Rothman, Adam
Beyond Freedom’s Reach: A Kidnapping in the Twilight of Slavery
Harvard (Cambridge)
2015
OUR SYNOPSIS: Adam Rothman tells the story of Rose Herera, who was born into slavery in Louisiana, and her family. She had five children with free Black New Orleanian George Herera. In December 1862, four months after being sold for the last time, she was imprisoned for assault after an altercation with her enslaver’s family member. In January 1863, her children were taken on a Cuba-bound steamship. Rothman emphasizes, “From Rose Herera’s perspective, her children had been kidnapped and sent beyond freedom’s reach.” He continues, “This book is about Rose Herera’s world of slavery, the kidnapping of her children during the Civil War, and her remarkable effort to get them back.” (4) Herera sued her former enslavers for kidnapping her children, building a case that attracted international attention. With emancipation, Rose Herera was living with two of her children and demanded the other three back. She won her case, and the judge ordered the return of her children, but ad hoc legal interpretation blocked their reunion. They were finally reunited on March 17, 1866.
BIG QUESTIONS:
How does Rothman’s microhistorical approach contribute to understandings of slavery?
What does Herera’s imprisonment illuminate about slavery’s relationship to the carceral state?
FEATURE QUOTES:
“The kidnapping of the Herera children dramatizes the mayhem of wartime emancipation. The overthrow of slavery was not linear, orderly, or peaceful. Rather, it was chaotic, improvised, and violent. It unfolded at different times in different places according to a complex interplay of war, politics, and social struggle. Local conditions mattered a great deal.” (7)
“Rose Herera entered into freedom as a widow with two small children to take care of. Despite these unenviable circumstances, she wanted her other three children back and would take audacious steps to get them. Her refusal to abandon and forget them and her commitment to recovering them focus a spotlight on a crucial aspect of what freedom meant to newly emancipated people: the restoration of families.” (119)
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