdelmajid Hannoum examines how Moroccan society has been affected by the flows of migrants from both West Africa and Europe, focusing on race relations and analyzing issues related to citizenship and social inequality. Living Tangier considers what makes the city one of the most attractive for migrants preparing to cross to Europe and illustrates not only how migrants live in the city but also how they live the city—how they experience it, encounter its people, and engage its culture, walk its streets, and participate in its events. Reflecting on his own experiences and drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, Edward Said, Tayeb Saleh, Amin Maalouf, and Dany Laferrière, Hannoum provokes new questions in order to reconfigure migration as a postcolonial phenomenon and interrogate how Moroccan society responds to new cultural processes.
Living Tangier
Author: Abdelmajid Hannoum
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812251725
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
How Moroccan society, especially in the city of Tangier, has been affected by the flows of migrants from both West Africa and Europe Since the early 1990s, new migratory patterns have been emerging in the southern Mediterranean. Here, a large number of West Africans and young Moroccans, including minors, make daily attempts to cross to Europe. The Moroccan city of Tangier, because of its proximity to Spain, is one of the main gateways for this migratory movement. It has also become a magnet for middle- and working-class Europeans seeking a more comfortable life. Based on extensive fieldwork, Living Tangier examines the dynamics of transnational migration in a major city of the Global South and studies African "illegal" migration to Europe and European "legal" migration to Morocco, looking at the itineraries of Europeans, West Africans, and Moroccan children and youth, their strategies for crossing, their motivations, their dreams, their hopes, and their everyday experiences. In the process, Abdelmajid Hannoum examines how Moroccan society has been affected by the flows of migrants from both West Africa and Europe, focusing on race relations and analyzing issues related to citizenship and social inequality. Living Tangier considers what makes the city one of the most attractive for migrants preparing to cross to Europe and illustrates not only how migrants live in the city but also how they live the city—how they experience it, encounter its people, and engage its culture, walk its streets, and participate in its events. Reflecting on his own experiences and drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, Edward Said, Tayeb Saleh, Amin Maalouf, and Dany Laferrière, Hannoum provokes new questions in order to reconfigure migration as a postcolonial phenomenon and interrogate how Moroccan society responds to new cultural processes.
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812251725
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 280
Book Description
How Moroccan society, especially in the city of Tangier, has been affected by the flows of migrants from both West Africa and Europe Since the early 1990s, new migratory patterns have been emerging in the southern Mediterranean. Here, a large number of West Africans and young Moroccans, including minors, make daily attempts to cross to Europe. The Moroccan city of Tangier, because of its proximity to Spain, is one of the main gateways for this migratory movement. It has also become a magnet for middle- and working-class Europeans seeking a more comfortable life. Based on extensive fieldwork, Living Tangier examines the dynamics of transnational migration in a major city of the Global South and studies African "illegal" migration to Europe and European "legal" migration to Morocco, looking at the itineraries of Europeans, West Africans, and Moroccan children and youth, their strategies for crossing, their motivations, their dreams, their hopes, and their everyday experiences. In the process, Abdelmajid Hannoum examines how Moroccan society has been affected by the flows of migrants from both West Africa and Europe, focusing on race relations and analyzing issues related to citizenship and social inequality. Living Tangier considers what makes the city one of the most attractive for migrants preparing to cross to Europe and illustrates not only how migrants live in the city but also how they live the city—how they experience it, encounter its people, and engage its culture, walk its streets, and participate in its events. Reflecting on his own experiences and drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, Edward Said, Tayeb Saleh, Amin Maalouf, and Dany Laferrière, Hannoum provokes new questions in order to reconfigure migration as a postcolonial phenomenon and interrogate how Moroccan society responds to new cultural processes.
Blood and Honor
Author: Andy May
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781646698790
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
BLOOD AND HONOR: The People of Bleeding KansasTo live in the Kansas Territory in 1854 and survive through the Civil War would take courage and stamina. The entire population that year was either pro-slavery or they were against slavery. As Andy May reveals in this remarkable, well researched history of that period, there were both noble and shameful motivations in the two factions. The anti-slavery, or Free-State side included the abolitionists. They may have had the purest of motives; however, there were some anti-slavery settlers that just didn't want to compete with slaves for work. The pro-slavery faction was the faction of the South. In their minds, blacks were born to be slaves.Andy May's in-depth research and attention to facts makes this history come to life. It is the story that has been missing from our American History textbooks and it is not taught in colleges and universities. While this time in our history has been romanticized by Hollywood, those renditions are less than accurate. That is a shame since this period in the Kansas Territory is the prelude to the Civil War and served as the catalyst for that dreadful time in the nation.There is a family connection in this book as well. Andy May's great, great, granduncle was Caleb May, a signer of all three Kansas Free-State Constitutions. By 1857, about three-fourths of the voting population was anti-slavery and a growing minority were for equal rights for blacks. By 1861 a majority were for equal rights. This was a remarkably rapid change in views. It seemed that when people moved to Kansas, they often quickly became anti-slavery, as Caleb May did. The idea that slavery was morally wrong was an emerging idea.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781646698790
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424
Book Description
BLOOD AND HONOR: The People of Bleeding KansasTo live in the Kansas Territory in 1854 and survive through the Civil War would take courage and stamina. The entire population that year was either pro-slavery or they were against slavery. As Andy May reveals in this remarkable, well researched history of that period, there were both noble and shameful motivations in the two factions. The anti-slavery, or Free-State side included the abolitionists. They may have had the purest of motives; however, there were some anti-slavery settlers that just didn't want to compete with slaves for work. The pro-slavery faction was the faction of the South. In their minds, blacks were born to be slaves.Andy May's in-depth research and attention to facts makes this history come to life. It is the story that has been missing from our American History textbooks and it is not taught in colleges and universities. While this time in our history has been romanticized by Hollywood, those renditions are less than accurate. That is a shame since this period in the Kansas Territory is the prelude to the Civil War and served as the catalyst for that dreadful time in the nation.There is a family connection in this book as well. Andy May's great, great, granduncle was Caleb May, a signer of all three Kansas Free-State Constitutions. By 1857, about three-fourths of the voting population was anti-slavery and a growing minority were for equal rights for blacks. By 1861 a majority were for equal rights. This was a remarkably rapid change in views. It seemed that when people moved to Kansas, they often quickly became anti-slavery, as Caleb May did. The idea that slavery was morally wrong was an emerging idea.
American Paper Son
Author: Wayne Hung Wong
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252030147
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
During the height of racist anti-Chinese U.S. immigration laws, illegal aliens were able to come into the States under false papers identifying them as the sons of those who had returned to China to marry and have children. American Paper Son is the story of one such Chinese immigrant who came to Wichita, Kansas, in 1935 as a thirteen-year-old "paper son" to help in his father's restaurant there. This vivid first-person account addresses significant themes in Asian American history through the lens of Wong's personal stories. Wong served in one of the all-Chinese units of the 14th Air Force in China during World War II and he discusses the impact of race and segregation on his experience. After the war he found a wife in Taishan, brought her to the US, and became involved in the government's infamous Confession program (an amnesty program for immigrants). Wong eventually became a successful real estate entrepreneur in Wichita. Rich with poignant insights into the realities of life as part of a very small Chinese American population in a Midwestern town, this memoir provides an important new view of the Asian American experience away from the West Coast. Benson Tong adds a scholarly introduction and useful annotations.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252030147
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
During the height of racist anti-Chinese U.S. immigration laws, illegal aliens were able to come into the States under false papers identifying them as the sons of those who had returned to China to marry and have children. American Paper Son is the story of one such Chinese immigrant who came to Wichita, Kansas, in 1935 as a thirteen-year-old "paper son" to help in his father's restaurant there. This vivid first-person account addresses significant themes in Asian American history through the lens of Wong's personal stories. Wong served in one of the all-Chinese units of the 14th Air Force in China during World War II and he discusses the impact of race and segregation on his experience. After the war he found a wife in Taishan, brought her to the US, and became involved in the government's infamous Confession program (an amnesty program for immigrants). Wong eventually became a successful real estate entrepreneur in Wichita. Rich with poignant insights into the realities of life as part of a very small Chinese American population in a Midwestern town, this memoir provides an important new view of the Asian American experience away from the West Coast. Benson Tong adds a scholarly introduction and useful annotations.
The Prairie People
Author: James A. Clifton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 566
Book Description
In addition to reprinting the full text of Clifton's extraordinary ethnohistory, this expanded edition features a new essay offering a narrative of his continuing professional and personal encounters, since 1962, with this enduring native community. -- ‡c From back cover.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 566
Book Description
In addition to reprinting the full text of Clifton's extraordinary ethnohistory, this expanded edition features a new essay offering a narrative of his continuing professional and personal encounters, since 1962, with this enduring native community. -- ‡c From back cover.
White Hot Hate
Author: Dick Lehr
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0358359961
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 429
Book Description
For fans of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, the thrilling true story of a would-be terrorist attack against a Kansas farming town’s immigrant community, and the FBI informant who exposed it. In the spring of 2016, as immigration debates rocked the United States, three men in a militia group known as the Crusaders grew aggravated over one Kansas town’s growing Somali community. They decided that complaining about their new neighbors and threatening them directly wasn’t enough. The men plotted to bomb a mosque, aiming to kill hundreds and inspire other attacks against Muslims in America. But they would wait until after the presidential election, so that their actions wouldn’t hurt Donald Trump’s chances of winning. An FBI informant befriended the three men, acting as law enforcement’s eyes and ears for eight months. His secretly taped conversations with the militia were pivotal in obstructing their plans and were a lynchpin in the resulting trial and convictions for conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. White Hot Hate will tell the riveting true story of an averted case of domestic terrorism in one of the most remote towns in the US, not far from the infamous town where Capote’s In Cold Blood was set. In the gripping details of this foiled scheme, we see in intimate focus the chilling, immediate threat of domestic terrorism—and racist anxiety in America writ large.
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0358359961
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 429
Book Description
For fans of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, the thrilling true story of a would-be terrorist attack against a Kansas farming town’s immigrant community, and the FBI informant who exposed it. In the spring of 2016, as immigration debates rocked the United States, three men in a militia group known as the Crusaders grew aggravated over one Kansas town’s growing Somali community. They decided that complaining about their new neighbors and threatening them directly wasn’t enough. The men plotted to bomb a mosque, aiming to kill hundreds and inspire other attacks against Muslims in America. But they would wait until after the presidential election, so that their actions wouldn’t hurt Donald Trump’s chances of winning. An FBI informant befriended the three men, acting as law enforcement’s eyes and ears for eight months. His secretly taped conversations with the militia were pivotal in obstructing their plans and were a lynchpin in the resulting trial and convictions for conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. White Hot Hate will tell the riveting true story of an averted case of domestic terrorism in one of the most remote towns in the US, not far from the infamous town where Capote’s In Cold Blood was set. In the gripping details of this foiled scheme, we see in intimate focus the chilling, immediate threat of domestic terrorism—and racist anxiety in America writ large.
The Border Between Them
Author: Jeremy Neely
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 082626591X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
The most bitter guerrilla conflict in American history raged along the Kansas-Missouri border from 1856 to 1865, making that frontier the first battleground in the struggle over slavery. That fiercely contested boundary represented the most explosive political fault line in the United States, and its bitter divisions foreshadowed an entire nation torn asunder. Jeremy Neely now examines the significance of the border war on both sides of the Kansas-Missouri line and offers a comparative, cross-border analysis of its origins, meanings, and consequences. A narrative history of the border war and its impact on citizens of both states, The Border between Them recounts the exploits of John Brown, William Quantrill, and other notorious guerrillas, but it also uncovers the stories of everyday people who lived through that conflict. Examining the frontier period to the close of the nineteenth century, Neely frames the guerrilla conflict within the larger story of the developing West and squares that violent period with the more peaceful--though never tranquil--periods that preceded and followed it. Focusing on the countryside south of the big bend in the Missouri River, an area where there was no natural boundary separating the states, Neely examines three border counties in each state that together illustrate both sectional division and national reunion. He draws on the letters and diaries of ordinary citizens--as well as newspaper accounts, election results, and census data--to illuminate the complex strands that helped bind Kansas and Missouri together in post-Civil War America. He shows how people on both sides of the line were already linked by common racial attitudes, farming practices, and ambivalence toward railroad expansion; he then tells how emancipation, industrialization, and immigration eventually eroded wartime divisions and facilitated the reconciliation of old foes from each state. Today the "border war" survives in the form of interstate rivalries between collegiate Tigers and Jayhawks, allowing Neely to consider the limits of that reconciliation and the enduring power of identities forged in wartime. The Border between Them is a compelling account of the terrible first act of the American Civil War and its enduring legacy for the conflict's veterans, victims, and survivors, as well as subsequent generations.
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 082626591X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Book Description
The most bitter guerrilla conflict in American history raged along the Kansas-Missouri border from 1856 to 1865, making that frontier the first battleground in the struggle over slavery. That fiercely contested boundary represented the most explosive political fault line in the United States, and its bitter divisions foreshadowed an entire nation torn asunder. Jeremy Neely now examines the significance of the border war on both sides of the Kansas-Missouri line and offers a comparative, cross-border analysis of its origins, meanings, and consequences. A narrative history of the border war and its impact on citizens of both states, The Border between Them recounts the exploits of John Brown, William Quantrill, and other notorious guerrillas, but it also uncovers the stories of everyday people who lived through that conflict. Examining the frontier period to the close of the nineteenth century, Neely frames the guerrilla conflict within the larger story of the developing West and squares that violent period with the more peaceful--though never tranquil--periods that preceded and followed it. Focusing on the countryside south of the big bend in the Missouri River, an area where there was no natural boundary separating the states, Neely examines three border counties in each state that together illustrate both sectional division and national reunion. He draws on the letters and diaries of ordinary citizens--as well as newspaper accounts, election results, and census data--to illuminate the complex strands that helped bind Kansas and Missouri together in post-Civil War America. He shows how people on both sides of the line were already linked by common racial attitudes, farming practices, and ambivalence toward railroad expansion; he then tells how emancipation, industrialization, and immigration eventually eroded wartime divisions and facilitated the reconciliation of old foes from each state. Today the "border war" survives in the form of interstate rivalries between collegiate Tigers and Jayhawks, allowing Neely to consider the limits of that reconciliation and the enduring power of identities forged in wartime. The Border between Them is a compelling account of the terrible first act of the American Civil War and its enduring legacy for the conflict's veterans, victims, and survivors, as well as subsequent generations.
Kansas and the West
Author: Rita Napier
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
By incorporating voices from history that have too long been lost in the din of tradition--especially the voices of Native Americans and blacks, women and laborers--Kansas and the West provides a provocative and much-needed new view of the state's past.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
By incorporating voices from history that have too long been lost in the din of tradition--especially the voices of Native Americans and blacks, women and laborers--Kansas and the West provides a provocative and much-needed new view of the state's past.
Independent Immigrants
Author: Robert W. Frizzell
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826266096
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
Between 1838 and the early 1890s, German peasant farmers from the Kingdom of Hanover made their way to Lafayette County, Missouri, to form a new community centered on the town of Concordia. Their story has much to tell us about the American immigrant experience--and about how newcomers were caught up in the violence that swept through their adoptive home. Robert Frizzell grew up near Concordia, and in this first book-length history of the German settlement, he chronicles its life and times during those formative years. Founded by Hanoverian Friedrich Dierking--known as "Dierking the Comforter" for the aid he gave his countrymen--the Concordia settlement blossomed from 72 households in 1850 to 375 over the course of twenty years. Frizzell traces that growth as he examines the success of early agricultural efforts, but he also tells how the community strayed from the cultural path set by its freethinker founder to become a center of religious conservatism. Drawing on archival material from both sides of the Atlantic, Frizzell offers a compelling account for scholars and general readers alike, showing how Concordia differed from other German immigrant communities in America. He also explores the conditions in Hanover--particularly the village of Esperke, from which many of the settlers hailed--that caused people to leave, shedding new light on theological, political, and economic circumstances in both the Old World and the New. When the Civil War came, the antislavery Hanoverians found themselves in the Missouri county with the greatest number of slaves, and the Germans supported the Union while most of their neighbors sympathized with Confederate guerrillas. Frizzell tells how the notorious "Bloody Bill" Anderson attacked the community three times, committing atrocities as gruesome as any recorded in the state--then how the community flourished after the war and even bought out the farmsteads of former slaveholders. Frizzell's account challenges many historians' assumptions about German motives for immigration and includes portraits of families and individuals that show the high price in toil and blood required to meet the challenges of making a home in a new land. Independent Immigrants reveals the untold story of these newcomers as it reveals a little-known aspect of the Civil War in Missouri.
Publisher: University of Missouri Press
ISBN: 0826266096
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217
Book Description
Between 1838 and the early 1890s, German peasant farmers from the Kingdom of Hanover made their way to Lafayette County, Missouri, to form a new community centered on the town of Concordia. Their story has much to tell us about the American immigrant experience--and about how newcomers were caught up in the violence that swept through their adoptive home. Robert Frizzell grew up near Concordia, and in this first book-length history of the German settlement, he chronicles its life and times during those formative years. Founded by Hanoverian Friedrich Dierking--known as "Dierking the Comforter" for the aid he gave his countrymen--the Concordia settlement blossomed from 72 households in 1850 to 375 over the course of twenty years. Frizzell traces that growth as he examines the success of early agricultural efforts, but he also tells how the community strayed from the cultural path set by its freethinker founder to become a center of religious conservatism. Drawing on archival material from both sides of the Atlantic, Frizzell offers a compelling account for scholars and general readers alike, showing how Concordia differed from other German immigrant communities in America. He also explores the conditions in Hanover--particularly the village of Esperke, from which many of the settlers hailed--that caused people to leave, shedding new light on theological, political, and economic circumstances in both the Old World and the New. When the Civil War came, the antislavery Hanoverians found themselves in the Missouri county with the greatest number of slaves, and the Germans supported the Union while most of their neighbors sympathized with Confederate guerrillas. Frizzell tells how the notorious "Bloody Bill" Anderson attacked the community three times, committing atrocities as gruesome as any recorded in the state--then how the community flourished after the war and even bought out the farmsteads of former slaveholders. Frizzell's account challenges many historians' assumptions about German motives for immigration and includes portraits of families and individuals that show the high price in toil and blood required to meet the challenges of making a home in a new land. Independent Immigrants reveals the untold story of these newcomers as it reveals a little-known aspect of the Civil War in Missouri.
Wide-Open Town
Author: Diane Mutti Burke
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700627065
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Kansas City is often seen as a mild-mannered metropolis in the heart of flyover country. But a closer look tells a different story, one with roots in the city’s complicated and colorful past. The decades between World Wars I and II were a time of intense political, social, and economic change—for Kansas City, as for the nation as a whole. In exploring this city at the literal and cultural crossroads of America, Wide-Open Town maps the myriad ways in which Kansas City reflected and helped shape the narrative of a nation undergoing an epochal transformation. During the interwar period, political boss Tom Pendergast reigned, and Kansas City was said to be “wide open.” Prohibition was rarely enforced, the mob was ascendant, and urban vice was rampant. But in a community divided by the hard lines of race and class, this “openness” also allowed many of the city’s residents to challenge conventional social boundaries—and it is this intersection and disruption of cultural norms that interests the authors of Wide-Open Town. Writing from a variety of disciplines and viewpoints, the contributors take up topics ranging from the 1928 Republican National Convention to organizing the garment industry, from the stockyards to health care, drag shows, Thomas Hart Benton, and, of course, jazz. Their essays bring to light the diverse histories of the city—among, for instance, Mexican immigrants, African Americans, the working class, and the LGBT community before the advent of “LGBT.” Wide-Open Town captures the defining moments of a society rocked by World War I, the mass migration of people of color into cities, the entrance of women into the labor force and politics, Prohibition, economic collapse, and a revolution in social mores. Revealing how these changes influenced Kansas City—and how the city responded—this volume helps us understand nothing less than how citizens of the age adapted to the rise of modern America.
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700627065
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368
Book Description
Kansas City is often seen as a mild-mannered metropolis in the heart of flyover country. But a closer look tells a different story, one with roots in the city’s complicated and colorful past. The decades between World Wars I and II were a time of intense political, social, and economic change—for Kansas City, as for the nation as a whole. In exploring this city at the literal and cultural crossroads of America, Wide-Open Town maps the myriad ways in which Kansas City reflected and helped shape the narrative of a nation undergoing an epochal transformation. During the interwar period, political boss Tom Pendergast reigned, and Kansas City was said to be “wide open.” Prohibition was rarely enforced, the mob was ascendant, and urban vice was rampant. But in a community divided by the hard lines of race and class, this “openness” also allowed many of the city’s residents to challenge conventional social boundaries—and it is this intersection and disruption of cultural norms that interests the authors of Wide-Open Town. Writing from a variety of disciplines and viewpoints, the contributors take up topics ranging from the 1928 Republican National Convention to organizing the garment industry, from the stockyards to health care, drag shows, Thomas Hart Benton, and, of course, jazz. Their essays bring to light the diverse histories of the city—among, for instance, Mexican immigrants, African Americans, the working class, and the LGBT community before the advent of “LGBT.” Wide-Open Town captures the defining moments of a society rocked by World War I, the mass migration of people of color into cities, the entrance of women into the labor force and politics, Prohibition, economic collapse, and a revolution in social mores. Revealing how these changes influenced Kansas City—and how the city responded—this volume helps us understand nothing less than how citizens of the age adapted to the rise of modern America.
Bleeding Kansas
Author: Nicole Etcheson
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700614923
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
Few people would have expected bloodshed in Kansas Territory. After all, it had few slaves and showed few signs that slavery would even flourish. But civil war tore this territory apart in the 1850s and 60s, and "Bleeding Kansas" became a forbidding symbol for the nationwide clash over slavery that followed. Many free-state Kansans seemed to care little about slaves, and many proslavery Kansans owned not a single slave. But the failed promise of the Kansas-Nebraska Act-when fraud in local elections subverted the settlers' right to choose whether Kansas would be a slave or free state-fanned the flames of war. While other writers have cited slavery or economics as the cause of unrest, Nicole Etcheson seeks to revise our understanding of this era by focusing on whites' concerns over their political liberties. The first comprehensive account of "Bleeding Kansas" in more than thirty years, her study re-examines the debate over slavery expansion to emphasize issues of popular sovereignty rather than slavery's moral or economic dimensions. The free-state movement was a coalition of settlers who favored black rights and others who wanted the territory only for whites, but all were united by the conviction that their political rights were violated by nonresident voting and by Democratic presidents' heavy-handed administration of the territories. Etcheson argues that participants on both sides of the Kansas conflict believed they fought to preserve the liberties secured by the American Revolution and that violence erupted because each side feared the loss of meaningful self-governance. Bleeding Kansas is a gripping account of events and people-rabble-rousing Jim Lane, zealot John Brown, Sheriff Sam Jones, and others-that examines the social milieu of the settlers along with the political ideas they developed. Covering the period from the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act to the 1879 Exoduster Migration, it traces the complex interactions among groups inside and outside the territory, creating a comprehensive political, social, and intellectual history of this tumultuous period in the state's history. As Etcheson demonstrates, the struggle over the political liberties of whites may have heightened the turmoil but led eventually to a broadening of the definition of freedom to include blacks. Her insightful re-examination sheds new light on this era and is essential reading for anyone interested in the ideological origins of the Civil War.
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700614923
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384
Book Description
Few people would have expected bloodshed in Kansas Territory. After all, it had few slaves and showed few signs that slavery would even flourish. But civil war tore this territory apart in the 1850s and 60s, and "Bleeding Kansas" became a forbidding symbol for the nationwide clash over slavery that followed. Many free-state Kansans seemed to care little about slaves, and many proslavery Kansans owned not a single slave. But the failed promise of the Kansas-Nebraska Act-when fraud in local elections subverted the settlers' right to choose whether Kansas would be a slave or free state-fanned the flames of war. While other writers have cited slavery or economics as the cause of unrest, Nicole Etcheson seeks to revise our understanding of this era by focusing on whites' concerns over their political liberties. The first comprehensive account of "Bleeding Kansas" in more than thirty years, her study re-examines the debate over slavery expansion to emphasize issues of popular sovereignty rather than slavery's moral or economic dimensions. The free-state movement was a coalition of settlers who favored black rights and others who wanted the territory only for whites, but all were united by the conviction that their political rights were violated by nonresident voting and by Democratic presidents' heavy-handed administration of the territories. Etcheson argues that participants on both sides of the Kansas conflict believed they fought to preserve the liberties secured by the American Revolution and that violence erupted because each side feared the loss of meaningful self-governance. Bleeding Kansas is a gripping account of events and people-rabble-rousing Jim Lane, zealot John Brown, Sheriff Sam Jones, and others-that examines the social milieu of the settlers along with the political ideas they developed. Covering the period from the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act to the 1879 Exoduster Migration, it traces the complex interactions among groups inside and outside the territory, creating a comprehensive political, social, and intellectual history of this tumultuous period in the state's history. As Etcheson demonstrates, the struggle over the political liberties of whites may have heightened the turmoil but led eventually to a broadening of the definition of freedom to include blacks. Her insightful re-examination sheds new light on this era and is essential reading for anyone interested in the ideological origins of the Civil War.