Denmark Veseys Garden: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy

About this book

One of Janet Maslins Favorite Books of 2018 The New York Times One of John Warners Favorite Books of 2018 Chicago Tribune Named one of the Best Civil War Books of 2018 by the Civil War Monitor A fascinating and important new historical study. Janet Maslin The New York Times A stunning contribution to the historiography of Civil War memory studies. Civil War Times In the tradition of James Loewens Lies My Teacher Told Me a deeply researched book that uncovers competing histories of how slavery is remembered in Charleston South Carolinathe heart of Dixie A book that strikes at the heart of the recent flare-ups over Confederate symbols in Charlottesville New Orleans and elsewhere Denmark Veseys Garden reveals the deep roots of these controversies and traces them to the heart of slavery in the United States: Charleston South Carolina where almost half of the U.S. slave population stepped onto our shores where the first shot at Fort Sumter began the Civil War and where Dylann Roof shot nine people at Emanuel A.M.E. Church the congregation of Denmark Vesey a black revolutionary who plotted a massive slave insurrection in 1822. As early as 1865 former slaveholders and their descendants began working to preserve a romanticized memory of the antebellum South. In contrast former slaves their descendants and some white allies have worked to preserve an honest unvarnished account of slavery as the cruel system it was. Examining public rituals controversial monuments and whitewashed historical tourism Denmark Veseys Garden tracks these two rival memories from the Civil War all the way to contemporary times where two segregated tourism industries still reflect these opposing impressions of the past exposing a hidden dimension of Americas deep racial divide. Denmark Veseys Garden joins the small bookshelf of major paradigm-shifting new interpretations of slaverys enduring legacy in the United States.