Slave Who Research Articles

The Slave Who Was Ἔντιμος: Translation and Characterization in Luke 7.2

The Gospel of Luke (7.1-10; par. Matt 8.5-13) relates a tale wherein Jesus heals a military officer’s slave at a distance. The slave remains in the background throughout the pericope, never speaking, much less appearing at all. Luke offers little information about this slave aside from his illness and the fact that he was ἔντιμος to the centurion (7.2). This word ἔντιμος has generally been construed as denoting the slave’s emotional or personal value to the centurion, most commonly as “dear.” This article argues that there is little lexical support for such a rendering. I will attempt to address the lacuna around the word ἔντιμος and its rendering in English translations, attending especially to epigraphic evidence for the term’s use. In short, I will argue that rather than denoting emotional importance, the term ἔντιμος designates the respect for the slave within the centurion’s household.

The Black Avenger in Atlantic Culture by Grégory Pierrot, and: The Life and Legend of Bras-Coupé: The Fugitive Slave Who Fought the Law, Ruled the Swamp, Danced at Congo Square, Invented Jazz, and Died for Love by Bryan Wagner

Reviewed by: The Black Avenger in Atlantic Culture by Grégory Pierrot, and: The Life and Legend of Bras-Coupé: The Fugitive Slave Who Fought the Law, Ruled the Swamp, Danced at Congo Square, Invented Jazz, and Died for Love by Bryan Wagner Tynes Cowan Grégory Pierrot. The Black Avenger in Atlantic Culture. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2019. 274 pp. $32.95. Bryan Wagner. The Life and Legend of Bras-Coupé: The Fugitive Slave Who Fought the Law, Ruled the Swamp, Danced at Congo Square, Invented Jazz, and Died for Love. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2019. 272 pp. $39.95. When the runaway slave named Squire (known in legend as "Bras-Coupé") was killed in 1837 after years of marronage in the swamps surrounding New Orleans, the city authorities ordered that his body be dismembered and displayed in the Place d'Armes as a warning to the Black population. There his body remained for days, giving those enslaved and free people of color time to witness the scene—whether led there by curiosity or coercion. Not unlike the insurrectionaries of 1811 whose heads were placed on pikes for all in New Orleans to see, Squire's body provided an official response to the threat of African American autonomy. Perhaps with the Nat Turner insurrection fresh in mind, the authorities found ample reason to make an example of Squire. For white authorities, the public display was intended as an explicit threat to any who might consider running away, living in the swamps, or plundering plantations. The display was also intended to transform the legendary Bras-Coupé back into the runaway Squire: to conclude his story and control the narrative. The threat of a Black hero, free in the wilderness, to inspire and potentially to lead an insurrection would have been more dangerous to white authorities than the potential depredations he might commit against property. The narrative power of Bras-Coupé and other Black avengers is the subject of these two books: The Black Avenger in Atlantic Culture by Grégory Pierrot and The Life and Legend of Bras-Coupé by Bryan Wagner. Pierrot frames his study with recent cinematic representations of the Black avenger trope. His Introduction claims Django, Jamie Foxx's character in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012), as a direct descendant of other Black avengers in the Atlantic tradition: "the extraordinary black leader who would lead his fellow enslaved to deliver righteous retribution on their white oppressors" (9). He concludes his book musing about Ryan Coogler's Black Panther (2018), with Prince T'Challa's cousin, Erik "Killmonger" Stevens, inheriting the role of Black avenger. Between these contemporary references, Pierrot examines several characters, from the Renaissance to the Progressive Era, who exemplify the trope. Reaching back to ancient Rome for founding myths, Pierrot argues that Black avenger narratives have been used historically not only to critique slavery but to reinforce the borders of national identity. Beginning with the prototypical rebel slave (Spartacus) and the catalyzing agent for political action (Lucretia), the various examples in the book are understood as reenactments or inversions of these "original patterns," whether the fictional creations of Martin Delany and Sutton Griggs, or the real Haitian revolutionary Toussaint L'Ouverture. The royal slave of Aphra Behn's Oroonoko (1688), for example, embodies the exceptional qualities of the Black avenger—the status and pedigree necessary to enact revenge—with which Behn's audience would find sympathy. Oroonoko's own failure dooms his fellow enslaved who are incapable of enacting vengeance themselves, and threats posed by the Black avenger are safely (though brutally) exorcised by the narrative. In the end, the Black avenger trope has [End Page 255] "contributed to deny, stifle, and obfuscate the portrayal of Black collective agency and its very reality" (14). As such, the Black avenger is a sacrificial figure, dying on the altar—and for the benefit—of white identity. Bras-Coupé, the subject of Bryan Wagner's book, is a particular incarnation of the Black avenger not mentioned by Pierrot. Bras-Coupé's legend extends far beyond the basic facts of Squire's outlawry, as reflected in Wagner's subtitle: "The Fugitive Slave Who Fought the Law...

Esteban: The African Slave Who Explored America by Dennis Herrick

Reviewed by: Esteban: The African Slave Who Explored America by Dennis Herrick Andrew Husa Esteban: The African Slave Who Explored America. Dennis Herrick. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018. Pp. 304, black & white maps, illustrations. $39.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8263-5981-0. Esteban: The African Slave Who Explored America is a fascinating biography of one of history's most extraordinary and underappreciated explorers. Author Dennis Herrick goes to great lengths to accurately portray Esteban, who is practically nonexistent in American history [End Page 246] literature despite being the first person from the Old World to travel across the North American continent and the first to enter the modernday American Southwest in the sixteenth century. Due to his status as a Spanish slave, Esteban's feats have largely been downplayed or even completely ignored by historians and writers. Herrick writes Esteban back into the historical record, righting Esteban's reputation and helping secure his rightful place in American history. The book begins by introducing the myths and mysteries that surround Esteban while offering the audience the most likely truths. This includes an unprecedented detailed account of Esteban's life, including his early years in Morocco before becoming enslaved by the Spanish and his trip across the Atlantic Ocean with his owner, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, to the island of Hispaniola in 1527. Before Esteban arrives at Hispaniola, Herrick provides context by explaining the conquest mentality of the Spanish as their reasoning for invading the islands and surrounding lands of the Caribbean Sea in the sixteenth century. This context proves to be an excellent introduction to the planning and undertaking of the infamous Narváez expedition, and how Esteban found himself on a boat headed for Florida. While it is well known that Esteban and the rest of the Spanish were headed toward disaster in Florida, Herrick gives readers plenty of insight into why the expedition was doomed to fail from the beginning. After wandering around Florida's Gulf Coast for several miles and weeks, starving for gold and for food, the feeble Spanish were no match for the tribes of native Florida. Herrick provides an exciting tale of escape that keeps the reader turning the pages as Esteban, his owner, and two other Spaniards flee into the Gulf in a small boat, stranding themselves at sea for weeks before finally making landfall near present-day Galveston, Texas. Esteban's story continues with the natives of southern Texas and northern Mexico enslaving the group of four. This is a fascinating chapter describing how the three Spaniards suffered mightily while enslaved, while Esteban coped much better, having already experienced life as a slave. This experience, along with his ability to form strong relationships with their native captors, raised Esteban's rank to the leader of the group of four. Esteban's elevated status followed the group after they escaped their enslavement and made their way to the Spanish-controlled city of Tenochtitlan, where present-day Mexico City is located. [End Page 247] On reaching Tenochtitlan, Herrick does a brilliant job of capturing the fluidity of Esteban's status as he is once again reverted back to slavery. Fortunately, the reader sees Esteban get a second chance to experience freedom after being assigned to guide an expedition in search of the fabled Seven Cities of Gold. This expedition would result in Esteban becoming the first person from the Old World to enter the presentday southwestern United States, entering what would become Arizona and New Mexico. The search for the Seven Cities of Gold is not as well documented as the earlier failed Narváez expedition and escape from Florida, but Herrick does an outstanding job of working with multiple sources to create a solid timeline and entertaining narrative. While many historians and writers have concluded that Esteban's life came to an end during this expedition, Herrick offers a detailed explanation of the alternate possibility that Esteban may have staged his death to gain his freedom from the Spanish. Both possibilities are explored in great detail in the book's later chapters, leading into a fascinating discussion on how myth has often become fact concerning Esteban's life. Herrick argues...

Esteban: The African Slave Who Explored America by Dennis Herrick

Reviewed by: Esteban: The African Slave Who Explored America by Dennis Herrick Lola Orellano Norris Esteban: The African Slave Who Explored America. By Dennis Herrick. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018. Pp. 304. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) Known as Estevanico in most historical accounts, Esteban, the focus of Dennis Herrick’s biography, was a black African Moor who participated in two important expeditions to North America during the early sixteenth century. Herrick asserts that because Esteban was a black slave, his agency has been diminished, portrayed negatively, and all but erased. From 1528 to 1536, he was one of the four castaways who survived the disastrous Pánfilo de Narváez expedition to “La Florida” and took part in an extraordinary eight-year odyssey across the North American continent. In 1539, the viceroy ordered Esteban to guide Fray Marcos de Niza on a follow-up expedition in search of rumored wealthy cities to the north. Brother Marcos sent him several days ahead to reconnoiter and never saw him again. Periodically, Esteban sent back information with Mexican Indian scouts, but he pushed on and reached the pueblo of Hawikku in western New Mexico, where he disappeared from history, ostensibly killed by the Zuni. Esteban was almost certainly the first African to travel through lands that would become Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. Yet, according to Herrick, he is seldom given proper recognition for his accomplishments as an explorer. Only two city parks named after him in Arizona and a small bronze bust of his likeness in a community center in El Paso, Texas, celebrate his contributions to the history of the American Southwest. Herrick’s stated purpose in the book is to bring Esteban’s story “into the foreground” and challenge misconceptions and myths about him (1). This is not an easy task, given his marginal existence and the thin references to him in contemporaneous records. Esteban is mentioned by name or referred to by his skin color (“el negro”) in Spanish chronicles such as Cabeza de Vaca’s La relación (1542) and Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo’s Historia general y natural de las Indias (written around 1547, published in 1855), but his own voice is never heard. The references that do exist are often vague, and many assumptions are made about his likely origins in Morocco, his life as a slave in Spain, and his death in the Americas. Herrick discusses many of these conjectures and presents Native American oral history as well as recent research by Arab historians to paint a broader picture. For long stretches, however, Herrick retells the same story as Cabeza de Vaca and Fernández de Oviedo, but occasionally he reads between the lines and points out how Esteban might have participated in the events. Undisputed and duly emphasized are his linguistic aptitude, which allowed him to learn several indigenous languages, and his inter-cultural skills, all of which made him a vital member of Cabeza de Vaca’s [End Page 116] party. Herrick argues that the Moor was the principal intercessor between Spaniards and Natives and thus key in the castaways’ survival. Perhaps the most interesting contributions of Herrick’s book are an updated expedition route based on “Nugent Brasher’s on-the-ground research” (169) and the lengthy discussion on the African’s alleged demise. There are no eyewitness accounts of Esteban’s death, but according to the author, many assumptions have been made based on hearsay, fantasy, and lies. Herrick spends three chapters presenting various possible scenarios to dispel persistent myths, among them that the Zuni killed Esteban because he touched their women. While Herrick allows that the Zunis might have killed the Moor for other reasons, he also offers recent studies that hypothesize that Esteban might have faked his own death to escape slavery. The book does not present any new scholarship, but it coalesces a great deal of information and offers interesting insights. The bibliography is impressive, and the notes may prove useful for readers. Lola Orellano Norris Texas A&M International University Copyright © 2019 The Texas State Historical Association

Never Caught: The Story of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington’s Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

Reviewed by: Never Caught: The Story of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington’s Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away by Erica Armstrong Dunbar Elizabeth Bush Dunbar, Erica Armstrong Never Caught: The Story of Ona Judge, George and Martha Washington’s Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away; by Erica Armstrong Dunbar and Kathleen Van Cleve. Aladdin, 2019 [256p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-1-5344-1617-8 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-5344-1619-2 $10.99 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 5-9 In 1796, Ona Judge, personal attendant to her owner, First Lady Martha Washington, walked out the door of the President’s House in Philadelphia and onto a ship bound for New Hampshire and, if not to legal freedom, at least to a life of self-determination. Nobody was more surprised than the Washingtons, who believed themselves to be liberal-minded owners, suddenly ill-used (and mightily embarrassed) by their heretofore model “servant.” The only way to reclaim their property involved stretching fugitive slave recovery laws until they broke—certainly not something the president wanted to be caught doing—and so the Washingtons began a years-long campaign of covert extralegal negotiations with acquaintances and acquaintances-of-acquaintances to lure or force Judge back to Mount Vernon. In this young readers’ edition of her adult work Never Caught, Dunbar ably surmounts the challenge of building a gripping, coherent narrative from oblique references and interviews with elderly Ona Judge Staines, while steadily keeping the focus on Judge rather than her high-profile owners. Numerous “probably,” “might have,” and “could have”s pepper the text, reminding readers of the problem of precisely documenting a slave’s life, but they nonetheless direct attention to the unusual circumstances of Judge’s transplantation from rural Mount Vernon to cities with [End Page 204] free Black residents and talk of liberty, which certainly influenced her decision and opportunity to make a break. Prosperity was never to be part of Judge’s story, but readers will be heartened to learn she lived a long life in liberty and died in her own bed, “carried away, not by slave catchers, but by her God.” A bibliography and reproduction of Judge’s late-in-life interviews about her experiences are appended. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Esteban: The African Slave Who Explored America by Dennis Herrick

Esteban: The African Slave Who Explored America by Dennis Herrick

The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire

The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire

The Strange Career of William Ellis, the Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire by Karl Jacoby

The Strange Career of William Ellis, the Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire by Karl Jacoby

Brothers & Tricksters

Brothers & Tricksters Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie (bio) William L. Andrews and William S. McFeely, eds. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written By Himself. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2017. xi + 197 pp. Chronology and bibliography. $16.00. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Kevin M. Burke, eds. Twelve Years a Slave. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2017. xx + 410 pp. Chronology and bibliography. $12.50. Karl Jacoby. The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2016. xxviii + 304 pp. Notes, bibliography, illustration credits, and index. $27.95. By the mid-nineteenth century, the United States had become the largest slave empire in the world. Most of its expansion drew from the relocation of slaves from Upper to Lower South states together with enslaved women's reproduction. Some of this growth also derived from illegal kidnapping of free black citizens to meet the insatiable need for slave plantation labor. At the same time, hundreds, often thousands of slaves annually escaped slavery's heartland and headed for northern and western states, as well as across borders to British Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, and even Europe. With the abolition of slavery in antebellum northern states and nationally in 1865, people of African descent in the United States faced the challenge of becoming equal citizens in a society with a long history of slavery and racial inequality. In the American South, the hardening of racial categories, the suppression of the black male vote, and the closing of economic opportunities stiffened the challenge of equality in an era of freedom. Some consequences included the temporary popularization of colonization schemes abroad as well as the attainment of individual success across borders. The two autobiographies and one biography under review provide us with some compelling, as well as disturbing, insights into this fascinating nineteenth-century world of slavery, fugitives, kidnapping, racial inequality, and cross-border travel. In 1838, Frederick Douglass successfully escaped two decades of rural and urban bondage in Eastern Maryland. While enslaved, he was worked, punished, [End Page 230] and sold; but he also became literate, learned a trade (caulking), and embraced brotherhood. "I never loved any or confided in any people more than my fellow-slaves" (p. 59). The fugitive Douglass settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, with his new wife Anna Murray, daughter Rosetta (b. 1839) and son Lewis Henry (b. 1840). In 1841, his first major anti-slavery speech at Nantucket was warmly received. Boston abolitionist Wendell Phillips and Liberator editor William Lloyd Garrison encouraged Douglass to write his autobiography to which both men provided written endorsements. There is little information on Douglass's writing method as well as the actual production of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (NLFD). Published in 1845, it consisted of eleven chapters and an appendix. The windowpane prose starts with the opening sentence: "I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland" (p. 13). His motivation for writing is revealed in the appendix: he hoped this little book may throw "light on the American slave system," and hasten the "glad day of deliverance to the millions of my brethren in bonds" (p. 84). The NLFD was a hit. 4,500 copies sold by the fall 1845. A decade later, Douglass published a second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom which chronicled his years as abolitionist, journalist, and international traveler. His third life story Life and Times of Frederick Douglass chronicled his advocacy of the Union and US Colored Troops during the American Civil War, his years as a federal employee, and continued commitment toward the cause of American social reform. These two successors never achieved the notoriety of the NLFD, although even its allure apparently faded. It was not until the Civil Rights era that NFLD staged a comeback for younger generations, for whom struggles over slavery's past remained germane to contemporary struggles in modern America. In November 1841, nineteen rebels seized the US coastal slaver Creole while en route to New Orleans and gained their freedom in the Bahamas. Earlier that same year, two...

A Slave Who Would be King: Oral Tradition and Archaeology of the Recent Past in the Upper Senegal River Basin

A Slave Who Would be King: Oral Tradition and Archaeology of the Recent Past in the Upper Senegal River Basin

Introduction

Introduction| November 01 2017 Introduction: The Borderlands of Padre Kino Karl Jacoby Karl Jacoby Karl Jacoby is Professor of History and in the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University, specializing in environmental, borderlands, and Native American history. His books include The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire (2016), Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History (2009), and Crimes against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation (2001). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Southern California Quarterly (2017) 99 (4): 393–394. https://doi.org/10.1525/scq.2017.99.4.393 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Karl Jacoby; Introduction: The Borderlands of Padre Kino. Southern California Quarterly 1 November 2017; 99 (4): 393–394. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/scq.2017.99.4.393 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentSouthern California Quarterly Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2017 by The Historical Society of Southern California2017 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Review: The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire by Karl Jacoby

Review: The Strange Career of William Ellis: The Texas Slave Who Became a Mexican Millionaire by Karl Jacoby

Jeffrey H. Altschul, Ibrahima Thiaw and Gerald Wait: A Slave Who Would Be King: Oral Tradition and Archaeology of the Recent Past in the Upper Senegal River Basin

Jeffrey H. Altschul, Ibrahima Thiaw and Gerald Wait: A Slave Who Would Be King: Oral Tradition and Archaeology of the Recent Past in the Upper Senegal River Basin

Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend. By Ron J. Jackson Jr. and Lee Spencer White.

Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend . By Ron J. Jackson Jr. and Lee Spencer White. Foreword by Phil Collins. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. xxiv + 325 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95.) The Battle of the Alamo was a signal event in the Texas war for independence from Mexico, but what do we really know about it? Although much has been written about this epic event, the authors of Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend improve our understanding of the battle with a study of Joe, the little-known survivor. The Texans fought the battle heroically, but in the long run, Mexico’s superior forces overwhelmed them. The Texans had, however, provided time for …

Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend by Jr. Ron J. Jackson and Lee Spencer White

Reviewed by: Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legendby Jr. Ron J. Jackson and Lee Spencer White Carina Hoffpauir Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend. By Ron J. Jackson Jr.and Lee Spencer White. Foreword by Phil Collins. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. Pp. xxiv, 325. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-8061-4703-1.) Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legendrecounts the story of Joe, an enslaved man who was one of the few Texian survivors of the Alamo siege. Joe provided “the clearest and most complete account of the final assault on the Alamo,” one that solidified his name in Texas history (p. xvii). Despite his acclaim, little has been known about Joe other than what could be found in scant primary source fragments. Authors Ron J. Jackson Jr. and Lee Spencer White intervene in this deficient history with an impressive examination of Joe’s experiences before and after the Alamo. The result of a seventeen-year investigation, their book takes into account legal documents, newspapers, slave narratives, travel logs, census records, journals, and letters. “We opened and closed county courthouses, state archives, and university collections,” the authors write, “often skipping lunch to read old documents until they were blurry from our exhaustion” (p. xvi). Jackson and White posit that this labor of love was necessary to overcome the particular difficulties in researching enslaved people. Their approach has resulted in hard-won breakthroughs in Joe’s story, which simultaneously fills important gaps in the scholarship on the Alamo and on slavery in the state of Texas. The text begins with a tense imagining of Joe’s actions and mood on March 5, 1836, the night preceding the final assault on the Alamo. From there, Jackson and White backtrack to consider the events that led to Joe’s presence at the battle. The second half of the book is devoted to the incidents that took place once Joe’s owner, William Barret Travis, was drawn into the Texas Revolution along with his slave. Scholars of Texas military history will appreciate the detailed tracing of the pair’s route along the Texas frontier from Joe’s perspective, which brings new life to a likely familiar narrative of the revolution. Along the way, Jackson and White provide a comprehensive view of the debates over slavery that raged in Texas in order to portray Joe’s legal status as a bondman and his complex relationships with his owners. Linking Joe’s story with the story of Texas implicitly suggests that slavery is central to what W. Fitzhugh Brundage refers to as “Texas’ mythic past” (Gregg Cantrell and Elizabeth Hayes Turner, eds., Lone Star Pasts: Memory and History in Texas[College Station, Tex., 2007], xiii). The rendering of this past in earlier accounts has too often silenced enslaved voices and minimized slavery in favor of mythologizing and glorifying Texas as part of what Randolph B. Campbell calls the “romantic West” ( An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1821–1865[Baton Rouge, 1989], 1). [End Page 925]Jackson and White’s text provides an important counternarrative for these partial narratives that have overlooked the perspectives of people of color on the Texas frontier. Jackson and White, however, overreach in their somewhat novelistic renderings of Joe’s interactions and innermost thoughts. Indeed, the text occasionally provides intimate details that would be difficult for a researcher to obtain without resorting to imagination. For example, Jackson and White write with descriptive emotion about Joe’s possible responses to seeing his mother whipped and his family divided; elsewhere, there is the problematic claim that “given their perilous position,” Travis and Joe “likely spoke as equals, as two souls standing on the doorstep of eternity” (p. 5). Flowery and romanticizing inferences aside, these moments of fictive liberty function not as detraction but ultimately as invitation to understand the story of Joe as central to the drama of the Texas Revolution. By approaching Joe’s life in this manner, the authors also open the text to audiences both scholarly and popular. Though Joe’s story is engaging, equally entertaining is the story of the authors’ own research and obsession with their subject...

Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend by Ron L. Jackson Jr. and Lee Spencer White

Joe, the Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend by Ron L. Jackson Jr. and Lee Spencer White

Joe: The Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend by Ron J. Jackson Jr. and Lee Spencer White (review)

Reviewed by: Joe: The Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend by Ron J. Jackson Jr. and Lee Spencer White Brian Elliott Joe: The Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend. By Ron J. Jackson Jr. and Lee Spencer White. Foreword by Phil Collins. ( Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. Pp. 352. Maps, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index.) Joe: The Slave Who Became an Alamo Legend by Ron J. Jackson Jr. and Lee Spencer White is an ambitious work that attempts to provide a fuller biography of William Barret Travis’s servant, Joe. Joe’s survival of the epic battle at the Alamo and his later accounts of the contest not only galvanized support for the Texian cause of independence, but also made him a bona fide Texas hero. Utilizing myriad primary sources, most notably the probate records of Joe’s former master Isaac Mansfield, the authors detail Joe’s tumultuous life from boyhood to legend. Through their investigation of this famous Texas figure, the authors shed light on the complex nature of life in bondage and provide a unique vantage point from which modern readership can view the Texas Revolution. Over the course of twenty-six chapters, Jackson and White’s sweeping narrative takes Joe from his boyhood in Missouri, to his life as a servant under Travis in Texas. Throughout the early chapters, the authors highlight the hardships faced by Joe, including familial separation, harsh punishments, backbreaking labor, and the inability to control his fate. The complexities of master-slave relations are best seen in the relationship between Travis and Joe. Despite his inferior position to Travis, Joe was given an incredible amount of trust and responsibility. Travis, while at times “forced” to carry out punitive measures with his property, forged a strong relationship with Joe. This is most evident in their time together during the Texas Revolution. As a body servant to Travis at the Alamo, Joe experienced firsthand all the famous moments of the siege. In the fires of war, Joe made the choice to tie his fate to that of his master and the Texas cause, fighting alongside men who viewed him as nothing more than chattel. Joe ironically survived the Mexican onslaught and was allowed to live because he was a slave. The events following the Alamo cemented Joe’s legacy as a Texas legend. Spreading the word of his master’s gallant stand at the Alamo, Joe rallied the Texans to oust Santa Anna’s regime in their newly minted republic. Joe, however, was still a slave and remained one despite his growing fame. Joe later escaped to the Travis family plantation in Alabama, lived out the remainder of his days under the name “Ben,” eventually gained his freedom, and was forever remembered as an Alamo legend. [End Page 224] This investigation of Joe is a masterpiece of historical research. The discovery of Joe’s relation to the famed frontiersmen Daniel Boone, not to mention that one of Joe’s brothers was famous abolitionist William Wells Brown, further increases the importance of Joe’s footprint in Texas history. At the same time, Joe’s relationship with Travis lends further credence to the idea that master-slave relations were not simple affairs but relationships defined by unpredictable human connections. While at times Jackson and White’s investigation seems too speculative, their abundance of primary sources reassures suspicious readers and delivers a must read for those interested in slavery or the Texas Revolution. Brian Elliott University of North Texas Copyright © 2015 The Texas State Historical Association

In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark

In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark

Review: In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark, by Robert B. Betts

Review: <i>In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark</i>, by Robert B. Betts

In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark by Robert B. Betts

72 Western American Literature In Search of York: The Slave Who Went to the Pacific with Lewis and Clark. By Robert B. Betts. (Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, 1985. 182 pages, $25.00.) Although the writer of this speculative biography specifically disclaims having presented a “definitive portrait of York,” terming that impossible, Robert B. Betts’work persuades the reader that the biographer’s “search” has been substantially successful. Where specific materials are lacking, he turns to what historians say of the conditions and activities of blacks, slaves and freed, in the early nineteenth century. York was probably born in the mid-1770s, grew up a companion to William Clark, later a co-captain of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and became Clark’sbody servant in about 1784, assuming the highest status a slave could attain. He accompanied his master on the historic exploration, and the journals of the explorers attest to his numerous contributions to their success. Only after the successful return of the expedition to St. Louis in Septem­ ber, 1806, does the real “search” begin. Not freed at once by Clark, as many believe, York continued as his servant, traveling extensively with him and probably present at his 1808 wedding. But Clark noted in 1809 that a different servant traveled with him; and a previously unpublished letter to Clark from a nephew, John O’Fallon, written in May of 1811, revealed that York had been, for almost certainly a year, a hired-out slave in Louisville, Kentucky, with a master who mistreated him. The nephew adds that “he appears wretched under the fear he has incurred your displeasure ... he sorely repents of whatever misconduct of his that might have led to such a breach.” Shortly thereafter, Betts believes, and not later than 1815, Clark freed York. One of two versions of the rest of York’s life, and perhaps the more credible, is found in notes made by Washington Irving after Clark told him in 1832 that he had freed his slaves, giving one a wagon and six horses to haul freight between Nashville and Richmond. Irving wrote: “The waggoner was York. . . . He could not get up early enough in the morning—his horses were ill-kept—two died—the others grew poor. He sold them, was cheated—entered into service—fared ill. . . . He determined to go back to his old master . . . but was taken with the cholera and died in Ten­ nessee.” Interestingly, Betts does not find entirely incredible another version of York’s later years, as he reports a story by fur trapper Zenas Leonard, of hav­ ing encountered in a Crow village in 1832 and again in 1834, an elderly Negro man who said he had been with Lewis and Clark, returned to the mountains, and lived with “perfect peace and satisfaction.” Betts has paid “a debt long overdue” in this book both interesting and scholarly about the life of the one member of the historic expedition who was not free. REX ROBINSON Logan, Utah ...