Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in African American Studies
Episode: R. Isabela Morales, "Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Description: 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 Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom (Oxford UP...