Claiming Freedom is a noteworthy and dynamic analysis of the transition African Americans experienced as they emerged from Civil War slavery, struggled through emancipation, and then forged on to become landowners during the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction period in the Georgia low country.  Karen Cook Bell’s work is a bold study of the political and social struggles of these individuals as they strived for and claimed freedom during the nineteenth century.”  Click here to read the introduction.*

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Slave’s Dream

Chapter 2: War and Freedom

Chapter 3: ‘Full and Fair Compensation’

Chapter 4: The State of Freedom is the State of Self-Reliance

Conclusion

*This is an unedited draft not for citation of Karen Cook Bell’s Claiming Freedom.