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Cargando... Borderland Blacks: Two Cities in the Niagara Region during the Final Decades of Slaverypor dann j. Broyld
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"In the early nineteenth century, Rochester, New York, and St. Catharines, Canada West, were the last stops on the Niagara branch of the Underground Railroad. Both cities handled substantial fugitive slave traffic and were logical destinations for the settlement of runaways because of their progressive stance on social issues including abolition of slavery, women's rights, and temperance. Moreover, these urban centers were home to sizable free Black communities as well as an array of individuals engaged in the abolitionist movement, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Anthony Burns, and Hiram Wilson. dann j. Broyld's Borderland Blacks explores the status and struggles of transient Blacks within this dynamic zone, where the cultures and interests of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and the African diaspora overlapped. Blacks in the two cities shared newspapers, annual celebrations, religious organizations, and kinship and friendship ties. Too often, historians have focused on the one-way flow of fugitives on the Underground Railroad from America to Canada when in fact the situation on the ground was far more fluid, involving two-way movement and social collaborations. Black residents possessed transnational identities and strategically positioned themselves near the American-Canadian border where immigration and interaction occurred. Borderland Blacks reveals that physical separation via formalized national barriers did not sever concepts of psychological memory or restrict social ties. Broyld investigates how the times and terms of emancipation affected Blacks on each side of the border, including their use of political agency to pit the United States and British Canada against one another for the best possible outcomes."-- No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)305.800971338Social sciences Social Sciences; Sociology and anthropology Groups of people Ethnic and national groups ; racism, multiculturalism General Biography And History North America CanadaClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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Broyld continues, “Because Blacks had limited access to conventional political means, they were forced to maneuver between the power structures of the United States and Canada in order to create spaces for their own agendas” (pg. 26). Of Rochester, NY, Broyld writes, “Rochester maintained traits unique to borderland places, including the fact that federal law could be blurred or simply not enforced at all. Its proximity to British soil clearly provided power and options” (pg. 50). Rochester was close enough to Canada, both by land and by water, that Black residents could easily relocate if necessary, but not as close as Buffalo or Niagara Falls, NY, which attracted greater attention from slavecatchers. Of St. Catharines, Canada West, Broyld argues that the Black community maintained connections with their American neighbors while having greater legal rights under British law. They also formed a flourishing community with connections to the local white community, including some interracial relationships (pg. 111). Black residents could vote (pg. 131) and, when they faced racist violence, found recourse in the courts (pg. 112, 132). Broyld concludes, “The Niagara region acted as a hybrid-gathering place for fugitives and a negotiating chip between American and British Canadian authorities. By challenging the notions of statehood, Blacks exposed the gap between border control rhetoric of complete sovereignty and the day-to-day reality of actual movement in the borderlands” (pg. 141). Further, “The lack of legal freedoms and political rights drove Blacks to Canada, but political change, opportunity, and family pulled them back to the United States, creating the flow and counterflow at the border” (pg. 145).
Broyld’s study ably demonstrates the power of borderlands theory, expanding upon Eric Foner’s 2015 book, Gateway to Freedom, to examine the terminus of the Underground Railroad. Further, his study of the borderlands draws upon theoretical models developed by Michiel Baud and Willem van Schendel as well as Pekka Hämäläinen. Broyld does for the American-Canadian border what Elliot Young did for the American-Mexican border in his 2014 work, Alien Nation, and what Sasha D. Pack did for the Strait of Gibraltar in his 2019 book, The Deepest Border. Canada, often treated as a terminus in histories of slavery in America, instead becomes an active participant firmly connected to the story of freedom. This work is a must-read for those studying the history of abolition, the Underground Railroad, and transnationalism in early U.S. history. ( )