TY - BOOK AU - Armstead,Myra B.Young TI - Freedom’s Gardener: James F. Brown, Horticulture, and the Hudson Valley in Antebellum America SN - 9780814705100 AV - F127.H8 A76 2012 U1 - 635.092 23 PY - 2012///] CY - New York, NY : PB - New York University Press, KW - African Americans KW - Hudson River Valley (N.Y. and N.J.) KW - Social conditions KW - 19th century KW - Free Black people KW - Biography KW - Free blacks KW - Fugitive slaves KW - Maryland KW - Gardeners KW - HISTORY / United States / 20th Century KW - bisacsh N1 - Frontmatter --; Contents --; Acknowledgments --; Introduction --; PART I . LIFE AS A SLAVE --; 1 What Can a Man Do? --; 2 Into the Promised Land --; PART II . FREE MAN AND FREE LABORER --; 3 A Horticultural Community --; 4 A Gardening Career --; 5 Cultural Meanings of Gardening --; 6 Escaping Wage Slavery --; PART III . FREE MAN AND CITIZEN --; 7 A Whiggish Sensibility --; 8 James F. Brown, Voting Rights Politics, and Antislavery Activism --; 9 The Informal Politics of Association --; Conclusion --; Notes --; Index --; About the Author; restricted access N2 - A fascinating study of freedom and slavery, told through the life of an escaped slave who built a life in the Hudson ValleyIn 1793 James F. Brown was born a slave, and in 1868 he died a free man. At age 34 he ran away from his native Maryland to pass the remainder of his life as a gardener to a wealthy family in the Hudson Valley. Two years after his escape and manumission, he began a diary which he kept until his death. In Freedom’s Gardener, Myra B. Young Armstead uses the apparently small and domestic details of Brown’s diaries to construct a bigger story about the transition from slavery to freedom.In this first detailed historical study of Brown’s diaries, Armstead utilizes Brown’s life to illuminate the concept of freedom as it developed in the United States in the early national and antebellum years. That Brown, an African American and former slave, serves as such a case study underscores the potential of American citizenship during his lifetime UR - https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814705100.001.0001 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780814707920 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9780814707920/original ER -