Slavery, Railroads and President Jackson

Has Black History Month lost some of its pizzazz? There was a time when this month was filled to overflowing with all sorts of performances by and exhibitions about African Americans.
Regardless of public displays or lack thereof, I took it upon myself to mark this month by reading a book that focused on an area I never studied in great depth: slavery.
In the Cape May County Library, I happened upon Daniel Rasmussen’s “American Uprising, The Untold Story of America’s Largest Slave Revolt.” I highly recommend the book. It was a book I virtually could not put down, but had to, at times, because of the terrible mental images the story evoked.
The author did a very impressive job, in my opinion, to show the life of slaves, what they endured on a continuing basis, how physical discipline was meted out to those who transgressed, and that the uprising was spread by word of mouth among plantations around New Orleans in 1811.
Indeed, for many, the notion of freedom was fleeting, but some, at last, could take oppression no longer, and rose up against their owners.
Like much of history we believe we know, this book is one-sided. Having never read such a gut-wrenching work, I wonder how white owners could have been so detached from caring about their slaves. We see, too, that the Haitian slave revolt, that gained the French colony its independence in 1803, was something many slave owners knew and feared, since they were outnumbered by those they owned.
In the last few days of this month, if you want to look into this depressing section of American history, fetch that book, and be prepared to burn some midnight oil.
While not so focused on the issue of slavery, Stephen E. Ambrose’s “Nothing Like it in the World,” the men who built the Transcontinental Railroad is a tome railroad buffs may find fascinating. Since Dad worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad, after sea stories, I find books about railroad movers and shakers enjoyable, but don’t ask me why.
All I ever knew about the railroad that crossed the young nation to the Pacific was drawn from the famed photo of two engines nearly touching and a crowd looking at the camera.
The book tells of a lawyer, Abraham Lincoln, who was a deal maker. He worked for a railroad, and once chief executive, advocated the line to be built, even as the Civil War tore apart the country. The war, the book theorizes, helped mold many of those who made the railroad happen. It placed some well-connected generals in places of great importance.
We are taken to the Capitol where congressional committees weighed pros and cons of loaning builders federal funds, with huge land grants to builders on either side of the right of way, They fretted where the line would be placed, and the notion of slave and Free states played into the equation.
California, meanwhile, remained accessible only to those daring enough to cross the vast continent on their own, or to make the arduous voyage around South America to get there.
This is a book about headstrong men and engineers, and wealthy barons who let their money do their talking. Not much has changed, has it?
The only trouble with the copy of the book I read was that it was a physically broken volume, its binding severed, like the nation at war. On return to the library, I told the librarian it needed mending.
As we prepare for Presidents Weekend, either to feast or waste away relaxing or shopping, you may want to delve into another book focused on one of the nation’s less considered (far less than Lincoln or Washington) chief executives, Andrew Jackson.
Jon Meacham’s “American Lion, Andrew Jackson in the White House” will take your perspective away from the rigors of beginning a new nation (as in George Washington) or in the cares of ruling a war-torn set of states (Abraham Lincoln.)
Although I am partly through the book, in large print, for those who cannot see “fine” print as well as in the past, I am learning how gutsy and different was Jackson from any other president.
Jackson would never have been able to attain office today. The media would have slaughtered him before he took his oath. After all, he had killed a man in a duel, but that was acceptable in his day. He carried a bullet within him until the day he died, and which, it was said, likely caused his weakened physical condition.
Famed for his victory over the British in New Orleans, Jackson was a tough guy, who probably would have shirked Secret Service bodyguards. He would take on attackers himself.
Jackson loved family above all else, and believed himself to be the nation’s titular father as its grew and moved west.
He advocated removal of Native Americans from their ancestral land, to be resettled in the West.
He never left his soldiers alone to suffer, but walked so that some injured could ride is horse. Jackson was, perhaps, one of the greatest loved presidents, although we might never know that from reading other histories of him. He was, indeed, a “people’s president.” He knew personal grief, having lost his precious wife Rachel shortly before Christmas just before he would assume the nation’s highest office.
Jackson, admonished by Christian leaders, did not travel on “the Sabbath” as he journeyed to the nation’s capital. He rested on that day, unless, aboard a moving boat.
These are three books of America’s past I think nearly anyone with a mind to learn would enjoy. They are free at the Cape May County Library, and available from your library, if it is not part of the system.