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Sick From Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction
by
Jim Downs
Bondspeople who fled from slavery during and after the Civil War did not expect that their flight toward freedom would lead to sickness, disease, suffering, and death. But the war produced the largest biological crisis of the nineteenth century, and as historian Jim Downs reveals in this groundbreaking volume, it had deadly consequences for hundreds of thousands of freed p...more
Hardcover, 264 pages
Published
May 12th 2012
by Oxford University Press
(first published March 19th 2012)
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Sick from Freedom by Jim Downs
Jim Down's book Sick from Freedom is well written and quite enlightening from the standpoint that many Americans have no real knowledge of regarding the realities of life after slavery. Sick from Freedom paints a vivid picture of how life as freedmen was like on a day to day basis. Sick from Freedom not only focuses on the freed slaves regarding the racial divide but that lack of humane living conditions resulting in the lost of thousands of lives. The men women and...more
Jim Down's book Sick from Freedom is well written and quite enlightening from the standpoint that many Americans have no real knowledge of regarding the realities of life after slavery. Sick from Freedom paints a vivid picture of how life as freedmen was like on a day to day basis. Sick from Freedom not only focuses on the freed slaves regarding the racial divide but that lack of humane living conditions resulting in the lost of thousands of lives. The men women and...more
Although I felt the author had some biases pop up periodically, I didn't hold that against him because I found this book fascinating. Not only for the illnesses which are rarely talked about following the civil war of freed slaves, but also life, in general, following the Civil War across many sectors. I must add, if the book was not so interesting to me, I really would have nailed the author on what could have been interpreted as "snarky". I feel it has absolutely no place in history books whic...more
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This is a much needed and overdue treatment of African-Americans during and immediately after the Civil War. Arguing against historiographical and factual claims of previous historians, Downs describes the medical challenges facing freed slaves and the failure of the American government to meet them. He makes a convincing case that the war's causalities were much higher than previously established and that you can no longer talk about emancipation without considering the history of medicine.
Downs had me until the "epilogue." His points about "reconstruction moving west" are valid and interesting, but I felt like he played way too fast and way too loose with Native American health history. That said, the rest of the book is a thought-provoking exploration of freed slaves' health in the years immediately following the Civil War-- the bulk of the text focuses on the years 1864-1872. Health and poverty are important and often overlooked aspects of Reconstruction. While "Sick From Freed...more
Jul 09, 2012
Cherisse
added it
Black emancipation, a process circumscribed by "illness and suffering." A simple but often overlooked concept, in particular Downs' argument that health became a critical part of African Americans' campaign for rights. He refers to Helene, Arkansas in a couple of places. It's Helena. I wondered about the author's repeated use of the terms "freed" and "emancipated," "slaves." Preachy in parts but an interesting and important contribution to the historiography of African Americans during the Civil...more
May 19, 2013
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