In recounting the lives of freed slaves who immigrated from Kentucky to Liberia decades before emancipation, Lindsey breathes life into a poignant, provocative, and largely forgotten tale. Beautifully written and meticulously researched, Liberty Brought Us Here is both a significant contribution to the historical record and a pleasure to read.
Lindsey has ambitiously and carefully told the other side of Liberia's story: the connection or disconnection of Americo-Liberians to America, their hope of finding a truly free and peaceful land, the contradictions of Liberia's history as the unwanted 'uncolonized colony,' and Americo-Liberians' struggle to be liberated while perpetuating the same slave culture that had kept them in bondage in America for centuries. An urgently necessary book that should be on the shelf in every library.
At a time when Liberia is seeking to redefine itself in the aftermath of civil war, Lindsey takes us back to America's overwhelming role in the founding of the Liberian state, weaving together the stories of two migrations of people searching for better lives: black Kentuckians to Liberia, and white, formerly slaveholding Kentuckians to frontier Illinois.
An inherently engaging and impressively informative study, Liberty Brought Us Here: The True Story of American Slaves Who Migrated to Liberia is a seminal work of meticulous scholarship. Expertly written, organized and presented, Liberty Brought Us Here: The True Story of American Slaves Who Migrated to Liberia is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended addition to community and academic library Black Studies collections and supplemental curriculum lists.
Lindsey has done an outstanding job of weaving together rich, original sources with archival research in multiple relevant document repositories. Relying on germane scholarly writings covering the American Colonization Society's early settlements, Lindsey deftly and authentically fills gaps in the original documents and other scholarly publications. A good read about a Liberian settler family's struggles in the mid-nineteenth century.
Based on extensive archival research, Liberty Brought Us Here is an engaging, nuanced, and imaginative work that merits a prominent place in the scholarship on the American Colonization Society and Liberia.
"Based on extensive archival research, Liberty Brought Us Here is an engaging, nuanced, and imaginative work that merits a prominent place in the scholarship on the American Colonization Society and Liberia." — Eric Burin, editor of Protesting on Bended Knee: Race, Dissent, and Patriotism in Twenty-First-Century America
"Lindsey has ambitiously and carefully told the other side of Liberia's story: the connection or disconnection of Americo-Liberians to America, their hope of finding a truly free and peaceful land, the contradictions of Liberia's history as the unwanted 'uncolonized colony,' and Americo-Liberians' struggle to be liberated while perpetuating the same slave culture that had kept them in bondage in America for centuries. An urgently necessary book that should be on the shelf in every library." — Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, author of Praise Song for My Children: New and Selected Poems
"At a time when Liberia is seeking to redefine itself in the aftermath of civil war, Lindsey takes us back to America's overwhelming role in the founding of the Liberian state, weaving together the stories of two migrations of people searching for better lives: black Kentuckians to Liberia, and white, formerly slaveholding Kentuckians to frontier Illinois." — D. Elwood Dunn, author of Liberia and the United States during the Cold War: Limits of Reciprocity
"Lindsey has done an outstanding job of weaving together rich, original sources with archival research in multiple relevant document repositories. Relying on germane scholarly writings covering the American Colonization Society's early settlements, Lindsey deftly and authentically fills gaps in the original documents and other scholarly publications. A good read about a Liberian settler family's struggles in the mid-nineteenth century." — Verlon Stone, former special advisor, Indiana University Liberian Collections
