A new edition of a major abolitionist work that confirms the authenticity
of newspaperman James Redpath's interviews with slaves during the
mid-nineteenth century.
"John McKivigan has done a splendid job of editing this paperback
volume. . . . This little-known book, largely overshadowed heretofore
by Frederick Law Olmsted's famous The Cotton Kingdom, will
now, in this fine reprint, take its rightful place among the many
volumes that enable us to gain some sense of the reality of American
slavery and of the extremes to which Americans were driven to be
rid of it."—Georgia Historical Quarterly
"No other text about slave opinion before the Civil War exists.
This new edition of Redpath's book makes a welcome addition to our
understanding of how blacks felt about the peculiar institution
on the eve of its demise."—Clarence E. Walker, University of
California, Davis
While a reporter at Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, James
Redpath developed a strong curiosity about slavery and decided that
he would travel south "to see slavery with my own eyes." Redpath
interviewed slaves, recorded their opinions, and collected these
letters into book form, publishing them in 1859 as The Roving
Editor. While some historians over the years have utilized Redpath's
book, many have treated it as merely another travel account of the
antebellum South, dismissing the interviews as the fabrication of
a radical abolitionist.
John R. McKivigan has uncovered important historical records that
certify for the first time the authenticity of Redpath's interviews;
he presents here the original newspaper articles that supply the
places and times of many of the slave encounters, which Redpath
had edited out of the book. Furthermore, using Redpath's unpublished
correspondence, McKivigan verifies his residence in southern communities
at the times these interviews were reported to have taken place,
making The Roving Editor one of the most valuable and compelling
sources of the slaves' own testimony regarding their treatment in
the late antebellum period. |
