Professor Sebastian Page of Oxford University has won the Tom Watson Brown Book Award for his new volume Black Resettlement and the American Civil War. The $50,000 prize is awarded by The Society of Civil War Historians. According to the Prize Committee:
“Black Resettlement and the American Civil War places the hitherto underexamined issue of colonization and emigration throughout the western hemisphere at the center of Republican policies and makes a convincing case that both are vital to an appreciation of the complex nature of the country’s approach to emancipation, the war, and post-emancipation. Separation, not integration, he shows, was more characteristic of the country’s policy. Black resettlement outside of the United States is also crucial to our understanding of competing empires and colonial policies in the final decades of the nineteenth century. Page writes beautifully applying deft, and sometimes humorous touches to his discussion of complex political and social issues.”
The prize will be presented at the Tom Watson Brown Book Award dinner on November 10, 2022, at the Southern Historical Association’s annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland.
According to the Journal of the Civil War Era, “The Watson Brown Book Award jury consisted of Richard Blackett (chair), Andrew Jackson Professor of History at Vanderbilt University; Barbara Gannon, Associate Professor of History at the University of Central Florida; Wayne Hsieh, Associate Professor of History at the U.S. Naval Academy; and Tad Brown, President of the Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc.”
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I MUST acquire this book!!
He’s written about one of my fave CW/WBTS subjects, Black American colonisation.
As written above, this is easily one of the most misunderstood and under-examined fields of study pertaining to the war.
I will gladly discuss with anyone who wants to chat, but for now, it’s critical to understand that there were 2 ‘forks’ to the issue of Black American colonisation.
There was the fork that is exemplified by Frederick Douglass’ meeting at the White House with President Andrew Johnson in 1866; the issue was steeped in racism from White Americans whom wanted the nation to be ridden of Black Americans entirely. Just simply GONE!
But the other fork about the topic is this; Black American colonisation was a way of providing Black Americans abroad with the same rights, privileges and most importantly of all, STATUS, as Americans abroad that White Americans would enjoy from about 1800 to the eve of WWII, (ballpark timeline).
Americans whom exited their home country did NOT look upon themselves as leaving America; rather, they viewed themselves as ‘bringing America to the world’.