Nassau Plantation: The Evolution of a Texas German Slave Plantation
Contents:
Another chapter deals with the odyssey of the extended von Rosenberg family, who settled on the plantation in and helped to elevate the nearby town of Round Top into a regional center of culture and education. Many members of the family subsequently rose to positions of leadership and influence in Texas. Lindheimer, and the renowned naturalist Dr. Ferdinand Roemer, to name a few. Dramatic events also occurred at the plantation, including a deadly shootout, a successful escape by two slaves documented in an unprecedented way , and litigation over ownership that wound its way to both the Texas Supreme Court and the U.
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It will become the standard reference on this topic and will be of interest to scholars of German-Texan history as well as to the large element of German-Texans. Von-Maszewski, editor of Voyage to North America The only extended monographs on the Adelsverein and German emigration to Texas date to the early twentieth century. A lot of material has come to light since these studies appeared, and Kearney is on top of the sources. This will be a valuable reference work.
A welcome and worthy addition to Texas and German-American history shelves. The Prince stayed at the plantation on three separate occasions before returning to Germany in June The same year, responding to criticism in Germany, the Adelsverein declared its new colonies "slave free zones. Meusebach succeeded Solms-Braunfels as commissioner-general and he too spent time at Nassau during the first months of before attempting to move colonists onto the Fischer-Miller grant. At this point, the plantation was essentially leaderless and, in an improbable twist, a slave rose to become overseer of Nassau Plantation for a good part of the year By fall of the same year it had become painfully clear to the leadership in Germany that plans in Texas had not worked out, but had taken a disastrous turn when a shootout at the Herrenhaus left two dead.
The shootout at the plantation set into motion the series of events that culminated in the dismemberment of the plantation. The revolution of in Germany created further turmoil. Into the leadership void at the plantation stepped Otto von Roeder, who by the Civil War became the largest German-Texan slaveholder in the state. As a gristmill owner, he organized shipments and supplied grain to desperate colonists in New Braunfels and Friedrichsburg in , , and part of In , von Roeder gained control of the Nassau Plantation in exchange for the assistance he had provided.
He began parceling off the plantation and selling it to fresh immigrants from Germany transforming the region into one of the most exclusively Germanic areas of the state.
- Indra (Bedtime Erotica for Freaks)?
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- 46 Days.
- A notepad, a pen and time for reflection. (This is all you need.).
One small criticism of the book is that the notes for chapter 13 are missing, although this is most like the fault of the University of North Texas Press and not the author's. Kearney deftly illuminates the importance of the Nassau Plantation. It had historical significance as the first and most important possession of the Adelsverein from beginning to end.
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The plantation served above all as a reservoir of value that could be parlayed into food and other desperately needed supplies. Although it failed miserably as an experiment in slavery, the plantation's supportive role gave newcomers from Germany a chance to get established in Texas. I bought this as a gift for my mom, and she enjoyed it a lot! She said the writing or book style was a bit too "dry" for her, because she prefers reading about history in story form, but she did still really like the book despite that. Very interesting information that a lot of our Texas German relatives did not even know about e.
Cool piece of history! Loved this history of early german immigration to Texas.
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
Very well written and interesting. The author's drawings add a lot. I always wanted to know what things were important back then. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Nassau Plantation. Kearney has done a masterful job combining original, in-depth research of the German-language letters, reports, and legal documents pertaining to the Adelsverein with a pleasing narrative style. He has kept the book focused on the events and personalities surrounding the plantation and has avoided repeating the broader history of German migration towards and into the Fischer-Miller Grant.
I would recommend the book to anyone who has an interest in South Central Texas history ; Fayette, Austin, and Colorado Counties , German immigration into Texas in the 's and 's, Texas slavery, and antebellum life on the Texas frontier.
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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. Carl Prince of Solms-Braunfels Chapter 7. Appendix E Proclamation Concerning Slavery. Reference metadata exposed for Zotero via unAPI. Chapter 3 The Plantation.
See and discover other items: The strength of this book lies in the author's use of the seventy-volume transcript of the Solms-Braunfels Archives at the University of Texas's Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, in his ability to unravel the complicated land transactions recorded in the Fayette County Deed Records, and in his analytical acumen and felicitous writing style. Its weakness, if indeed it is one, is the author's tendency to digress into subjects that are peripheral to his main topic, such as the vicissitudes of Texas Germans during the Civil War.
However, this reviewer found these digressions rewarding due to the author's mastery of the literature on this subject, which consists largely of privately-published personal reminiscences and family histories, many in German.
The first printing of this title accidentally dropped the endnotes to Chapter 13; these notes are available for viewing in the Excerpt field below. Nassau Plantation: The Evolution of a Texas German Slave Plantation [James C. Kearney] on www.farmersmarketmusic.com *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In the s.
The book is charmingly illustrated with pencil sketches by the author depicting incidents described in the text. The last complete history of the Adelsverein and its Texas settlements was Rudolph Biesele's History of the German Settlements in Texas , published in and written without access to the Solms-Braunfels Archives.
James Kearney has a Ph.
Nassau Plantation : the evolution of a Texas-German slave plantation (Book, ) [www.farmersmarketmusic.com]
Nassau Plantation is too narrow in scope to completely replace Biesele, but one hopes that Kearney's next book will do just that. If you would like to authenticate using a different subscribed institution that supports Shibboleth authentication or have your own login and password to Project MUSE, click 'Authenticate'. View freely available titles: Book titles OR Journal titles.