Alice L Baumgartner, "South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War" (Basic Books, 2020)

New Books in African American Studies · Oct 21, 2021 · 1h 10m

For some enslaved Americans, the path to freedom led not north, but south, argues Dr. Alice Baumgardner, an assistant professor of history at the University of Southern California. In South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War (Basic Books, 2020), Baumgartner reveals an untold story of enslaved African Americans finding redemption from slavery in Mexico, which had abolished slavery in many of its territories decades before the American Civil War. Indeed, it was concern by Texas slaveholders that their human property may have been threatened that led them to…