A Weary Land: Slavery on the Ground in Arkansas by Kelly Houston Jones

Abstract

Reviewed by: A Weary Land: Slavery on the Ground in Arkansas by Kelly Houston Jones Christian Pinnen (bio) A Weary Land: Slavery on the Ground in Arkansas. By Kelly Houston Jones. ( Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2021. Pp. 268. Cloth, $59.95; paper, $39.95.) Kelly Houston Jones's A Weary Land is a recent entry in the rich history of American bondage, but it inserts some important details into the national story of slavery. Through Jones's eyes, the settlement history of Arkansas in the antebellum period is reinterpreted as a time in which enslaved people were "developing a sense of place in their search for rootedness" (2). While Jones focuses her story on the landscapes of bondage, she reveals the multiplicities that were endemic to borderlands slavery. More important, she shows that "African American Arkansans defined freedom as the ability to control their movement and use of space and the ability to own land and modify it for themselves" (6). Appropriately grounding the experience of the enslaved in the land they were forced to work, she shows the reader the world of slavery truly from the ground up, which promises new analytical solutions for frequently posed questions. Jones puts the history of Arkansas through the paces of a very skilled historian with an eye to the power of slavery on a developing state and landscape. When viewed through this lens, a story emerges that demonstrates how enslaved people made calculated use of space in the attempt to resist their [End Page 107] enslavers. African Americans could not be alienated from the landscape by slave owners, no matter what white people thought or tried. In six chapters, the author paints a picture of Arkansas history that is defined by the state's roots in slavery and westward expansion. Vivid chapter titles refer to regions of—or events on—Arkansas ground and make clear the importance of Jones's connection between human bondage and geography. Chapter 1, aptly entitled "The Morass," uncovers the settlement period of Anglo-American arrivals and their enslaved African American workers. Jones succinctly argues that "slavery is not simply a part of Arkansas's history but a fundamental principle guiding Arkansas's organization as a territory and then a state—a shaping force in … becoming a place" (16). While Arkansas grew as a cotton-producing and slavelabor-absorbing region, the enslaved remained in a position where they were at once forced to do the enslavers' biddings to shape the land in order to generate profit, but also able to move with some freedom. The sparsely settled areas of Arkansas gave both the local African American population and the people of African descent in neighboring states—enslaved and free—ample opportunity to disappear. Sometimes they left for a few days; occasionally, they tried to liberate themselves permanently. Throughout the book, space and place take on important meanings for the enslaved. Jones deftly identifies the ability of the enslaved to bring their own meanings to the landscapes they remade for the profit of others. In her words, the enslaved labored "to master space in order to master self" (34), finding meaning in their forced labor that remained hidden from their enslavers and staking secret claims to land out of view of their captors. As the author explores these facets of landscape more closely, she also analyzes gender, community formation in neighborhoods and churches, commingling of enslaved and poor whites, as well as free people of color, during Arkansas's formative decades as a slave state. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 are a deep dive into the story of slavery in Arkansas, focusing on the various and uneven developments in multiple regions of the state. Jones points out again and again that slavery's development in the state is rooted in the location. The Red River valley, for example, differs from the towns along the Mississippi. Depending on soil, access to transportation, and strategic location, the lives of the enslaved could look quite different. Jones shows, for example, how urban spaces could offer some comforts, such as church communities, but were unable to protect freedom seekers from discovery. One of the many stimulating discussions in the book stems from...