1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910781553003321

Autore

Armstead Myra Beth Young <1954->

Titolo

Freedom's gardener [[electronic resource] ] : James F. Brown, horticulture, and the Hudson Valley in antebellum America / / Myra B. Young Armstead

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : New York University Press, c2012

ISBN

0-8147-0792-0

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (220 p.)

Disciplina

635.092

B

Soggetti

African Americans - Social conditions - Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.) - 19th century

Free black people - Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.)

Gardeners - Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.)

Fugitive slaves - Maryland

Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.) History 19th century

Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.) Biography

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

pt. 1. Life as a slave -- pt. 2. Free man and free laborer -- pt. 3. Free man and citizen.

Sommario/riassunto

A fascinating study of freedom and slavery, told through the life of an escaped slave who built a life in the Hudson ValleyIn 1793 James F. Brown was born a slave, and in 1868 he died a free man. At age 34 he ran away from his native Maryland to pass the remainder of his life as a gardener to a wealthy family in the Hudson Valley. Two years after his escape and manumission, he began a diary which he kept until his death. In Freedom’s Gardener, Myra B. Young Armstead uses the apparently small and domestic details of Brown’s diaries to construct a bigger story about the transition from slavery to freedom.In this first detailed historical study of Brown’s diaries, Armstead utilizes Brown’s life to illuminate the concept of freedom as it developed in the United States in the early national and antebellum years. That Brown, an African American and former slave, serves as such a case study



underscores the potential of American citizenship during his lifetime.