A poignant, multi-generational saga of a mixed-race family in the US West and South from the antebellum period through the rise of Jim Crow. When Samuel Townsend died at his home in Madison County, Alabama, in November 1856, the fifty-two-year-old white planter left behind hundreds of slaves, thousands of acres of rich cotton land, and a net worth of approximately $200,000. In life, Samuel had done little to distinguish himself from other members of the South's elite slaveholding class. But he made a name for himself in death by leaving almost the entirety of his fortune to his five sons, four daughters, and two nieces: all of them his slaves. In this deeply researched, movingly narrated portrait of the extended Townsend family, R. Isabela Morales reconstructs the migration of this mixed-race family across the American West and South over the second half of the nineteenth century. Searching for communities where they could exercise their newfound freedom and wealth to the fullest, members of the family homesteaded and attended college in Ohio and Kansas; fought for the Union Army in Mississippi; mined for silver in the Colorado Rockies; and, in the case of one son, returned to Alabama to purchase part of the old plantation where he had once been held as a slave. In Morales's telling, the Townsends' story maps a new landscape of opportunity and oppression, where the meanings of race and freedom--as well as opportunities for social and economic mobility--were dictated by highly local circumstances. During the turbulent period between the Civil War and the rise of Jim Crow at the turn of the twentieth century, the Townsends carved out spaces where they were able to benefit from their money and mixed-race ancestry, pass down generational wealth, and realize some of their happy dreams of liberty.

About the Author
R. Isabela Morales is the Editor and Project Manager of the Princeton & Slavery Project and the Education and Exhibit Manager at the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum. She received her PhD in history from Princeton University.

Reviews
While there are a number of books that feature families of mixed African and European descent in the United States, Happy Dreams of Liberty is an invaluable addition that uncovers both the advantages and hardships that one family experienced in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Historian R. Isabela Morales tells a captivating story.... A highlight of this book features the voices of the mixed-heritage Townsends through their surviving letters. * A. B. Wilkinson, Western Historical Quarterly *
Happy Dreams of Liberty is an extraordinary family saga and a profound exploration of the shifting contours of slave and free, Black and white. From an Alabama plantation across the Kansas prairies to the mining boomtowns of Colorado, the Townsends' quest for freedom, equality, and belonging in the decades surrounding the Civil War is an unforgettable odyssey, driven by possibility and haunted by dreams deferred. Isabela Morales brilliantly projects an intimate story onto the vast canvas of the American experience. * Daniel J. Sharfstein, author of The Invisible Line: A Secret History of Race in America *
Morales's engrossing family history is the product of old-fashioned archival research, cutting-edge analysis, and brilliant writing. With empathy and imagination, she recreates the lives of a remarkable group of men and women, born into slavery, freed in one enslaver's will. We see and feel their dreams of freedom and opportunity along with their lifelong efforts to achieve them. It's a peculiarly American story. It's anything but black and white. * James Goodman, author of Stories of Scottsboro *
In Happy Dreams of Liberty, R. Isabela Morales skillfully peels back the multilayered narrative of the Townsends-a mixed-race family from Alabama in the late nineteenth century-for all the world to see. This is much more than a fascinating piece of history found buried deep in the archives. The Townsends' complex story of inheritance and the struggle for freedom in post-Civil War America remains relevant today as we confront the continuing legacy of the institution of slavery, the persistence of racism, and the ways that we as a society choose to memorialize the past. * W. Ralph Eubanks, author of The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South *
Captivating...While an intimate history of one family, Happy Dreams of Liberty is an important piece of scholarly work, rich in its expansiveness. A born storyteller, Morales gifts us with a captivating and multilayered history of a formerly enslaved family seeking equality. The significance of Happy Dreams of Liberty lies in Morales' recovery of a family story which might have otherwise been lost to white supremacist dominant sites of history...Morales reclaims their voices, and their stories. * Katherine Burns, Slavery & Abolition *
Captivating and thoroughly researched, this poignant multigenerational saga gives a voice to a type of family that been traditionally absent from the historical narrative. * Anne Ulentin, Journal of Southern History. *


Awards
Winner of Winner, 2024 James F. Sulzby, Jr. Award, Alabama Historical Association Finalist, Harriet Tubman Book Prize, Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.



Book Information
ISBN 9780197786574
Author R. Isabela Morales
Format Paperback
Page Count 336
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 476g
Dimensions(mm) 226mm * 150mm * 25mm