Yet, as both Baumgartner and Wells show, Black movement against the laws and institutions that enslaved them affected American politics far more than any ballot cast or Electoral College vote. New Spain provided legal protections for the fugitives, despite a long history of African and Indigenous enslavement throughout the Spanish empire. To show this, she enlists the heartbreaking and carefully researched stories of escaped slaves themselves. Baumgartner’s placement of fugitive slaves at the center of this story is not merely cosmetic. James Kirkham returned to Louisiana without his slaves, and Moses Austin died in Missouri soon after he was granted permission to bring Anglo settlers to Téjas.

Source: New York Times November 16, 2020 22:28 UTC