Atlantic Bonds: A Family History through Slavery, Freedom, and Colonization

FAIN: FA-56633-12

Lisa A. Lindsay
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Chapel Hill, NC 27599-1350)

In the 1850s, an African American named James Vaughan left his home in South Carolina for a life in Africa, settling first in Liberia and later in present-day Nigeria. There, he survived slave raids and political upheaval, saw the imposition of British colonialism, led a revolt against white missionaries, built a business, and founded a family of activists. His descendants and those of his relatives in the US have kept in touch for the past century. This contextualized biography of James Vaughan and his family brings together the histories of the United States, Africa, and the African diaspora. It casts American slavery as part of a connected, Atlantic world of bonded labor, one where slavery and freedom were not stark opposites but rather framed a continuum of dependency relations; and it probes the complicated relationship between diasporic Africans and the politics of African colonialism, showing how consciousness of the diaspora informed opportunities and strategies in Africa.

Associated Products

Atlantic Bonds: A Nineteenth-Century Odyssey from America to Africa (Book)
Title: Atlantic Bonds: A Nineteenth-Century Odyssey from America to Africa
Author: Lisa A. Lindsay
Abstract: A decade before the American Civil War, James Churchwill Vaughan (1828–1893) set out to fulfill his formerly enslaved father's dying wish that he should leave America to start a new life in Africa. Over the next forty years, Vaughan was taken captive, fought in African wars, built and rebuilt a livelihood, and led a revolt against white racism, finally becoming a successful merchant and the founder of a wealthy, educated, and politically active family. Tracing Vaughan's journey from South Carolina to Liberia to several parts of Yorubaland (present-day southwestern Nigeria), Lisa Lindsay documents this "free" man's struggle to find economic and political autonomy in an era when freedom was not clear and unhindered anywhere for people of African descent. In a tour de force of historical investigation on two continents, Lindsay tells a story of Vaughan's survival, prosperity, and activism against a seemingly endless series of obstacles. By following Vaughan's transatlantic journeys and comparing his experiences to those of his parents, contemporaries, and descendants in Nigeria and South Carolina, Lindsay reveals the expansive reach of slavery, the ambiguities of freedom, and the surprising ways that Africa, rather than America, offered new opportunities for people of African descent.
Year: 2017
Publisher: Chapel Hill: University fo North Carolina Press
Type: Single author monograph
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Prizes

Herskovits Prize
Date: 1/1/2018
Organization: African Studies Association
Abstract: Awarded for the most important scholarly work in African studies published in English during the preceding year.

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