Sweet Home Feliciana - Family, Slavery, and the Hauntings of History

In this tapestry of intersecting stories, including those of her own family, Rashauna Johnson charts the global transformation of a rural region in Louisiana from European colonialism to Jim Crow. From her ancestor Virgil to her cousin Veronica and her hand-sewn Mardi Gras memorial suit more than a century later, this history is one of triumphs and trauma, illustrating the ways people of African descent have created sites of endurance, belonging, and resistance. Johnson uses her grandmother's birthplace in East Feliciana as a prism to illuminate foundational, if fraught, aspects of US history including colonialism, slavery, war, citizenship, and unfinished freedom. The result is a portrait of the world in a family, a family in a region, and a region in the world that insists on the bristling and complicated relationships of people to place and creates a new understanding of what it means to be American.

List of contents

List of plates; List of figures; List of maps; Preface: The wondrousful weight of history; List of abbreviations; Introduction: 'A looking glass for the world'; 1. Native lands; 2. Revolutions; 3. Un/Settlement; 4. Worlds; 5. Futures; 6. War; 7. Un/Freedom; 8. Sanctuary; Epilogue: 'Again'; Acknowledgments; Notes; Index.

About the author

Rashauna Johnson is Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago. She is the author of the prizewinning book Slavery's Metropolis: Unfree Labor in New Orleans during the Age of Revolutions.

Product details

• Authors: Rashauna (The University of Chicago) Johnson, Johnson Rashauna
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 28.02.2026
• EAN: 9781009668323
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0966832-3
• No. of pages: 368
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Social structure research; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900, Social groups, c 1800 to c 1900, 19th century, c 1800 to c 1899, Social discrimination & inequality, Slavery & abolition of slavery, Black & Asian Studies, Central Southern States, US South, HISTORY / African American & Black, History of other lands, Social discrimination and social justice, Relating to African American / Black American people, Social groups, communities and identities, Slavery, enslaved persons and abolition of slavery