Acknowledgments

Any book that takes this long to write inevitably leads one to incur multiple debts. The power of compound interest eventually renders those debts completely unpayable. I’ll just consider this a statement of bankruptcy. In this list of debts, I must begin with the fact that this book would never have seen the light of day without the unflagging support of Lara Heimert, editor and director of Basic Books. I can’t thank her enough for her support, patience, careful readings, and pointed questions. Other sources of support and expertise at the press and in the production process include Sandra Beris and Leah Stecher of Basic, line editor Roger Labrie, and copyeditor Kathy Streckfus. Linda Beltz Glaser and Syl Kacapyr of Cornell helped with promotion ideas, David Ethridge did the maps, and Lillian Baptist helped create the cover concept.

Research funding came above all from Cornell University, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the University of Miami, but also from the University of São Paulo, Tulane University, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the University of North Carolina, and Duke University.

No work of history is possible without the support of the librarians, archivists, and institutions that make original research possible. Support and assistance came from: Cornell University Library and its entire staff; Duke University Library and its staff, especially Elizabeth Dunn, Nelda Webb, and Janie Morris; the University of North Carolina’s Southern Historical Collection, especially Laura Clark Brown, Tim West, Tim Pyatt, Shayera Tangri, and John White; Tulane University’s Howard-Tilton Library and its Special Collections Department; the New Orleans Notarial Archives; the New Orleans Public Library, especially Greg Osborne; the New York Public Library; the New York Historical Society; Louisiana State University’s Hill Memorial Library; the National Archives (Washington, DC, and Fort Worth); the Chicago Historical Society; the Newberry Library; the Virginia Historical Society; and the University of Miami Library. The Natchez Historical Collection deserves special mention for the intellectual and moral support given to scholars by Mimi Miller, as does the University of West Alabama’s Center for Study of the Black Belt. I thank Zachary Kaplan, Gregg Lightfoot, and Sam Robinson for research assistance. Thanks go as well to Jonathan Pritchett, James Wilson, Richard H. Kilbourne, Dale Tomich, and Mimi Miller for sharing data, to CISER (Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research) for help in storing and analyzing data, especially Bill Block, Lynn Martin, and Jeremy Williams; and also to Jordan Suter, Nancy Brooks, Peter Hirtle, Bob Kibbee, and Michelle Paolillo for help in analyzing data.

I was able to get useful feedback from audiences and co-panelists at numerous presentations of portions of the materials contained here, so I thank those who participated in and organized such events, including the Southern Historical Association, Social Science History Association, Humboldt Foundation, American Philosophical Society, Fernand Braudel Center at Binghamton University, Federal University of São Paulo, University of Rio de Janeiro, University of São Paulo, British-American Nineteenth-Century History Conference, Cambridge University, Cornell University Society for the Humanities, Harvard University, Brown University, University of North Carolina, Tulane University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern Mississippi (Gulfport), University of the West Indies (St. Augustine), Georgetown University, the Huntington Library, and Columbia University.

Then there is the group of people who read and commented on all or on significant parts of the book as it was being written and revised. These include Sarah Franklin, and Rafael Marquese and his students and colleagues at the University of São Paulo, including Waldimiro Lourenço, Leo Marques, and Tamis Parron. The group also includes Richard Dunn, Chuck Mathewes, Joshua Rothman, Tom Balcerski, Eric Tagliacozzo, Adam Rothman, Julia Ott, Dale Tomich, and Tony Kaye. I thank others who not only engaged with the arguments in the book, but from whom I have learned on a journey that has been going on so long that some of you have probably forgotten. But I remember: Lauren Acker, Rosanne Adderley, Ligia Aldana, Tony Badger, Whitney Battle-Baptiste, Sven Beckert, Catherine Biba, Ser Seshs Ab Heter-Clifford M. Boxley, Jeff Brosco, Vince Brown, the late Clark Cahow, Corey Capers, Mickey Casad, Catherine Clinton, Mari Crabtree, Fred D’Aguiar, Edwidge Danticat, Christine Desan, Doug Egerton, the late Robert F. Engs, Freddi Evans, Susan Ferber, Laura Free, Johan Grimm, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Will Harris, Maurice Jackson, Walter Johnson, James Lake, Triwa Lee-Chin, Jonathan Levy, David Libby, Gregg Lightfoot, Mary Maples Dunn, Stephanie McCurry, John H. McNeill, Delores McQuinn, Alice Michtom, Stephen Mihm, Daegan Miller, Duncan Morgan, Brent Morris, Chris Morris, Viranjini Munansinghe, Michael O’Brien, Sarah Pearsall, Dylan Penningroth, David Perry, Larry Powell, Marcus Rediker, Elizabeth Pryor Stordeur, Olivia Robba de Rocha, Pharissa Robinson, Seth Rockman, Dan Rood, Ricardo Salles, Manisha Sinha, Adriane Lentz-Smith, Jason Scott Smith, Nicole Spruill, Daisybelle Thomas-Quinney, Darla Thompson, Phil Troutman, Rob Vanderlan, Harry Watson, Jonathan Wells, Mark Wilson, Betty Wood, Kirsten Wood, and Michael Zakim.

Here at Cornell University, I’ve benefited from a wonderful and supportive group of colleagues. I especially appreciate the friendship and intellectual exchange I have enjoyed with Holly Case, Derek Chang, Duane Corpis, Jeff Cowie, Ray Craib, Maria Cristina Garcia, Robert Harris, Louis Hyman, the late Michael Kammen, Walter LaFeber, Fred Logevall, Tamam Loos, Vladimir Micic, Larry Moore, Mary Beth Norton, Jon Parmenter, Gabriele Piccoli, Mary Roldan, Aaron Sachs, Nick Salvatore, Suman Seth, Joel Silbey, and Eric Tagliacozzo.

I appreciate the confidence of Cornell’s History Department, especially a series of supportive chairs: Sandra Greene, Victor Koschmann, Barry Strauss, and Isabel Hull. The History staff, above all Katie Kristof and Maggie Edwards, not only did a great job, but also taught me a lot about friendship. In my other life on campus, on West Campus and especially at Carl Becker House, I have to thank Cindy Hazan and Laura Schaefer Brown in particular, but also Renee Alexander, Garrick Blalock, Rick Canfield, Isaac Kramnick, and Elmira Mangum. Above all, when it comes to Becker House I am deeply grateful to our incredible assistant dean, Amanda Carreiro. Along with her, I thank our assistants Jesse Hilliker and Victoria Gonzalez, as well as Tony Kveragas and Eileen Hughes, and the wonderful graduate and undergraduate student staff members with whom I have worked. Among the latter, I want to name in particular Neal Allar, Tinenenji Banda, Fritz Bartel, Joyce Chery, Ryan Edwards, Kelsey Fugere, Jeremy Fuller, Aziza Glass, Darvin Griffin, Louis Hopkins, Janice Chi-lok Lau, Javier Perez Burgos, Jon Senchyne, and Kavita Singh.

I have benefited for many years from the teaching, guidance, and mentoring of Drew Gilpin Faust, Richard Dunn, the late John Hope Franklin, David Johnson, Robert F. Moore, and my parents Ed and Lynda Baptist. I would forget my own self without my friends Luther Adams, Stephen Bumgardner, and Justin Warf to remind me of who I am.

As this book was going to press, my friend Stephanie M. H. Camp passed away. She was a great historian of slavery, and in this book, she would see much that she had shaped. But to me, she was my older, wiser sister, always there for me when things were at their lowest ebb. I will miss her grace and her laughter as long as I live. I still hear her voice in the words that she wrote, and I see her in the inspiration she gave to so many others. To feel those things is its own kind of grace, sweet and painful, a left hand that holds me up in its palm.

This book would have remained forever entombed in my computer without Donnette’s unflagging support, enthusiasm, and love. Now it lives, because she helped breathe the spirit back into me.

Above all, the book is for my children Lillian and Ezra, who have known this story from before-times. In many ways it has made us. But stories change with each passing day. Now we are writing our own chapters.

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