In nineteenth-century Santiago de Cuba, the island of Cuba's radical cradle, Afro-descendant peasants forged freedom and devised their own formative path to emancipation. Drawing on understudied archives, this pathbreaking work unearths a new history of Black rural geography and popular legalism, and offers a new framework for thinking about nineteenth-century Black freedom. Santiago de Cuba's Afro-descendant peasantries did not rely on liberal-abolitionist ideologies as a primary reference point in their struggle for rights. Instead, they negotiated their freedom and land piecemeal, through colonial legal frameworks that allowed for local custom and manumission. While gradually wearing down the institution of slavery through litigation and self-purchase, they reimagined colonial racial systems before Cuba's intellectuals had their say. Long before residents of Cuba protested for national independence and island-wide emancipation in 1868, it was Santiago's Afro-descendant peasants who, gradually and invisibly, laid the groundwork for emancipation.

A rich, pathbreaking study on nineteenth-century rural Cuba, and how Afro-descendant peasants forged freedom through litigation and land occupation.

While her father leads her toward Canada and away from the plantation where they have been slaves, a young girl thinks of the quilt her mother used to teach her a code that will help guide them to freedom.

Tanya finds her grandmother sitting by the window one day surrounded by pieces of material. Grandma has decided to make herself a patchwork quilt to replace the old one her mother made her. This story covers the progress of the quilt.

The original book on the renowned Freedom quilters of Gee's Bend In December of 1965, the year of the Selma-to-Montgomery march, a white Episcopal priest driving through a desperately poor, primarily black section of Wilcox County found himself at a great bend of the Alabama River. He noticed a cabin clothesline from which were hanging three magnificent quilts unlike any he had ever seen. They were of strong, bold colors in original, op-art patterns—the same art style then fashionable in New York City and other cultural centers. An idea was born and within weeks took on life, in the form of the Freedom Quilting Bee, a handcraft cooperative of black women artisans who would become acclaimed throughout the nation.

"Contemporary stories of spiritual and emotional freedom connect with tales of escaping slaves in the pre-Civil War era through a mysterious Underground Railroad quilt code. Each chapter is titled with the name of a quilt pattern associated with the quilt code ... that adds dimension and spiritual application to the lessons shared by the book's wide variety of contributing authors"--Back cover.

A family of women work together to help friends find a path to freedom.

From sisters Jenny Pedigo, Helen Robinson, and Sherilyn Mortensen comes this assortment of 30 quilt blocks – each with both curved and straight piecing. Featuring a total of 14 quilting projects consisting of three sampler quilts and 11 unique mix-and-match combinations, the beauty of the blocks is that there are endless possibilities for you to create your own original quilt designs! With an insightful section on how to use the Wonder Curve Ruler, also included are step-by-step instructions, helpful diagrams, alternative color and layout suggestions, and more.

A new and necessary examination of how nineteenth-century Cuban white elites viewed the natural world, material culture, and political power as intertwined In the decades before the Cuban wars of independence, white elites exploited the island’s natural history and culture to redefine racial identity and reassert authority. These practices occurred in the face of challenges to their political power from Cubans of mixed race and as Cuba’s dependence on sugar led to ecological and economic precarity. Lee Sessions uses close visual analysis to investigate how white elites wielded power by manipulating material culture, placing in conversation for the first time the natural history museums, botanical gardens, and thousands of paintings, drawings, and prints produced in and about Cuba from 1820 to 1860. This important and novel book explores how groups used material culture to imagine their own future at a moment when racial and political dynamics were changing rapidly, while facing an ecological disaster of unimaginable scale.

When the Spirit of Horse speaks to a ten-year-old girl through her dreams and calico patches magically appear as if from nowhere, the residents of Saddlecrest, Nevada have a genuine mystery on their hands. It's the story of how a girl ripped apart by divorce helps the wild mustangs torn from the range. Together they face uncertainties brought on by the decisions of others. Carrie's mom decides to uproot her from their familiar Jersey Shore home and move to the dusty deserts of Nevada. The move is as prickly to Carrie as the cactus beside her new home. But something mysterious greets her when she closes her eyes each night--like a winding path, her dreams guide her to the horses of the Calico Mountains. Are her developing psychic abilities bringing visits from horse spirits or is her troubled mind playing tricks on her? Her new friend Milla has nightmares of her own--she's the daughter of a government official known as "The Horse Killer." How can a few children make a difference to the plight of the foals snatched from their homes without warning? Like the tiny patches of cloth that adorn a calico quilt the clues draw them all together. Follow the Calico Horses as they lead us down the trail of adversity to the peaceful pastures found by helping one another.