Description: "Melvin Patrick Ely previously wrote a wonderfully original and significant book on the popular radio and television series Amos 'n' Andy that upset a number of facile assumptions. He has now done exactly the same for Israel Hill, a largely forgotten community of free Black farmers and workers in antebellum Virginia. Once again we are indebted to him for enabling us to take a deeper look at aspects of our past and our culture we thought we fully understood." --Lawrence W. Levine author of Black Culture and Black Consciousness "Melvin Ely achieves an astonishing project by meticulously mining rich veins of archival sources to give us a fresh (and refreshing) view of the constraints and possibilities for rural free blacks living in antebellum times. The book unfolds as a revelation, and it contributes profoundly to the revision of our understanding of African-American life in the nineteenth century." --Michael Kammen, author of American Culture, American Tastes "This remarkable account of a free black community in the heart of antebellum Virginia is rich with new insights on the dimensions of bondage and freedom in the slave South. The author's meticulous research and elegant writing make the experience of reading it both a reward and a pleasure." --James M. McPherson, author of The Battle Cry of Freedom "In an astonishing act of historical research and imagination, Melvin Ely has recreated an entire world in a forgotten corner of the slave South. The people of his remarkable story--black and white, free and enslaved--emerge from a dark past to stand before us in sharp relief . By understanding their lives we understand the American South in a new and more profound way." --Edward L. Ayers, author of In the Presence of Mine Enemies: War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863 "In this extraordinary book, Melvin Ely unfolds the drama of three generations of African Americans successfully building a community on the banks of Virginia's Appomattox River, negotiating business, and even social relations with white neighbors Israel on the Appomattox is a surprising and often heartening story of human struggle, personal dignity and complex interracial cooperation in the deep shadow of slavery. It up-ends traditional assumptions about race in the Old South and, in so doing, poses striking possibilities for America's future." --James Oliver Horton, co-author of Hard Road to Freedom: The Story of African America "A path-breaking analysis of antebellum Virginia, Ely's superbly documented discussion of race relations is seminal and destined for controversy. Imaginative use of evidence like court records shows black-white interactions ranged from commerce to marria courts often treated Afro- Virginians fairly, and blacks were self-regarding actors far removed from Sambo stereotypes." --Gerald Jaynes, author of Branches Without Roots: The Genesis of the Black Working Class "This is a remarkable book. Based on exhaustive research in county records, it reconstructs in extraordinary detail the experiences of a distinctive free black community in antebellum Viginia. In the process, it sheds new light on black-white relations in the Old South and challenges some of our conventional views." --George M. Fredrickson, author of White Supremacy

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