Finalist - 2023 Frederick Douglass Book Prize
Winner - 2023 Tom Watson Brown Book Award
Winner - 2023 Shapiro Book Prize
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.
In this deeply researched, movingly narrated portrait of the extended Townsend family, award-winning historian Isabela Morales reconstructs the migration of this mixed-race family across the American West and South over the second half of the nineteenth century. Searching for communities where they could exercise their newfound freedom and wealth to the fullest, members of the family homesteaded and attended college in Ohio and Kansas; fought for the Union Army in Mississippi; mined for silver in the Colorado Rockies; and, in the case of one son, returned to Alabama to purchase part of the old plantation where he had once been held as a slave. In Morales's telling, the Townsends' story maps a new landscape of opportunity and oppression, where the meanings of race and freedom -- as well as opportunities for social and economic mobility -- were dictated by highly local circumstances.
During the turbulent period between the Civil War and the rise of Jim Crow at the turn of the twentieth century, the Townsends carved out spaces where they were able to benefit from their money and mixed-race ancestry, pass down generational wealth, and realize some of their happy dreams of liberty.
In this deeply researched, movingly narrated portrait of the extended Townsend family, award-winning historian Isabela Morales reconstructs the migration of this mixed-race family across the American West and South over the second half of the nineteenth century. Searching for communities where they could exercise their newfound freedom and wealth to the fullest, members of the family homesteaded and attended college in Ohio and Kansas; fought for the Union Army in Mississippi; mined for silver in the Colorado Rockies; and, in the case of one son, returned to Alabama to purchase part of the old plantation where he had once been held as a slave. In Morales's telling, the Townsends' story maps a new landscape of opportunity and oppression, where the meanings of race and freedom -- as well as opportunities for social and economic mobility -- were dictated by highly local circumstances.
During the turbulent period between the Civil War and the rise of Jim Crow at the turn of the twentieth century, the Townsends carved out spaces where they were able to benefit from their money and mixed-race ancestry, pass down generational wealth, and realize some of their happy dreams of liberty.
Praise for Happy Dreams of Liberty
"Beautifully written and utterly engrossing ... a work of prodigious research."
- Shapiro Book Prize jury
"With graceful prose and deep empathy, R. Isabela Morales tells a sweeping American story ... This is a sprawling family drama, full of contradictions and conflict. Morales tells it beautifuly, almost novelistically, by imbuing it with atmosphere and minute detail."
- Tom Watson Brown Book Award jury
"Happy Dreams of Liberty is an extraordinary family saga ... Isabela Morales brilliantly projects an intimate story onto the vast canvas of the American experience."
- Daniel J. Sharfstein, author of The Invisible Line: A Secret History of Race in America
"Morales's engrossing family history is the product of old-fashioned archival research, cutting-edge analysis, and brilliant writing. With empathy and imagination, she recreates the lives of a remarkable group of men and women, born into slavery, freed in one enslaver's will. We see and feel their dreams of freedom and opportunity along with their lifelong efforts to achieve them. It's a peculiarly American story. It's anything but black and white."
- James Goodman, author of Stories of Scottsboro
"This is much more than a fascinating piece of history found buried deep in the archives. The Townsends' complex story of inheritance and the struggle for freedom in post-Civil War America remains relevant today as we confront the continuing legacy of the institution of slavery, the persistence of racism, and the ways that we as a society choose to memorialize the past."
- W. Ralph Eubanks, author of The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South
"Captivating... A born storyteller, Morales gifts us with a captivating and multilayered history of a formerly enslaved family seeking equality. ... Morales reclaims their voices, and their stories."
- Katherine Burns, Slavery & Abolition
"Captivating and thoroughly researched, this poignant multigenerational saga gives a voice to a type of family that been traditionally absent from the historical narrative."
- Anne Ulentin, University of the Bahamas, Journal of Southern History
"Historian R. Isabela Morales tells a captivating story ... A highlight of this book features the voices of the mixed-heritage Townsends through their surviving letters."
- A. B. Wilkinson, Western Historical Quarterly
- Shapiro Book Prize jury
"With graceful prose and deep empathy, R. Isabela Morales tells a sweeping American story ... This is a sprawling family drama, full of contradictions and conflict. Morales tells it beautifuly, almost novelistically, by imbuing it with atmosphere and minute detail."
- Tom Watson Brown Book Award jury
"Happy Dreams of Liberty is an extraordinary family saga ... Isabela Morales brilliantly projects an intimate story onto the vast canvas of the American experience."
- Daniel J. Sharfstein, author of The Invisible Line: A Secret History of Race in America
"Morales's engrossing family history is the product of old-fashioned archival research, cutting-edge analysis, and brilliant writing. With empathy and imagination, she recreates the lives of a remarkable group of men and women, born into slavery, freed in one enslaver's will. We see and feel their dreams of freedom and opportunity along with their lifelong efforts to achieve them. It's a peculiarly American story. It's anything but black and white."
- James Goodman, author of Stories of Scottsboro
"This is much more than a fascinating piece of history found buried deep in the archives. The Townsends' complex story of inheritance and the struggle for freedom in post-Civil War America remains relevant today as we confront the continuing legacy of the institution of slavery, the persistence of racism, and the ways that we as a society choose to memorialize the past."
- W. Ralph Eubanks, author of The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South
"Captivating... A born storyteller, Morales gifts us with a captivating and multilayered history of a formerly enslaved family seeking equality. ... Morales reclaims their voices, and their stories."
- Katherine Burns, Slavery & Abolition
"Captivating and thoroughly researched, this poignant multigenerational saga gives a voice to a type of family that been traditionally absent from the historical narrative."
- Anne Ulentin, University of the Bahamas, Journal of Southern History
"Historian R. Isabela Morales tells a captivating story ... A highlight of this book features the voices of the mixed-heritage Townsends through their surviving letters."
- A. B. Wilkinson, Western Historical Quarterly
