Overview

Full Product Details

Author:   Edda L. Fields-Black (Department of History, Department of History, Carnegie Mellon University)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 14.70cm , Height: 6.10cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   1.361kg
ISBN:  

9780197552797

ISBN 10:   019755279
Pages:   776
Publication Date:   27 May 2024
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

"Prologue: The Voices We Have Not Heard Part I: The Prison House of Bondage Chapter 1: End of Importation Chapter 2: The Oldest Old Heads Chapter 3: An Economy in Transition Chapter 4: ""Play Children Together"" Chapter 5: Flight from Bondage Chapter 6: Swamp Reclamation Chapter 7: John Brown's Body Part II: The Proving Ground of Freedom Chapter 8: ""Gunshoot at Bay Point"" Chapter 9: ""More Intelligence than Anyone Else"" Chapter 10: Broken Promises Chapter 11: Just the Two of Us Chapter 12: ""Ropes Around their Necks"" Part III: The Combahee River Raid Chapter 13: ""Make the Enemy Pay the Way"" Chapter 14: ""I Was Gwine to the Boat"" Chapter 15: ""Don't We Colored People Deserve Credit?"" Part IV: ""We's Combee"" Chapter 16: Closing in on Charleston Chapter 17: ""Lay my Bones in dat air Bush"" Epilogue: Risking Everything for Black Freedom"

Reviews

"Edda Fields-Black takes a legendary event and an iconic figure and with pathbreaking research and elegant prose gives us a striking, living, and breathing history of Black courage and freedom dreams at the dawn of emancipation. * Imani Perry, Author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, winner of the National Book Award * Thanks to her careful reading of Civil War-era documents and historical sources, some never before utilized, Edda L. Fields-Back gives eloquent voice to South Carolina's rice kingdom's enslaved men and women, including her own ancestors, and offers new insights into the experience of more prominent figures, most notably Harriet Tubman. COMBEE makes us think in new ways about the role of African Americans in the destruction of slavery, and the hopes, betrayals, and transformations that accompanied emancipation. * Eric Foner, Author of The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution * A riveting and original account of Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid, COMBEE is an absolutely essential book-not just for understanding the distant past, but for offering context and insight into tragic events in our own times, and the shadow of racism that still looms over Charleston, Charlottesville, and the nation. * Tera W. Hunter, Edwards Professor of American History and Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University * Despite boatloads of Civil War books, no one has dug more deeply into the 1863 Combahee River Raid than Edda Fields-Black. COMBEE brings that daring event alive and establishes its important place in the broader narratives of Harriet Tubman's life and the war to end slavery. Poring over pension files, trapsing through Lowcountry marshes, and tracking down plantation descendants, Fields-Black has left no pluff mud unturned in pursuing this dramatic story, weaving together the lives of her central ""freedom seekers""-including her own third great grandfather-with those of Northern commanders and liberated Black Carolinians. * Peter H. Wood, Author of Black Majority: Race, Rice, and Rebellion in South Carolina, 1670-1740 * Fields-Black vividly recounts one of the most dramatic events of the Civil War era, revealing Harriet Tubman and her revolutionary glory in exciting, original ways. * Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh * Edda Fields-Black doesn't just bring fresh energy to Harriet Tubman's story but, from the shadow of memory, rescues a generation of people who throughout the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia, fought for their freedom, crafted a new cultural, political, and economic identities, and provided a model to the nation for a new birth of equality and justice following the Civil War. * Paul Gardullo, Supervisory Museum Curator and Director of the Center for the Study of Global Slavery, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture * Fields-Black's deep archival research on the participants in the raid transforms our understanding of the event. Tubman doesn't disappear, but now the stories of the other participants emerge. In so doing, they will actually reemphasize the heroism of Tubman herself, as an apotheosis of Black (and Black women's) resistance traditions. * Edward Baptist, Cornell University * There is a gripping and well-told story about Harriet Tubman and the Civil war at the center of COMBEE, but what stands are the details around the edges of the story, about the history and daily lives of enslaved and free people on the rice plantations. I came away from the book with a realer, thicker understanding of the lives of the people of Combee. * Walter Johnson, Harvard University * In Combee, Edda Fields-Black gives an underappreciated episode in the history of Harriet Tubman, the Black freedom struggle, and the Civil War the careful and care-full treatment it deserves. More than that, this book brings to light whole worlds contained within a grain of time, lifting up the names and stories of freedom seekers whose voices still resonate powerfully today. * W. Caleb McDaniel, Author of Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America, winner of the Pulitzer Prize *"

"Edda Fields-Black takes a legendary event and an iconic figure and with pathbreaking research and elegant prose gives us a striking, living, and breathing history of Black courage and freedom dreams at the dawn of emancipation. * Imani Perry, Author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, winner of the National Book Award * Thanks to her careful reading of Civil War-era documents and historical sources, some never before utilized, Edda L. Fields-Back gives eloquent voice to South Carolina's rice kingdom's enslaved men and women, including her own ancestors, and offers new insights into the experience of more prominent figures, most notably Harriet Tubman. COMBEE makes us think in new ways about the role of African Americans in the destruction of slavery, and the hopes, betrayals, and transformations that accompanied emancipation. * Eric Foner, Author of The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution * A riveting and original account of Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid, COMBEE is an absolutely essential book-not just for understanding the distant past, but for offering context and insight into tragic events in our own times, and the shadow of racism that still looms over Charleston, Charlottesville, and the nation. * Tera W. Hunter, Edwards Professor of American History and Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University * Despite boatloads of Civil War books, no one has dug more deeply into the 1863 Combahee River Raid than Edda Fields-Black. COMBEE brings that daring event alive and establishes its important place in the broader narratives of Harriet Tubman's life and the war to end slavery. Poring over pension files, trapsing through Lowcountry marshes, and tracking down plantation descendants, Fields-Black has left no pluff mud unturned in pursuing this dramatic story, weaving together the lives of her central ""freedom seekers""-including her own third great grandfather-with those of Northern commanders and liberated Black Carolinians. * Peter H. Wood, Author of Black Majority: Race, Rice, and Rebellion in South Carolina, 1670-1740 * Fields-Black vividly recounts one of the most dramatic events of the Civil War era, revealing Harriet Tubman and her revolutionary glory in exciting, original ways. * Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh * Edda Fields-Black doesn't just bring fresh energy to Harriet Tubman's story but, from the shadow of memory, rescues a generation of people who throughout the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia, fought for their freedom, crafted a new cultural, political, and economic identities, and provided a model to the nation for a new birth of equality and justice following the Civil War. * Paul Gardullo, Supervisory Museum Curator and Director of the Center for the Study of Global Slavery, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture * Fields-Black's deep archival research on the participants in the raid transforms our understanding of the event. Tubman doesn't disappear, but now the stories of the other participants emerge. In so doing, they will actually reemphasize the heroism of Tubman herself, as an apotheosis of Black (and Black women's) resistance traditions. * Edward Baptist, Cornell University * There is a gripping and well-told story about Harriet Tubman and the Civil war at the center of COMBEE, but what stands are the details around the edges of the story, about the history and daily lives of enslaved and free people on the rice plantations. I came away from the book with a realer, thicker understanding of the lives of the people of Combee. * Walter Johnson, Harvard University * In COMBEE, Edda Fields-Black gives an underappreciated episode in the history of Harriet Tubman, the Black freedom struggle, and the Civil War the careful and care-full treatment it deserves. More than that, this book brings to light whole worlds contained within a grain of time, lifting up the names and stories of freedom seekers whose voices still resonate powerfully today. * W. Caleb McDaniel, Author of Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America, winner of the Pulitzer Prize * Sprawling and kaleidoscopic, this is a marvel of deep research. * Publishers Weekly * Through herculean research and cross-referencing of land, bank, U.S. Army pension and slavery transaction records, Fields-Black is able to name names and offer readers a sense of who these people were and what their lives were like. Combee holds many additional revelatory threads and insights, but this act of resurrection alone makes the book profoundly important. * The BookPage * A scholarly and remarkable work about enslavement and Civil War...Readers will gain a deeper understanding of that era's times and experiences, and Fields Black's connection to one of the participants makes it a personal work as well. * Library Journal * With an extensive cast of characters, dramatic action, and findings of great significance, Combee is an exceptional work of American history. * Top 10 History Books of 2024, Booklist * These stories, these places, these events of Combahee are legendary. But these stories are not legends, and these actions of Harriet Tubman and her fellow freedom fighters are not mythology - these are the true accountings of heroism, determination, and unparalleled commitment to freedom. This book demands that you feel the chills of muddy water; burn with the anger of suffered indignity; and immerse yourself in the adrenaline and courage of some of the bravest people our nation has ever known. In a time when truth seems malleable, books like COMBEE and historians like Dr. Edda Fields-Black are essential to preserving and propelling stories like this into the consciousness of the world. The story of Combahee River Raid is one of the greatest American history stories of all time- and we should all know it. * Dr.Tonya M. Matthews, President and CEO, International African American Museum *"

"Edda Fields-Black takes a legendary event and an iconic figure and with pathbreaking research and elegant prose gives us a striking, living, and breathing history of Black courage and freedom dreams at the dawn of emancipation. * Imani Perry, Author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, winner of the National Book Award * Thanks to her careful reading of Civil War-era documents and historical sources, some never before utilized, Edda L. Fields-Back gives eloquent voice to South Carolina's rice kingdom's enslaved men and women, including her own ancestors, and offers new insights into the experience of more prominent figures, most notably Harriet Tubman. COMBEE makes us think in new ways about the role of African Americans in the destruction of slavery, and the hopes, betrayals, and transformations that accompanied emancipation. * Eric Foner, Author of The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution * A riveting and original account of Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid, COMBEE is an absolutely essential book-not just for understanding the distant past, but for offering context and insight into tragic events in our own times, and the shadow of racism that still looms over Charleston, Charlottesville, and the nation. * Tera W. Hunter, Edwards Professor of American History and Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University * Despite boatloads of Civil War books, no one has dug more deeply into the 1863 Combahee River Raid than Edda Fields-Black. COMBEE brings that daring event alive and establishes its important place in the broader narratives of Harriet Tubman's life and the war to end slavery. Poring over pension files, trapsing through Lowcountry marshes, and tracking down plantation descendants, Fields-Black has left no pluff mud unturned in pursuing this dramatic story, weaving together the lives of her central ""freedom seekers""-including her own third great grandfather-with those of Northern commanders and liberated Black Carolinians. * Peter H. Wood, Author of Black Majority: Race, Rice, and Rebellion in South Carolina, 1670-1740 * Fields-Black vividly recounts one of the most dramatic events of the Civil War era, revealing Harriet Tubman and her revolutionary glory in exciting, original ways. * Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh * Edda Fields-Black doesn't just bring fresh energy to Harriet Tubman's story but, from the shadow of memory, rescues a generation of people who throughout the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia, fought for their freedom, crafted a new cultural, political, and economic identities, and provided a model to the nation for a new birth of equality and justice following the Civil War. * Paul Gardullo, Supervisory Museum Curator and Director of the Center for the Study of Global Slavery, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture * Fields-Black's deep archival research on the participants in the raid transforms our understanding of the event. Tubman doesn't disappear, but now the stories of the other participants emerge. In so doing, they will actually reemphasize the heroism of Tubman herself, as an apotheosis of Black (and Black women's) resistance traditions. * Edward Baptist, Cornell University * There is a gripping and well-told story about Harriet Tubman and the Civil war at the center of COMBEE, but what stands are the details around the edges of the story, about the history and daily lives of enslaved and free people on the rice plantations. I came away from the book with a realer, thicker understanding of the lives of the people of Combee. * Walter Johnson, Harvard University * In Combee, Edda Fields-Black gives an underappreciated episode in the history of Harriet Tubman, the Black freedom struggle, and the Civil War the careful and care-full treatment it deserves. More than that, this book brings to light whole worlds contained within a grain of time, lifting up the names and stories of freedom seekers whose voices still resonate powerfully today. * W. Caleb McDaniel, Author of Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America, winner of the Pulitzer Prize * Sprawling and kaleidoscopic, this is a marvel of deep research. * Publishers Weekly *"

"Edda Fields-Black takes a legendary event and an iconic figure and with pathbreaking research and elegant prose gives us a striking, living, and breathing history of Black courage and freedom dreams at the dawn of emancipation. * Imani Perry, Author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, winner of the National Book Award * Thanks to her careful reading of Civil War-era documents and historical sources, some never before utilized, Edda L. Fields-Back gives eloquent voice to South Carolina's rice kingdom's enslaved men and women, including her own ancestors, and offers new insights into the experience of more prominent figures, most notably Harriet Tubman. COMBEE makes us think in new ways about the role of African Americans in the destruction of slavery, and the hopes, betrayals, and transformations that accompanied emancipation. * Eric Foner, Author of The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution * A riveting and original account of Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid, COMBEE is an absolutely essential book-not just for understanding the distant past, but for offering context and insight into tragic events in our own times, and the shadow of racism that still looms over Charleston, Charlottesville, and the nation. * Tera W. Hunter, Edwards Professor of American History and Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University * Despite boatloads of Civil War books, no one has dug more deeply into the 1863 Combahee River Raid than Edda Fields-Black. COMBEE brings that daring event alive and establishes its important place in the broader narratives of Harriet Tubman's life and the war to end slavery. Poring over pension files, trapsing through Lowcountry marshes, and tracking down plantation descendants, Fields-Black has left no pluff mud unturned in pursuing this dramatic story, weaving together the lives of her central ""freedom seekers""-including her own third great grandfather-with those of Northern commanders and liberated Black Carolinians. * Peter H. Wood, Author of Black Majority: Race, Rice, and Rebellion in South Carolina, 1670-1740 * Fields-Black vividly recounts one of the most dramatic events of the Civil War era, revealing Harriet Tubman and her revolutionary glory in exciting, original ways. * Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh * Edda Fields-Black doesn't just bring fresh energy to Harriet Tubman's story but, from the shadow of memory, rescues a generation of people who throughout the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia, fought for their freedom, crafted a new cultural, political, and economic identities, and provided a model to the nation for a new birth of equality and justice following the Civil War. * Paul Gardullo, Supervisory Museum Curator and Director of the Center for the Study of Global Slavery, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture * Fields-Black's deep archival research on the participants in the raid transforms our understanding of the event. Tubman doesn't disappear, but now the stories of the other participants emerge. In so doing, they will actually reemphasize the heroism of Tubman herself, as an apotheosis of Black (and Black women's) resistance traditions. * Edward Baptist, Cornell University * There is a gripping and well-told story about Harriet Tubman and the Civil war at the center of COMBEE, but what stands are the details around the edges of the story, about the history and daily lives of enslaved and free people on the rice plantations. I came away from the book with a realer, thicker understanding of the lives of the people of Combee. * Walter Johnson, Harvard University * In COMBEE, Edda Fields-Black gives an underappreciated episode in the history of Harriet Tubman, the Black freedom struggle, and the Civil War the careful and care-full treatment it deserves. More than that, this book brings to light whole worlds contained within a grain of time, lifting up the names and stories of freedom seekers whose voices still resonate powerfully today. * W. Caleb McDaniel, Author of Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America, winner of the Pulitzer Prize * Sprawling and kaleidoscopic, this is a marvel of deep research. * Publishers Weekly *"

"Edda Fields-Black takes a legendary event and an iconic figure and with pathbreaking research and elegant prose gives us a striking, living, and breathing history of Black courage and freedom dreams at the dawn of emancipation. * Imani Perry, Author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, winner of the National Book Award * Thanks to her careful reading of Civil War-era documents and historical sources, some never before utilized, Edda L. Fields-Back gives eloquent voice to South Carolina's rice kingdom's enslaved men and women, including her own ancestors, and offers new insights into the experience of more prominent figures, most notably Harriet Tubman. COMBEE makes us think in new ways about the role of African Americans in the destruction of slavery, and the hopes, betrayals, and transformations that accompanied emancipation. * Eric Foner, Author of The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution * A riveting and original account of Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid, COMBEE is an absolutely essential book-not just for understanding the distant past, but for offering context and insight into tragic events in our own times, and the shadow of racism that still looms over Charleston, Charlottesville, and the nation. * Tera W. Hunter, Edwards Professor of American History and Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University * Despite boatloads of Civil War books, no one has dug more deeply into the 1863 Combahee River Raid than Edda Fields-Black. COMBEE brings that daring event alive and establishes its important place in the broader narratives of Harriet Tubman's life and the war to end slavery. Poring over pension files, trapsing through Lowcountry marshes, and tracking down plantation descendants, Fields-Black has left no pluff mud unturned in pursuing this dramatic story, weaving together the lives of her central ""freedom seekers""-including her own third great grandfather-with those of Northern commanders and liberated Black Carolinians. * Peter H. Wood, Author of Black Majority: Race, Rice, and Rebellion in South Carolina, 1670-1740 * Fields-Black vividly recounts one of the most dramatic events of the Civil War era, revealing Harriet Tubman and her revolutionary glory in exciting, original ways. * Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh * Edda Fields-Black doesn't just bring fresh energy to Harriet Tubman's story but, from the shadow of memory, rescues a generation of people who throughout the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia, fought for their freedom, crafted a new cultural, political, and economic identities, and provided a model to the nation for a new birth of equality and justice following the Civil War. * Paul Gardullo, Supervisory Museum Curator and Director of the Center for the Study of Global Slavery, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture * Fields-Black's deep archival research on the participants in the raid transforms our understanding of the event. Tubman doesn't disappear, but now the stories of the other participants emerge. In so doing, they will actually reemphasize the heroism of Tubman herself, as an apotheosis of Black (and Black women's) resistance traditions. * Edward Baptist, Cornell University * There is a gripping and well-told story about Harriet Tubman and the Civil war at the center of COMBEE, but what stands are the details around the edges of the story, about the history and daily lives of enslaved and free people on the rice plantations. I came away from the book with a realer, thicker understanding of the lives of the people of Combee. * Walter Johnson, Harvard University *"

"Edda Fields-Black takes a legendary event and an iconic figure and with pathbreaking research and elegant prose gives us a striking, living, and breathing history of Black courage and freedom dreams at the dawn of emancipation. * Imani Perry, Author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, winner of the National Book Award * Thanks to her careful reading of Civil War-era documents and historical sources, some never before utilized, Edda L. Fields-Back gives eloquent voice to South Carolina's rice kingdom's enslaved men and women, including her own ancestors, and offers new insights into the experience of more prominent figures, most notably Harriet Tubman. COMBEE makes us think in new ways about the role of African Americans in the destruction of slavery, and the hopes, betrayals, and transformations that accompanied emancipation. * Eric Foner, Author of The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution * A riveting and original account of Harriet Tubman and the Combahee River Raid, COMBEE is an absolutely essential book-not just for understanding the distant past, but for offering context and insight into tragic events in our own times, and the shadow of racism that still looms over Charleston, Charlottesville, and the nation. * Tera W. Hunter, Edwards Professor of American History and Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University * Despite boatloads of Civil War books, no one has dug more deeply into the 1863 Combahee River Raid than Edda Fields-Black. COMBEE brings that daring event alive and establishes its important place in the broader narratives of Harriet Tubman's life and the war to end slavery. Poring over pension files, trapsing through Lowcountry marshes, and tracking down plantation descendants, Fields-Black has left no pluff mud unturned in pursuing this dramatic story, weaving together the lives of her central ""freedom seekers""-including her own third great grandfather-with those of Northern commanders and liberated Black Carolinians. * Peter H. Wood, Author of Black Majority: Race, Rice, and Rebellion in South Carolina, 1670-1740 * Fields-Black vividly recounts one of the most dramatic events of the Civil War era, revealing Harriet Tubman and her revolutionary glory in exciting, original ways. * Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh * Edda Fields-Black doesn't just bring fresh energy to Harriet Tubman's story but, from the shadow of memory, rescues a generation of people who throughout the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia, fought for their freedom, crafted a new cultural, political, and economic identities, and provided a model to the nation for a new birth of equality and justice following the Civil War. * Paul Gardullo, Supervisory Museum Curator and Director of the Center for the Study of Global Slavery, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture * Fields-Black's deep archival research on the participants in the raid transforms our understanding of the event. Tubman doesn't disappear, but now the stories of the other participants emerge. In so doing, they will actually reemphasize the heroism of Tubman herself, as an apotheosis of Black (and Black women's) resistance traditions. * Edward Baptist, Cornell University * There is a gripping and well-told story about Harriet Tubman and the Civil war at the center of COMBEE, but what stands are the details around the edges of the story, about the history and daily lives of enslaved and free people on the rice plantations. I came away from the book with a realer, thicker understanding of the lives of the people of Combee. * Walter Johnson, Harvard University * In COMBEE, Edda Fields-Black gives an underappreciated episode in the history of Harriet Tubman, the Black freedom struggle, and the Civil War the careful and care-full treatment it deserves. More than that, this book brings to light whole worlds contained within a grain of time, lifting up the names and stories of freedom seekers whose voices still resonate powerfully today. * W. Caleb McDaniel, Author of Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America, winner of the Pulitzer Prize * Sprawling and kaleidoscopic, this is a marvel of deep research. * Starred review, Publishers Weekly * Through herculean research and cross-referencing of land, bank, U.S. Army pension and slavery transaction records, Fields-Black is able to name names and offer readers a sense of who these people were and what their lives were like. Combee holds many additional revelatory threads and insights, but this act of resurrection alone makes the book profoundly important. * The BookPage * A scholarly and remarkable work about enslavement and Civil War...Readers will gain a deeper understanding of that era's times and experiences, and Fields Black's connection to one of the participants makes it a personal work as well. * Starred review, Library Journal * With an extensive cast of characters, dramatic action, and findings of great significance, Combee is an exceptional work of American history. * Starred review, Booklist and named Top 10 History Books of 2024 * These stories, these places, these events of Combahee are legendary. But these stories are not legends, and these actions of Harriet Tubman and her fellow freedom fighters are not mythology - these are the true accountings of heroism, determination, and unparalleled commitment to freedom. This book demands that you feel the chills of muddy water; burn with the anger of suffered indignity; and immerse yourself in the adrenaline and courage of some of the bravest people our nation has ever known. In a time when truth seems malleable, books like COMBEE and historians like Dr. Edda Fields-Black are essential to preserving and propelling stories like this into the consciousness of the world. The story of Combahee River Raid is one of the greatest American history stories of all time- and we should all know it. * Dr.Tonya M. Matthews, President and CEO, International African American Museum * In her groundbreaking book... Edda Fields-Black tells the rousing story of the Union army's Combahee river raid, which led to the liberation of hundreds of enslaved African-Americans in 1863. Skillfully using pension files and planter records, Ms. Fields-Black...recovers the lives of 'the Combahee freedom seekers through multiple sets of transactions' -records of slave sales, Confederate compensation affidavits and land purchases. * Wall Street Journal * Remarkable new history... * The New Republic * Fields-Black's deep research and breathtaking prose bring to life the 'nameless and faceless enslaved people' who, no less courageous than Harriet Tubman herself, participated in the Combahee River Raid, their heroic actions creating what Fields-Black identifies as 'a small fissure' in the wall around the institution of slavery. * Boston Globe * Combee is a transcendent, once-in-a-generation historical exploration of a world mostly veiled in the river damp that rises from the lower Combahee - the long submerged rice plantations of the South Carolina Lowcountry. It tells the story of backbreaking toil under a relentless summer sun; of personal courage and fortitude by numberless, heretofore nameless enslaved men, women, and children. Read closely and one can almost hear the sound of three Yankee gunboats chugging through a humid June dawn carrying 300 Black men outfitted in blue tunics, shiny brass buttons, toting muskets with gleaming steel bayonets, led by an indefatigable Black woman known as ""Moses."" * Civil War Monitor * Edda Fields-Black has created a monumental work...COMBEE is a ring-shout of a book. * Pittsburgh Post Gazette *"

Author Information

"Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black teaches history at Carnegie Mellon University and has written extensively about the history of West African rice farmers, including in such works as Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora. She was a co-editor of Rice: Global Networks and New Histories, which was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. Fields-Black has served as a consultant for the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture's permanent exhibit, ""Rice Fields of the Lowcountry."" She is the executive producer and librettist of ""Unburied, Unmourned, Unmarked: Requiem for Rice,"" a widely performed original contemporary classical work by celebrated composer John Wineglass. Fields-Black is a descendent of Africans enslaved on rice plantations in Colleton County, South Carolina; her great-great-great grandfather fought in the Combahee River Raid in June 1863. Her determination to illuminate the riches of the Gullah dialect, and to reclaim Gullah Geechee history and culture, has taken her to the rice fields of South Carolina and Georgia to those of Sierra Leone and Republic of Guinea in West Africa."

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions