A Stranger and a Sojourner: Peter Caulder, Free Black Frontiersman in Antebellum Arkansas - Softcover

Higgins, Billy D.

9781557288059: A Stranger and a Sojourner: Peter Caulder, Free Black Frontiersman in Antebellum Arkansas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557288054 ISBN 13: 9781557288059

Publisher: University of Arkansas Press, 2005

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A Stranger and a Sojourner: Peter Caulder, Free Black Frontiersman in Antebellum Arkansas tells the extraordinary story of Peter Caulder, a free African American settler in the Arkansas Territory. After serving as a rifleman in the war of 1812, Caulder established a community of free-born African Americans in northern Arkansas and was largely accepted by his white neighbors until an 1859 expulsion law forced the community to flee the state and settle in Missouri. Like many frontier people, Peter Caulder was unschooled and signed his name only with a mark. To document such a man's life, and to determine how he thrived within a slave society and came to join a free black backwoods community, Billy Higgins has skillfully interwoven oft-neglected primary sources―many of which are reproduced here―from around the country; and through the information revealed in censuses, tax records, sutler's account books, army returns, folk stories, land warrants, traveler's journals, and newspaper notices, a fascinating―and groundbreaking―account of Caulder, his family, his friends, and his community has emerged.

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About the Author

Billy D. Higgins has been a professor of history at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith since 1993. This is his first book. His essays on African American culture before and after the Civil War have appeared in Freedom's Odyssey: African American History Essays from Phylon and the Arkansas Historical Quarterly.

From the Back Cover

A Stranger and a Sojourner: Peter Caulder, Free Black Frontiersman in Antebellum Arkansas tells the extraordinary story of Peter Caulder, a free African American settler in the Arkansas Territory. After serving as a rifleman in the war of 1812, Caulder established a community of free-born African Americans in northern Arkansas and was largely accepted by his white neighbors until an 1859 expulsion law forced the community to flee the state and settle in Missouri. Like many frontier people, Peter Caulder was unschooled and signed his name only with a mark. To document such a man's life, and to determine how he thrived within a slave society and came to join a free black backwoods community, Billy Higgins has skillfully interwoven oft-neglected primary sources--many of which are reproduced here--from around the country; and through the information revealed in censuses, tax records, sutler's account books, army returns, folk stories, land warrants, traveler's journals, and newspaper notices, a fascinating--and groundbreaking--account of Caulder, his family, his friends, and his community has emerged.

From the Inside Flap

A Stranger and a Sojourner: Peter Caulder, Free Black Frontiersman in Antebellum Arkansas tells the extraordinary story of Peter Caulder, a free African American settler in the Arkansas Territory. After serving as a rifleman in the war of 1812, Caulder established a community of free-born African Americans in northern Arkansas and was largely accepted by his white neighbors until an 1859 expulsion law forced the community to flee the state and settle in Missouri. Like many frontier people, Peter Caulder was unschooled and signed his name only with a mark. To document such a man s life, and to determine how he thrived within a slave society and came to join a free black backwoods community, Billy Higgins has skillfully interwoven oft-neglected primary sources?many of which are reproduced here?from around the country; and through the information revealed in censuses, tax records, sutler s account books, army returns, folk stories, land warrants, traveler s journals, and newspaper notices, a fascinating?and groundbreaking?account of Caulder, his family, his friends, and his community has emerged.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.