| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Melvin Patrick Ely. Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 2004. Pp. x, 640. $35.00.
Melvin Patrick Ely has produced a compelling study of an African American community that challenges much of the historiography in its field. Mining rich and largely untapped archival resources, most notably county court records, Ely describes with considerable nuance the founding and development of Israel Hill as part of the larger free black community of Prince Edward County, Virginia. Richard Randolph left provisions in his will to free as many of his slaves as possible and also made arrangements for the settlement of his former bondspeople on 400 acres of his landholdings. (An edited version of the will appears in this book.) Despite some delay in the execution of the will's provisions, Randolph's wishes were finally carried out and the community of Israel Hill was born. Ely's book carries us into the culture and economy of this enclave of free persons of color and describes their relationships with white neighbors, creating a rich picture of life and race relations in a southern community.	1
Ely's analysis is wide ranging, covering the interactions of free blacks within the worlds of law, work, family, religious institutions, and the larger community. Generally, Ely finds the stark conclusions about free black life in the South reached by most previous authors to be unwarranted in the case of Israel Hill. Rejecting the notion that the free black's status in antebellum society was a quasi-slavery and that the attitude of most whites toward them was unremittingly hostile, Ely describes free blacks and whites interacting on a number of levels. Free blacks opposed whites in court cases and prevailed before all-white juries; whites and blacks founded churches together; the races sometimes labored side by side; and some even openly lived together virtually as man and wife. Ely asserts that not only bare tolerance but also true trust and respect existed between many whites and blacks in Prince Edward County.	. . .

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