Southern Seed, Northern Soil: African-American Farm Communities in the Midwest, 1765-1900 [Paperback]

Southern Seed, Northern Soilcaptures the exceptional history of the Beech and Roberts settlements, two African-American and mixed-race farming communities on the Indiana frontier in the 1830s. Stephen Vincent analyzes the founders' backgrounds as a distinctive free people of color from the Old South. He traces the migration that culminated in the founding of the two communities. He follows the settlements' transformations through the pioneer and Civil War eras, and their gradual transition to commercial farming in the late 19th century. The Beech and Roberts story is at once part of and distinct from mainstream African-American history. Like other black Americans, the residents of these two communities had to struggle constantly to achieve freedom, autonomy, and economic well-being, yet they were able to defy the odds and thrive over several generations. Building on their advantages as late-18th-century landowners, they took root on the frontier and ultimately paved the way for their descendants' climb into the urban middle class.

Vincent's book reflects a trend in US studiesplowing new interpretive groundto ensure more inclusive ethnic and gender histories, with traditional interpretations revised. Vincent (Univ. of WisconsinWhitewater) reveals how African American families moved from Virginia and North Carolina to create mixed race communities (Beech and Roberts) and homesteads in frontier Indiana in the 1830s. In the South before migrating, these settlers were freed people and had been for successive generations. Land in Indiana provided them greater freedom, which few other 19th-century African Americans experienced. As they built community, they made deliberate efforts to marry others, with common heritages. . . Many avoided darker-skinned African Americans with slave heritages [for] they often perceived themselves as a distinct if not unique African-descended people. Although now in decline, these communities and farms share a heritage thalC­