The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America's Forgotten Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Equality

by Anna-Lisa Cox

Overview

The long-hidden stories of America's black pioneers, the frontier they settled, and their fight for the heart of the nation

When black settlers Keziah and Charles Grier started clearing their frontier land in 1818, they couldn't know that they were part of the nation's earliest struggle for equality; they were just looking to build a better life. But within a few years, the Griers would become early Underground Railroad conductors, joining with fellow pioneers and other allies to confront the growing tyranny of bondage and injustice.

The Bone and Sinew of the Land tells the Griers' story and the stories of many others like them: the lost history of the nation's first Great Migration. In building hundreds of settlements on the frontier, these black pioneers were making a stand for equality and freedom. Their new home, the Northwest Territory — the wild region that would become present-day Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin — was the first territory to ban slavery and have equal voting rights for all men. Though forgotten today, in their own time the successes of these pioneers made them the targets of racist backlash. Political and even armed battles soon ensued, tearing apart families and communities long before the Civil War. This groundbreaking work of research reveals America's forgotten frontier, where these settlers were inspired by the belief that all men are created equal and a brighter future was possible.

Named one of Smithsonian's Best History Books of 2018

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610398107
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	06/12/2018
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	145,275
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Anna-Lisa Cox is the author of A Stronger Kinship: One Town's Extraordinary Story of Hope and Faith, and an award-winning historian. Currently a fellow at Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, she also recently helped create two historical exhibits based on her original research at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, including one on black pioneers.

Table of Contents

Map viii

African American Farming Settlements in the Northwest Territory States, 1800-1860 xi

Author's Note xvii

Introduction 1

1 "Life, Liberty" 7

2 Interlude: "We hold these truths to be self-evident" 21

3 "The pursuit of Happiness" 41

4 "And secure the blessings of Liberty" 61

5 "To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" 77

6 "Burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people" 99

7 "The right of the people peaceably to assemble" 133

8 "For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments" 155

9 "A history of repeated injuries and usurpations" 179

Conclusion: "All men are created equal" 203

Notes 211

Index 263

Editorial Reviews

04/09/2018
In this engrossing narrative, historian Cox (A Stronger Kinship: One Town’s Extraordinary Story of Hope and Faith) restores attention to the role of African-Americans in shaping both the frontier and early- to mid-19th-century American political life. Tracing the paths of black settlers to the Northwest Territory—what became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin—Cox demonstrates how the growth of African-American populations in western cities and farmlands forced national questions about equality, citizenship, and the future of slavery. The frontier was a contested zone: although the territory was ostensibly slavery-free and granted voting rights to black male property holders, loopholes allowed pro-slavery Americans to ignore the law in pursuit of wealth and political power. Yet despite facing enormous prejudice, black pioneers fought for their rights and grew businesses, founded schools, built churches, and reorganized politics. Cox anchors her historical claims with portraits of black families living in settings ranging from rural Indiana to Detroit. Although her efforts to imagine settlers’ emotions and everyday lives, based more on speculation than archival evidence, may not be up to snuff for historians, they’ll enchant general readers. Cox’s book tells a story worth recovering, and it will interest anyone wanting to learn more about the lives of free black Americans before the Civil War. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Tracing the free black families who settled the nation's first frontier, the great Northwest Territory, Anna-Lisa Cox convincingly shows that African American history has always been interwoven with the pioneer experience in America. At the same time, she reveals the blurred, often dangerous lines between freedom and bondage even in the territories that the Founding Fathers established from the beginning to be beyond the reach of America's original sin: slavery. In introducing us to the Grier and Lyle families, among others for whom land was the dream, Cox uncovers a rich history that may surprise even those most devoted to the study of African American history. The Bone and Sinew of the Land is a revelation of primary historical research that is written with the beauty and empathic powers of a novel."—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University


"The journey of America's Black pioneers is a story that remains unknown to Americans like the frontiers they settled. Starting in the earliest days of the republic, these brave men and women built new lives far away from the White enslavers who doubted them, threatened them, and attacked them. This groundbreaking work of research is a beautifully written testament to their bold courage, to their trailblazing strength."—Ibram X. Kendi, New York Times bestselling authorof Stamped from the Beginning


"Through ingenious research and a generous sensibility, Anna-Lisa Cox captures the hidden stories of African American farmers who fought for equality and justice against virulent white supremacy. Her heartfelt, lyrical narrative brings the bones and sinews of black frontier families back to life, showing how their idealistic struggles helped to shape the Midwest, and the nation."—Peter H. Wood, author of Black Majority and Strange New Land

"The Bone and Sinew of the Land unearths and shines a light on a crucial but untold African American and American history that parallels and complicates the well-known story of the Underground Railroad. Cox convincingly reframes the symbolic importance of American pioneers by proving how free black families and communities were shaping their own destinies in America's first frontier of the nineteenth century. Free black people were creating and framing their own destinies across a wide geography through a deep connection to land ownership and politics. This work will not only influence scholarship. It should also deeply shape public history and public conversations from local historic houses to sites to national institutions."—Paul Gardullo, curator, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History andCulture


"In this engrossing narrative, historian Cox restores attention to the role of African-Americans in shaping both the frontier and early- to mid-19th-century American political life... Cox's book tells a story worth recovering, and it will interest anyone wanting to learn more about the lives of free black Americans before the Civil War."—Publishers Weekly


"Recent scholarship on the history of slavery, white supremacy, and domestic terrorism has expanded well beyond the bounds of the
South, and Cox has made an excellent contribution with her latest book... A
must-read for gaining a deeper understanding of the history of racism in the
Midwest, particularly present-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and
Wisconsin."—Library Journal

"Cox provides a moving and necessary corrective to American pioneer history." —Booklist

"The Bone and Sinew of the Land explores how black settlers, many of them slaves who had bought their freedom, settled in what is now the Midwest and established thriving farm communities that were threatened by violence and injustice."—Columbus Dispatch

"Today, evidence of the pioneering African-American presence exists only here and there in place names, still-functioning churches and local lore. The Bone and Sinew of the Land takes a step toward remembering it."—BookPage

"The Bone and Sinew of the Landis a valuable contribution toward understanding the complex history of race in America."—Shepherd Express

From the Publisher

2018-04-03
Antebellum black communities in the upper Midwest emerge from the mists of history.By 1860, more than 63,000 African-Americans were living in the five states carved out of the old Northwest Territory, mostly in small farming communities. Many had moved there from the South and East during the territorial period seeking good land and the considerable freedoms guaranteed by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. As the states from Ohio to Wisconsin were established, the black pioneers' legal status deteriorated as these "free" states stripped them of one legal right after another. While many of them prospered financially, their success proved both a rebuke to the notion that blacks were inherently incapable of thriving on their own and a temptation to their rapacious white neighbors. Greed, racial hatred, and the effects of the fugitive slave laws too often combined to produce incidents of harrowing violence. Cox (A Stronger Kinship: One Town's Extraordinary Story of Hope and Faith, 2006, etc.), a fellow at Harvard's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, sets out to illuminate the experience of this community, the very existence of which has been generally overlooked or denied. Extensive endnotes attest to the thorough and diligent scholarship underlying her account. Along the way, however, the author appears to have been captivated by the stories of some of the families whose circumstances illustrate her thesis. She imagines their daily lives in detail—the rooster crowing as they pause in morning chores to admire the sunrise—and muses on what they may have been thinking or discussing; indeed, Cox often indulges in guesses about what her subjects could have done, might have thought, and must have known. The account thus often teeters on the edge of historical fiction. The prose style is more suitable for young adult readers than for scholars, and the author sometimes lapses into overwrought, florid passages.A scholarly study with a young adult novel trapped inside and struggling to escape.

Kirkus Reviews

05/15/2018
Recent scholarship on the history of slavery, white supremacy, and domestic terrorism has expanded well beyond the bounds of the South, and Cox has made an excellent contribution with her latest book (after A Stronger Kinship). Here, the author addresses the old Northwest Territory or upper Midwest, one of the first areas of the country considered to be a frontier and settled by (ideally white) pioneers. This region was perceived to be a new promise of freedom after the American Revolution, but tensions became hostile after free blacks began to establish successful farms and businesses. The white backlash against them was horrific, and Cox uncovers both the legislative steps taken to undermine equality as well as the physical violence and terror whites in these new states inflicted on both free blacks and runaway slaves. The focus on some of these black pioneering families, including the Griers and Lyles of Indiana, drives the narrative with rich details about their struggles and triumphs. VERDICT A must-read for gaining a deeper understanding of the history of racism in the Midwest, particularly present-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.—Kate Stewart, Arizona Historical Soc., Tuscon

Library Journal

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