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Abolitionist and Civil War Chronicler: The Unique Perspective of the Thomas Jackson Letters

Thomas Jackson’s story has been largely untold, but the record he left behind demands historical analysis. His erudite letters have much to contribute to our understanding of the abolitionist movement, the evolution of attitudes to race, and everyday experiences of the U.S. Civil War. Jackson’s status as a British immigrant also provides us with an added analytical layer in which to view American abolition, race, and the Civil War in a transnational context.[1] In this article, I introduce the Thomas Jackson Collection and what we can learn from it.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Thomas Jackson, whose life came to be absorbed by the spirited abolitionist movement of his day, became a successful rope-making trader not long after his relocation to America, circa 1829. His father, John Jackson, who “suffered persecution of a year’s imprisonment and three times in the pillory for what he spoke and published in the cause of the revolted colonies,” served as a consistent moral compass for his son.

Born into England’s working class, Thomas Jackson admired the newly christened American Republic.[2] Although he knew, by his own account, next to nothing about slavery in America before he emigrated there, Jackson found his spiritual calling in political activism—abolitionism, in particular.

Jackson’s path to American politics was far from linear. Born on December 7 1805, Thomas grew up in the rural town of Ilkeston, roughly fifty miles northeast of Birmingham. There he was raised, along with six siblings, by working-class parents and likely received no more than a basic education. Despite his modest upbringing, by the time he passed away in Reading, Pennsylvania in 1878, he came to be known more for his impassioned abolitionist work than for the trade he was born into.

Jackson empathized with the anti-slavery cause after witnessing the stunning inhumanity of an American slave market. Because of this, he supported the Union when the war broke out, hoping that the terrible violence would at least serve a worthy purpose: bringing an end to slavery. In October 1862, with the war grinding on perhaps longer than anticipated, Thomas wrote that “the traitors [i.e. the confederate states] have now [received] fair warning; that if they do not lay down their arms by Jan. 1. 1863. slavery will be abolished in all rebellious states and districts…I most devoutly pray that they may continue obstinate…That is now the only hope for freedom every were [sic] in the United States.”[3]

Image of the original Thomas Jackson letter to the editor. All scans are reproduced with permission from the owner. — *Images of the original letter to the editor. All scans are reproduced with permission from the owner.*

Image of the original Thomas Jackson letter letter to the editor. All scans are reproduced with permission from the owner.

Judging by his letters alone, it’s clear that Thomas Jackson embraced abolitionism as a core part of his identity. By extension, he considered himself a purist when it came to honoring the “free principles and republican government” for which the United States ostensibly stood.[4]

Because values like individual liberty and freedom of expression transcended national borders, it mattered little to him that he was born in England and, therefore, lived in the United States as an immigrant.

The collection

These strongly-held ideals shine through in almost every letter and newspaper editorial that make up the bulk of the Thomas Jackson Collection. His reports on slavery and the Civil War have been painstakingly transcribed, organized, and curated to offer historians a rare glimpse into a unique abolitionist who was entangled in both American and British politics. While the original letters are now safely housed in the Library of Congress’ Manuscript Division, their digitized copies are fully accessible online thanks to the efforts made by Jackson’s descendant, John Paling, and his team, to organize and digitize the collection.[5]

The Civil War and the nineteenth-century abolitionist movement have of course been studied in depth. Many of these studies take a top-down perspective. Thomas Jackson’s collection of letters provides a valuable and much-needed grassroots perspective. It is rare to find source material written from Jackson’s vantage point, that is letters penned by someone from a working-class background who also understood the value of recording and commenting on the magnitude of his historical moment: America’s mid-nineteenth-century political crisis.

Jackson arrived in the United States in 1829. Still in his twenties, he held an idealized view of the country that would soon be complicated by his encounter with the brutalities of slavery and violent division. Like other immigrants, he primarily sought fresh opportunities that had been closed off to him in his home country. In this case, his father’s political imprisonment drove the family to bankruptcy.[6] As such, Thomas and his brother Edward suffered from meager resources once setting foot on the American continent. Despite the initial challenges, he and his brother managed to secure their footing in Reading, Pennsylvania, by using the local Schuylkill Canal to establish a rope-making business.

“…we are doing a large business. Generally employ about 20 men and eight boys…Annexed is an engraving of our wheel houses, Hackle lofts, and engine house & a part of the walk & the office. We have a very nice place here now and fast improving.”[7]

Lithography of two enslaved people that reads: Am I not a man and a brother? Am I not a woman and a sister? — *From the cover of the 1866 annual report of the Edinburgh Ladies Emancipation Society. Source: Wikimedia Commons*

Despite facing near penury, Thomas Jackson’s entrepreneurial spirit eventually allowed him to rise to a prosperous position, giving him resources very different from those he was born to. His relative financial success enabled him to become a kind of working-class autodidact. His lucid letters, which are notable for the quality of the prose and the artistic flourish of his penmanship, suggest a level of learning that was mainly confined to the privileged elite of the day.

Although he became a successful businessman in America, the country failed to fully live up to his expectations. The young republic, a self-proclaimed land of opportunity and equality, was also home to what he considered a blight on the American experience: the continuation of slavery.

In a letter to his cousin, Caleb Slater, back in England, which was subsequently published in a local newspaper, Jackson claimed to have first witnessed a slave market in 1833. Given the “glowing ideas of free America” his father had instilled in him as a boy, he “never dreamed that such a thing was possible as liberty and slavery existing together under a free government, and just laws.” He was adamant: I “Never thought such a thing could be; do not now think it can be; know now it cannot be.”[8]

Stereograph showing a man with a rifle sitting outside a commercial building used as a slave market, bearing a sign "Auction & Negro Sales" on Whitehall Street. — *The Slave Market. Atlanta, Georgia. Source: Library of Congress*

From this introduction, Thomas went on to describe the slave auction scene underway in Richmond, Virginia, where a “most interesting young woman…as white as [his] own English wife” stood at the auction block before a “queer-looking crowd [of] dirty mouthed, rum-drinking tobacco chewers…liable to become the property, and entirely subject to the power and the lust of the grossest brute among them, if he bid high enough!”[9]

Jackson was enraged by the harsh realities of a slave republic. He used his unique perspective to approach the abolitionist movement with a distinct strategy. He leveraged his connections in England to provide British citizens firsthand reports of slavery in America, as he did with the letter above. In doing so, he hoped his visceral and emotional first-person stories about slavery’s horrors would influence British public opinion. Eventually, he hoped the British government would be discouraged from supporting the American cotton trade, which was intertwined with slavery. When the Civil War came, he doubled down on these efforts, as he became aware that Britain’s “freedom-hating” aristocracy, with the government’s tacit support, secretly aided the “villainous rebels” as a means of keeping the cotton industry alive.[10]

Examining Jackson’s rhetoric and the political positions they reveal enable us to answer questions about the nature of nineteenth-century abolitionism. Were the aims of British abolitionists living in the United States more radical than those of their compatriots living back in England?[11] If so, were the political differences more a matter of class or of vantage point? In other words, did it require witnessing slavery firsthand for an abolitionist to draw a harder line on the issue, or were other factors, such as social standing, more important in delineating the moderates from the radicals?

*Abraham Lincoln and his Emancipation Proclamation / The Strobridge Lith. Co., Cincinnati. Source: Library of Congress*

If we were to view Jackson’s political discourse alongside the writings of the British metropole’s largely elite circle of abolitionists, it’s easy to discern a more fiery, visceral retelling of slavery’s horrors—and of the urgent need to abolish it immediately and by any means necessary.[12] Early in the war, before the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, Jackson witnessed the country “in all directions…being desolated by fire and sword and shell” and declared that “slavery must perish, with all its abettors.”[13] Perhaps traveling to Harrisburg and seeing firsthand the rebels and Union soldiers make preparations for further carnage enabled him to imagine not a gradual but rather an immediate—and, if necessary, violent—end to the institution of slavery, a “doom it so richly deserves.”[14]

Thomas Jackson’s letters reveal an unwavering commitment to abolition; they also show striking ways in which race underpinned life both in the US and in Britain. There is little doubt as to the value of this source material for scholars studying race, particularly in early America, for Jackson’s writings betray his struggles to come to terms with race and racism in his adopted country.

As an abolitionist, Jackson clearly intended to convince readers of the fundamental humanity of Black slaves and the need to guarantee equality to vulnerable non-white groups.[15] But Jackson was also a product of his time and he displayed attitudes rooted in this.

Depiction of the Anti-Slavery Meeting on the Boston Common held in 1851. People are gathered under a tree, there is text on the meeting on the lower end of the picture. — *Anti-Slavery Meeting on the [Boston] Common. Source: New York Public Library*

As shown in his account of the slave market above, Jackson obsessed over the surprising “whiteness” of many enslaved people he encountered. He was scandalized to see men and women with complexions similar to his own being held in bondage. Returning to his account of the slave market, we find a long digression into the racial characteristics of both the slaves and their would-be owners:

I suppose I saw 15 or 20 sold, of all shades of colour [sic.] from black to three-quarters white. Then they brought out a good-looking, well-dressed, modest, and most interesting young woman, about 23 or 24 years old, and, to all appearance to me, as white as my own English wife. She had a little daughter about three years old by her side, and a beautiful babe of about a year old in her arms, both, for all I could see, as white as my own children at home…the offspring of slave mothers have been whitening, until the very small taint of negro blood is not perceivable in many.[16]

Jackson went on to describe the men placing bids as “dirty-mouthed” and “seemingly not half as white as their victims,” preparing to subject an example of “feminine loveliness” to their “power and [their] lust.”[17]

To him, the white complexion of many of these Black slaves seemed to underline the patent absurdity and cruelty of slavery, especially when placed against the “brute” status of the southern whites he encountered.

There’s little doubt, too, that Jackson knew evoking whiteness would be effective in garnering sympathy from white readers. In a later letter describing the lecture tours organized by abolitionists, in which runaway slaves featured prominently, he doubled down on this rhetoric. Many of the former slaves, he writes, were “so white that no one would ever suspect that they had a drop of African blood in their veins.”[18] In this way, whiteness became a term loaded with value for Jackson even as he denounced the racism that underpinned slavery.

The work of Mary Niall Mitchell and Martha Cutter, among others, points out that American abolitionists readily employed the language of whiteness as a tool to sway public opinion on the issue.[19] Although he was born in Britain, Thomas Jackson, used a similar rhetorical strategy. He may have arrived at this independently or adopted it from wider writings.

It is worth considering the implications behind an English immigrant’s echoing of American attitudes about race. Given that Jackson largely aimed his writing to English readers, his apparent confidence that an English readership would be equally moved by American racial rhetoric is significant. Indeed, this challenges assumptions about the uniqueness of American racial thought.

None of this is to say that Thomas Jackson ignored enslaved people who could not “pass” for whites. Nor did he mean to suggest that slaves with darker skins were somehow less deserving of sympathy or equality. Further down in his letter concerning former slaves, he mentions he employed darker-skinned freedmen, one of whom was a “smart fellow,” another a “deep thinker,” and another who demonstrated “intellect…of a high order.”[20] Yet when quoting them directly, he transformed his interlocutors into characters out of a minstrel show, capturing their voices with terms like “day” instead of “they” and “den” instead of “then.”[21] In short, his commitment to abolitionism was sometimes contradicted by his racialized language.

Most people don’t know Thomas Jackson but he left behind a remarkable historical record. This provides an opportunity for further reflection on a critical moment in the nation’s history. As such, this collection deserves a broad readership.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

[1] For representative scholarship, see Mason, Matthew. “The Battle of the Slaveholding Liberators: Great Britain, the United States, and Slavery in the Early Nineteenth Century.” The William and Mary Quarterly 59, no. 3 (2002): 665–96. https://doi.org/10.2307/3491468.

[2] “Article_1859-03-01 – Thomas Jackson Letters.” 2023. Thomas Jackson Letters. July 28, 2023. https://thomasjacksonletters.com/articles/article_1859-03-01/.

[3] “TJ_Letter_1862-08-12 – Thomas Jackson Letters.” 2023. Thomas Jackson Letters. August 25, 2023. https://thomasjacksonletters.com/letters/letter_1862-08-12/.

[4] “Article_1844-10-26 – Thomas Jackson Letters.” 2023. Thomas Jackson Letters. July 28, 2023. https://thomasjacksonletters.com/articles/article_1844-10-26/.

[6] “Article_1825-12-24 Bankruptcy – Thomas Jackson Letters.” 2023. Thomas Jackson Letters. March 25, 2023. https://thomasjacksonletters.com/other-documents/np_1825-12-24-from-london-gazette/.

[7] Thomas Jackson in letter to cousin Caleb Slater, June 3, 1856. “TJ_Letter_1856-06-03 – Thomas Jackson Letters.” 2023. Thomas Jackson Letters. March 22, 2023. https://thomasjacksonletters.com/letters/letter_1856-06-03/.

[8] “A Native of Ilkeston in an American Slave Market.” Thomas Jackson Letters. August 25, 2023. https://thomasjacksonletters.com/letters/letter_1862-08-12/. Published in Eastwood, England area newspaper September 11, 1862.

[9] Ibid.

[10] “TJ_Letter_1864-09-01 – Thomas Jackson Letters.” 2023. Thomas Jackson Letters. March 22, 2023. https://thomasjacksonletters.com/letters/letter_1864-09-00/.

[11] For British abolitionism, see Huzzey, Richard. “The Slave Trade and Victorian ‘Humanity.’” Victorian Review 40, no. 1 (2014): 43–47. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24497035.

[12] For comparative analysis of British and American abolitionism, see Mason, Matthew. “The Battle of the Slaveholding Liberators: Great Britain, the United States, and Slavery in the Early Nineteenth Century.” The William and Mary Quarterly 59, no. 3 (2002): 665–96. https://doi.org/10.2307/3491468, and Mason, Matthew. “Keeping up Appearances: The International Politics of Slave Trade Abolition in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World.” The William and Mary Quarterly 66, no. 4 (2009): 809–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40467542.

[13] “———.” 2023d. Thomas Jackson Letters. August 25, 2023. https://thomasjacksonletters.com/letters/letter_1862-08-12/.

[14]“TJ_Letter_1863-08-20 – Thomas Jackson Letters.” 2023. Thomas Jackson Letters. March 22, 2023. https://thomasjacksonletters.com/letters/letter_1863-08-20/. In addition to political commentary, this letter provides detailed description of Confederate movements at this time which would also prove useful to military historians of the Civil War.

[15] Since Thomas Jackson expressed disapproval of universal voting rights, we should interpret his understanding of equality to be of a limited nature, i.e., the guarantee of “natural rights” for all. For his criticisms on full democracy, see for instance: “TJ_Letter_1862-10-12 – Thomas Jackson Letters.” 2023. Thomas Jackson Letters. March 22, 2023. https://thomasjacksonletters.com/letters/letter_1862-10-12/.

[16] “———.” 2023e. Thomas Jackson Letters. August 25, 2023. https://thomasjacksonletters.com/letters/letter_1862-08-12/.

[17] Ibid.

[18] “TJ_Letter_1864-04-18 – Thomas Jackson Letters.” 2024. Thomas Jackson Letters. March 27, 2024. https://thomasjacksonletters.com/letters/letter_1864-04-18/.

[19] Cutter, Martha J. “‘As White as Most White Women’: Racial Passing in Advertisements for Runaway Slaves and the Origins of a Multivalent Term.” American Studies 54, no. 4 (2016): 73–97. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44982355. Mitchell, Mary Niall. “‘Rosebloom and Pure White,’ or so It Seemed.” American Quarterly 54, no. 3 (2002): 369–410. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30042226.

[20] “———.” 2024b. Thomas Jackson Letters. March 27, 2024. https://thomasjacksonletters.com/letters/letter_1864-04-18/.

[21] Ibid.

Review of American while Black: African Americans, Immigration, and the Limits of Citizenship (2019) by Niambi Michele Carter

Immigration policy and regulation have been at the forefront of the contentious 2024 presidential election campaign. While discourse regarding public attitudes towards immigrants has traditionally centered the opinions of US-born-white populations, political scientist Niambi Michele Carter’s book, American While Black: African Americans, Immigration, and the Limits of Citizenship, moves the focus away from that trend by centering her study on the political opinions of African Americans themselves.

In six carefully researched chapters, Carter examines African American political attitudes regarding immigration and how it impacts their status in the United States. The study leans on quantitative and qualitative methodology (semi-structured interviews and surveys) and focuses on the African American residents of Durham, North Carolina. Carter argues that African Americans remain ambivalent towards immigration because of the way the immigration policy has been utilized to deter Black progress in the United States. Carter theorizes this ambivalence as conflicted nativism, which she defines as “a sensibility that immigration will potentially harm black progress, but immigration should not be restricted, because white supremacy, not immigration, is what ultimately harms black social mobility.”1 Therefore, African Americans report not being against immigration but also not necessarily for it, only because of how immigration has been used to marginalize their status further to maintain white supremacy.2

Demonstrators marching in the street holding signs during the March on Washington, 1963. — Demonstrators marching in the street holding signs during the March on Washington, 1963
Source: Library of Congress

Carter presents readers with a historical analysis of how immigration has hindered Black mobility in the United States. She begins her discussion by focusing on how European immigrants, particularly Irish immigrants, engaged in anti-Black tactics to secure their place in the United States.3 This history demonstrates how the attainment of American citizenship and belonging, vis-a-vis whiteness, was inextricably linked to Black exclusion. Carter presents another example of how Chinese immigrants were brought to the Mississippi Delta to work on plantations after reconstruction to prevent Black economic and political rights as well as to benefit the plantation owners economically.4 Based on these historical facts, Carter stresses that US immigration policy is deeply connected to white supremacy and Black marginalization and that the culmination of these historical events influenced African American political opinions about immigration.

Chinese grocerymen and merchants in fron to a store in the Mississippi Delta — “In the Mississippi Delta. There is an ever-increasing number of Chinese grocerymen and merchants. Leland” by Wolcott, Marion Post, 1910-1990, photographer
Source: Library of Congress

According to Carter’s interview and survey results, African American respondents generally expressed moderate views about immigration policy. Many reported that unauthorized immigrants should be able to attain citizenship after working and living in the United States for several years and that English proficiency should be required for U.S. citizenship.5 Carter’s results also reveal that although African American respondents reported feeling that the government needs to curb unauthorized immigration, they did not support efforts to outright ban immigrants.6 This distinction is important because while African Americans report not being in favor of the marginalization of other groups, they prioritize investing in the well-being of their group.

As the fields of diasporic and migration studies continue to flourish, Carter’s study illustrates how the unique experiences of US-born minority populations are just as central to both fields of study as the immigrant communities themselves. In recent years, major metropolitan areas such as New York City and Chicago have been under scrutiny from residents, including some African Americans, who reportedly feel slighted that public goods are being channeled to address the migrant influx instead of addressing long-standing quality of life issues (e.g., housing crisis). Therefore, the significance of Carter’s timely text details how modern-day immigration patterns and policies shape the public opinions of African Americans.

In general, Carter makes a compelling argument to readers that the complex political attitudes African Americans hold about immigration are reflective of their collective experience in the United States while simultaneously condemning white supremacy for their continued marginalization.

Book cover: "American While Black: African Americans, Immigration, and the Limits of Citizenship"

While Carter’s study primarily centers on historical relations between African Americans and non-Black migrant groups, it would be interesting to further explore the intricate interethnic relationship between African Americans and Black migrant groups. This exploration can potentially showcase the promotion of co-ethnic coalitions that collectively challenge white supremacy for a genuine multiracial, multiethnic democracy to be achieved.

Carter’s thought-provoking work adds a crucial new perspective to wider examinations of the politics of immigration.

1 Carter, Lies, Fairytales, and Fallacies, p. 23.

2 Ibid.

3. Carter, Lies, Fairytales, and Fallacies, p. 14

4 Carter, Citizens First?: African Americans as Conflicted Nativists, p. 40.

5 Carter, Conflicted Nativism: An Empirical View, p. 155.

6 Ibid.

From Africa to Austin: Bondy Washington

Census records are invaluable historical documents, but they are frustratingly limited, especially when you try to use them to tell the stories of formerly enslaved people. One example is Bondy Washington, a woman likely trafficked from Africa into slavery who became a long-term Austin resident.

For the past three years, I have been working with Dr. Edmund T. Gordon to create demographic maps of Austin, Texas from 1880-1950. These maps were created with massive amounts of census data—over 372,000 people’s information was transcribed from thousands of scanned pages across seven decades. When we completed this large database, I calculated some other large aggregate figures, beginning with the 1880 census.

In 1880, 49.99 percent of Austin residents were born in Texas. In today’s terms, that would mean almost half a million people, but back in the late nineteenth century, this figure was less than six thousand or 5,481, to be precise. Digging deeper into the census figures, I found an intriguing data point—one. In 1880, one person in Austin was born in Africa. Her name was Bondy Washington, and she was a Black woman.

At first, I thought that this could be a transcription error. I checked the original document and saw that the person recording her information had in fact written “Africa” as her birthplace.

Bondy Washington in the 1880 Census

I also found Bondy in the 1900 Census. Again, Bondy’s birthplace is recorded as Africa.

Bondy Washington in the 1900 Census

Bondy wasn’t in my database again after 1900, but I became fascinated with her story and decided to dig deeper. The earliest record that I can confidently match to her dates from 1870. In this census, Bondy’s birthplace is recorded as “Congo R., Africa.” She is listed as living with a man named Frank, who, in other censuses, is recorded as her husband. Several city directories from 1880 to 1900 mention Frank, all associating him with the same address—821 E 11^th Street, in a neighborhood then known as Robertson’s Hill. It is safe to assume that Bondy also lived there and that her exclusion was probably related to her gender. City directories from 1903 and 1906 associate Bondy with the same address. Frank, who was left out of these documents, possibly passed away between 1900 and 1903.

Picture of original - Bondy Washington in the 1870s Census — *Bondy Washington in the 1870 Census*

I later found Travis County death certificate for a Black woman named “Bondig Washington.” Despite the error, I believe that this is likely the same person. While people provide their own information in the census and directories, someone else must record their death certificate. In this case, the (white) county clerk filled it out and recorded Bondy’s birthplace as Texas. In her death, her place of birth was erased.

Picture of original document - Bondy Washington's Death Certificate — *Bondy Washington’s Death Certificate*

Already, Bondy has a remarkable story: a Black woman born in Africa around 1850 was brought to Austin, TX and lived in the same place for more than thirty years. But what else can we know about her? Who was she before 1870, and who was she before emancipation?

Picture of original document - Bondy Washington's sale — The final record I found that mentions Bondy is a notice of sheriff’s sale in the Statesman. The house that she had lived in, at least since 1880, was being sold for $3.77. Sheriff’s Sale of Bondy Washington’s Property

It’s impossible to say what her life was like, but Bondy was likely trafficked to the United States from Congo as a child. She had enough memory of this to claim her birthplace as Africa on records she filled out personally.

Bondy’s African origins are especially puzzling when considered in the context of the legality of the slave trade. When the United States Constitution was written, its authors agreed to allow the trafficking of African slaves into the county until at least 1808. In 1807, President Thomas Jefferson signed into law a bill banning the practice starting the next year. Because Texas was not a part of the United States, and was rather a part of Mexican territory, it was not beholden to this rule. The Mexican government banned the importation of slaves into Texas in 1824. When Texas became a Republic, its constitution also banned the practice.

Image of Canoe for Transporting Slaves, Sierra Leone — *Section of Canoe for Transporting Slaves, Sierra Leone, 1840’s.*
Source: *Slave Voyages*

So, if Bondy was brought to Texas to be enslaved, she was brought illegally. Historians have written about the illegal slave trade in Texas in the republican period and thereafter. They have documented that the illegal slave trade continued through the 1850s, sometimes on ships purporting to import camels into the United States.

American politicians generated a scheme to allow for clandestine trafficking of Africans to the United States. They petitioned the United States War Department to allow the importation of camels for use in domestic combat. This gave large cargo ships travelling to West Africa a cover story—their large holds were for military camels, not slaves. The last speculated instance of this practice was in 1856.

Illegal trafficking continued during Bondy’s early years, and it is likely that this is how she came to the United States. We can’t know, though, how she was brought there—on a camel ship or otherwise. Rare is the slave ship that records the names of its passengers. Certainly, an illegal slave ship trafficking people to the United States in the 1850s didn’t leave such traces. Even if they did, who knows the name Bondy was given by her mother? Who knows if she changed it once she landed in Texas or had it changed for her?

Ship records weren’t the only ones that excluded people’s names. The 1860 slave census records the number of people an individual enslaved, but it completely omits their names. As such, it would be impossible to identify Bondy in the slave registers. However, there is one potential lead. Someone in the Austin area with the surname “Washington” enslaved, among many others, two people of the same ages that Bondy and Frank would have been in 1860. Since some people took the surnames of their enslavers upon emancipation, it is possible that these two people were Bondy and Frank.

Two images of selection of the 1860 Slave Census, showing two people of Frank and Bondy’s ages, owned by a man in Travis County named T. P. Washington. — *A selection of the 1860 Slave Census, showing two people of Frank and Bondy’s ages, owned by a man in Travis County named T. P. Washington.*

Because those collecting their information recorded them as property and not people, we don’t know the names of those two people, and we don’t know who they are.

A depiction of the house at 821 E 11th St (on the corner) in 1887 from the Augustus Koch map. — *A depiction of the house at 821 E 11^th St (on the corner) in 1887 from the Augustus Koch map.*

We do know some things. Bondy was from Africa, and she lived in Austin. Bondy and Frank probably built that house themselves, and they lived there for decades. They lived in a neighborhood that is today so utterly transformed by modernity, segregation, and gentrification.

A Google Streetview photo of the location of historic 821 E 11th St, Austin, Texas—just across the street from Franklin BBQ and the African American Cultural and Heritage Facility. — *A Google Streetview photo of the location of historic 821 E 11^th St, Austin, Texas—just across the street from Franklin BBQ and the African American Cultural and Heritage Facility.*

Bondy had no children, so no personal genealogical inquiries would have made her story known. Our project has the potential to find other people in Austin with unique stories. By looking at big data, we can find individuals with differences. However, there are still limitations to what we can know because of what was recorded in the past.

Amy Shreeve Bridges is a J.D. Candidate at Yale Law School and a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. While pursuing her undergraduate degree in history, she completed digital humanities and urban geography research that focused on mapping the racial geography of historic Austin. Her research interests include historical GIS, segregation, and urban housing policies.

References

“912 E 11^th Street,” Google Streetview, March 2024, https://www.google.com/maps/@30.2698205,-97.7309772,3a,75y,209.52h,104.14t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1syJa1RPhIgQNCmJL-o4CPKg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DyJa1RPhIgQNCmJL-o4CPKg%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.share%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26yaw%3D209.52129397598353%26pitch%3D-14.140192174838944%26thumbfov%3D90!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu.

Austin, Texas, City Directory, pg 168. Morrison & Foumy. 1881.

Austin, Texas, City Directory, pg 239. Morrison & Foumy. 1887.

Austin, Texas, City Directory, pg 258. Morrison & Foumy. 1891.

Austin, Texas, City Directory, pg 288. Morrison & Foumy. 1893.

Austin, Texas, City Directory, pg 297. Morrison & Foumy. 1895.

Austin, Texas, City Directory, pg 273. Morrison & Foumy. 1903.

Austin, Texas, City Directory, pg 285. Morrison & Foumy. 1906.

“Sherrif’s Sale,” Austin Statesman, March 16, 1909. https://www.newspapers.com/image/366290646

Barker, Eugene C. “The African Slave Trade in Texas.” The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 6, no. 2 (1902): 145–58. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27784929.

Koch, Augustus. Austin, State Capital of Texas. 1887. Lithograph, 28 x 41 in. Austin History Center, Austin Public Library.

“Racial Mapping Austin,” Central Texas Retold, accessed June 19, 2024, https://ctxretold.org/black-communities/mapping-the-city/.

“Report of Death,” Travis County Death Certificates via FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9Y1H-SYKH?view=index), image 1490 of 3319.

U.S. Census Bureau. The Ninth Federal Census (1870); Census Place: Austin, Travis, Texas; Roll: M593_1606; Page: 297A.

U.S. Census Bureau. The Tenth Federal Census (1880); Census Place: Austin, Travis, Texas; Roll: 1329; Page: 262d; Enumeration District: 136.

U.S. Census Bureau. The Twelfth Federal Census (1900); Census Place: Austin Ward 8, Travis, Texas; Roll: 1673; Page: 3; Enumeration District: 0096

Review of Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and the Rise of Anti-Asian Racism in America, 1890-1950 (2022) by Jennie N. Shinozuka

Jeannie Shinozuka’s new book, Biotic Borders, is not only a “history of bugs and other bothers,” [209] but also a demonstration of how ecological actors played a fundamental role in shaping sociopolitical responses to Japanese immigration to the US from 1890-1950. The book shows how racialized invasive species furthered American nationalism in the name of biological security. The othering of invasive species along racial lines and legitimate alarm over environmental destruction contributed to the consolidation of American biotic borders. This review of Biotic Borders highlights how ecological fears were deeply intertwined with racial politics of the era.

Frequently, these invisible eco-invaders—mostly agrarian insect pests—were used by American citizens and government agencies as an excuse to take action against an equally invisible ‘yellow peril’—the increasing number of Asian migrants—through discriminatory agriculture policies, scientific racism, accusations of treachery, medical discrimination, and the consolidation of borders. Indeed, Shinozuka argues that the erection of “‘artificial barriers,’ such as plant quarantines and other regulations ‘redrew’ imaginary lines determined by national boundaries.” [55] In this way, the transpacific ecological borderland enshrined at the end of a romanticized Western American frontier contributed to nationalist notions of a biologically native American utopia, and ultimately, an emergent American empire.

Drawings of frogs, snails, and insects from Japan, early nineteenth century.
Source: Library of Congress.

Throughout the book, Shinozuka uses ‘immigrant’ in reference to human migrants and the non-human plants and animals that crossed the Pacific during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The human immigrants were the large numbers of Japanese and Japanese-Americans who struggled against pervasive anti-Asian hostility in the United States. The non-human immigrants consisted of the hundreds of Asiatic plant species, and the insects that lived within their fibers, that were shipped and sold in the US to meet a growing demand for Japanese-style gardens and “Asian exotics.” [9] As these two types of ‘immigrant’ became entangled in the American imagination, so too did American hostility towards all foreign species, human or not. However, the word ‘immigrant’ is not the only parallel Shinozuka draws between these two subjects of her book. Biotic Borders is a compelling attempt to connect these two histories, which Shinozuka argues are inextricably bound together.

As agriculture in the US became professionalized and monoculture became standardized, the fear of invasive species, imported via increasingly globalized transportation networks, exploded. Entomologists empowered by newly-established government agencies like the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Plant Industry sought to uncover the origin of invasive insects. Yet by searching for their non-native origins, these scientists racialized the insects, giving them names such as the Japanese Beetle or the Oriental Scale and facilitating two-way comparisons between humans and insects: the personification of insects and the dehumanization of humans. In turn, these racialized species provoked widespread biological xenophobia, spurred on by the real fear of economic destruction in the agrarian sector, and by a growing desire for environmental border control to protect an illusory vision of American biological nativism. The fear of racialized insects shaped hostility towards similarly racialized human immigrants.

Dr. Wm. A. Taylor, Chief Bureau of Plant Industry, Dept. Agrl, circa 1920.
Source: Library of Congress.

Each of the eight chapters of Biotic Borders is loosely centered around a particular cross-border ecological crisis or invasive species. Chapter 1 focuses on the San José Scale (Quadraspidiotus perniciosus), Chapter 2 on the Chestnut Blight (Cryphonectria parasitica), Chapter 3 on insects at the US-Mexico border, and so on. However, the predominant thread of the book is dedicated to the experience of Japanese immigrants during the growing, racist, anti-immigrant hysteria prevalent at the time. In Chapter 4, Shinozuka explains how Japanese Americans were classified as “unhygienic,” [103] were accused of price fixing and unfair business practices, and were accused of bearing responsibility for hookworm and foodborne illnesses.

Chapter 5 shifts focus to Hawai’i. As a gateway between the US and Asia, Hawai’i became a central focus in securing ecological borders. Shinozuka uses the chapter to demonstrate how scientific authority was deployed as a tool of empire. The remaining chapters cover a growing anti-Japanese paranoia during WWII, including a discussion that joins the incarceration of the Japanese American population and the widespread use of chemical pesticides to combat Japanese Beetle infestations.

Biotic Borders is a thoroughly researched book. Shinozuka uses a variety of sources, including oral histories, to weave together human and non-human narratives. However, occasionally the exact relationship between the human and insect migration is obscured. Whether nativism was a driving force in the creation of ecological borders or whether the creation of ecological borders contributed to growing nativism is unclear in her telling. Similarly, the causal relationship between alarm over Japanese immigration and alarm over plant and insect immigration is sometimes confused. This said, what is clear from Shinozuka’s book is that these processes mirrored each other, and that through one, we gain a better understanding of the other.

By the end of the book, Shinozuka weaves the historical questions of globalization and racism with contemporary challenges. Citing the recent example of COVID-19, she demonstrates how politicians fixated on the Chinese origins of the virus, compared the pandemic to Pearl Harbor and 9/11, and—just like at the end of the nineteenth century—racialized a biotic invader. The book concludes with a direct disagreement with environmental historian Peter Coates who once argued that the brand of “botanical xenophobia” and “eco-racism” [217] presented by Shinozuka had largely dissolved by the late twentieth century. To Shinozuka, as globalization accelerated, science played an increasing role in “the transnational flow of bodies, agricultural products and livestock, and pollution” [219]. She argues that this role is too often obscured when immigration is discussed in a vacuum. Despite its somber content, the book ends with a hopeful note that Biotic Borders could serve as an example for an interdisciplinary, open-ended dialogue about questions of science, racism, nationalism, and ethics.

William Dinneen is a pre-doc research associate at the University of Pennsylvania’s PDRI-DevLab. He graduated with a bachelor’s in history from Emory University where he wrote a thesis about the environmental restoration of the Rocky Flats nuclear facility.

15 Minutes History – US China relations in the 1970s

During the 1970s, relations between the US and China were transformed. Previously the two nations were cold war enemies. But Kazushi Minami argues that the ’70s saw Americans reimagine China as a country of opportunities, while Chinese reinterpreted the US as an agent of modernization, capable of enriching their country. Crucial to this process was “people’s diplomacy” the title of Minami’s book on US-China relations which focuses on how Americans and Chinese from all walks of life engaged in people-to-people exchanges across the realms of business, culture and sport. Minami teaches history at Osaka University in Japan.

15 Minutes History – Black Labor in Boston

The historian Henry Adams once wrote that, “the American boy of 1854 stood nearer the year 1 than to the year 1900.” Changes during that period were indeed profound in Adam’s home town of Boston. And yet, for the majority of the city’s black men and women, life and work in 1900 were not that different from the 1850s — despite Boston’s proud progressive history.

We’re joined today by Professor Jackie Jones, whose new Pulitzer Prize-winning book “No Right to An Honest Living” traces the Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era. Professor Jones’ book not only reconstructs black life — and indeed white hypocrisy — in compelling detail, it also shows the incredible value that labor history furnishes us with for understanding the past.

This is Democracy – Supreme Court Reforms

This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Sanford Levinson to discuss the current state of the Supreme Court, recent efforts by Joe Biden to propose reforms, and how effective these proposals would be in practice.

Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled, “The Judges.”

Sanford Levinson, who holds the W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair in Law, joined the University of Texas Law School in 1980. Previously a member of the Department of Politics at Princeton University, he is also a Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas. Levinson is the author of approximately 450 articles, book reviews, or commentaries in professional and popular journals–and a regular contributor to the popular blog Balkinization. He has also written seven books: Constitutional Faith (1988, winner of the Scribes Award, 2d edition 2011); Written in Stone: Public Monuments in Changing Societies (1998, 2d ed. 2018); Wrestling With Diversity (2003); Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It)(2006); Framed: America’s 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance (2012); An Argument Open to All: Reading the Federalist in the 21st Century (2015); Democracy and Dysfunction (with Jack Balkin) (2018); and, with Cynthia Levinson, Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and the Flaws that Affect Us Today (2017, 2d ed. 2019, graphic novel ed. 2020). Edited or co-edited books include a leading constitutional law casebook, Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking (6th ed. 2015, with Paul Brest, Jack Balkin, Akhil Amar, and Reva Siegel); Nullification and Secession in Modern Constitutional Thought (2016); Reading Law and Literature: A Hermeneutic Reader (1988, with Steven Mallioux); Responding to Imperfection: The Theory and Practice of Constitutional Amendment (1995); Constitutional Stupidities, Constitutional Tragedies (1998, with William Eskridge); Legal Canons (2000, with Jack Balkin); The Louisiana Purchase and American Expansion (2005, with Batholomew Sparrow); Torture: A Collection (2004, revised paperback edition, 2006); The Oxford Handbook on the United States Constitution (with Mark Tushnet and Mark Graber, 2015); and Constitutional Democracy in Crisis? (with Mark Tushnet and Mark Graber, 2018). He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association in 2010.

This is Democracy – Reforming Democracy

This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Michael Ignatieff to discuss the current state of the institutions of democracy, how they are being questioned by some political movements, and how they can be reformed and strengthened.

Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled, “A Constitution of the Soul.”

Michael Ignatieff is a historian and the former leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. He has served as rector and president of Central European University and is the author, most recently, of On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times. Ignatieff published an important article this summer in the Journal of Democracy, “When Democracy is on the Ballot:”

This is Democracy – Political Violence

This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by Joanne Freeman to discuss political violence in the American political landscape from a historical perspective, and disperse some of the myths and misconceptions around it.

Zachary sets the scene with his poem entitled “The War of Independence”

Joanne Freeman is the Class of 1954 Professor of American History and American Studies at Yale University. She is the author of two groundbreaking books on political violence in America history: Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic and The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War. Prof. Freeman writes frequently for the New York Times, Washington Post, Atlantic. and other publications. She is a regular guest on CNN, MSNBC, and other news networks. Her webcast — “History Matters (…& so does coffee!)” — can be joined every Friday morning at 10:00am EST:

This is Democracy – Supreme Court

Stephen Vladeck is professor of law at Georgetown University. He is the author of a New York Times bestselling book, The Shadow Docket. He publishes a widely-read newsletter on the Supreme Court, One First.

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