Happy Dreams of Liberty
​An American Family in Slavery and Freedom

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When Samuel Townsend died at his home in Madison County, Alabama, in November 1856, the fifty-two-year-old white planter left behind hundreds of enslaved people, thousands of acres of rich cotton land, and a net worth of approximately $200,000. In life, Samuel had done little to distinguish himself from other members of the South's elite slaveholding class. But he made a name for himself in death by leaving almost the entirety of his fortune to his five sons, four daughters, and two nieces: all of them his slaves.
About the Author
​R. Isabela Morales is an award-winning author and historian of slavery. She is the Education & Exhibits Manager at the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum, central New Jersey's first Black history museum, as well as the Editor and Project Manager of Princeton University's expansive public history initiative, The Princeton & Slavery Project. Happy Dreams of Liberty, winner of the Huntington Library's 2023 Shapiro Book Prize, is her first book.

​Dr. Morales received her Ph.D. in history from Princeton University in 2019. She completed an M.A. in history from Princeton in 2014 and a B.A. in history and American Studies from The University of Alabama in 2012, where she first began the research that would become Happy Dreams of Liberty.
Curriculum Vitae