Translated from the original French and annotated with figures, historical maps and commentary from the translators, this work is Jean-Charles Houzeau's account of his escape from Texas during the American Civil War. Houzeau was a Belgian astronomer who worked a couple of years as assistant astronomer at the Brussels Observatory, but eventually moved to the United States. He was living as a frontierman in Texas when the Civil War broke out, and because he took an abolitionist stance and helped slaves escape, he was forced to flee to Mexico, from where he sailed to New Orleans on board of a US military vessel. Originally titled La terreur blanche au Texas et mon 'evasion, Houzeau captured the details of his escape in 1862.The editors, an astronomer and a French language teacher, have added supplementary material to give the readers more depth and historical context to the story.

In the decades following the Civil War, nearly a quarter of African Americans achieved a remarkable victory—they got their own land. While other ex-slaves and many poor whites became trapped in the exploitative sharecropping system, these independence-seeking individuals settled on pockets of unclaimed land that had been deemed too poor for farming and turned them into successful family farms. In these self-sufficient rural communities, often known as "freedom colonies," African Americans created a refuge from the discrimination and violence that routinely limited the opportunities of blacks in the Jim Crow South. Freedom Colonies is the first book to tell the story of these independent African American settlements. Thad Sitton and James Conrad focus on communities in Texas, where blacks achieved a higher percentage of land ownership than in any other state of the Deep South. The authors draw on a vast reservoir of ex-slave narratives, oral histories, written memoirs, and public records to describe how the freedom colonies formed and to recreate the lifeways of African Americans who made their living by farming or in skilled trades such as milling and blacksmithing. They also uncover the forces that led to the decline of the communities from the 1930s onward, including economic hard times and the greed of whites who found legal and illegal means of taking black-owned land. And they visit some of the remaining communities to discover how their independent way of life endures into the twenty-first century.

Designed for middle school teachers and students in California. Offer teachers and students a method to focus on the written and oral language convention required by the standards--to provide an effective way to teach and learn grammar, usage, and mechanics skills.

Provides a general overview of the current practices and procedures that should be considered for financing and establishing rates and charges for wastewater collection and treatment systems. It updates the 1984 Edition of Financing and Charges for Wastewater Systems co-published by (American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and (American Public Health Association (APHA), then in its second edition, and serves as a guide to wastewater utility managers, municipal officials, engineers, accountants, and rate analysts. Because the material was updated using a more rigorous peer-review process, the publication is now classified as a Manual of Practice. This manual is not intended to provide a simplistic “cook book” or universal approach to cost allocation and rate making. Rather, it is meant to illustrate the various ways of analyzing and allocating the operating and capital costs associated with collecting and treating wastewater and developing rates and charges that reasonably and equitably reflect the cost of service. The manual stresses the complexity of the integrated considerations involved in developing wastewater system cost allocation and rates for services.

The results of this book's four-decade study reveal the patterns and economic impact of retirement migration at the state and county levels.