Celia, a Slave

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments As an academic discipline, history possesses an inherent tension , one that every historian confronts. On the one hand, history is the study of the recorded past, of data, of facts. At times the record is dry and dull, at others, as with the case examined in this work, the record holds the power to captivate. History is also the search for the meaning of the recorded past, an interpretation of data, an exploration of the significance of facts. It is the effort to interpret, to explain , that distinguishes the historian from the storyteller. Yet historians ignore their role as storytellers to their peril, if they wish to address an audience beyond the academy, to enter into a meaningful dialogue with the larger society. This work represents an attempt to resolve that tension, or at least to bring it to bear upon the effort to know and to understand a portion of the American past. Several colleagues graciously offered advice about how to do this most effectively. Comments from Robert Hall of Northeastern University; Jacqueline Goggin of Clark University; Peter Stead of Swansea College, UniversityofWales; GaryKremer of the Missouri State Archives; and Kathleen Berkeley of the University of North Carolina at Wilmingtonwere especially helpful. So, too, were the comments of readers for the University ofGeorgia Press. For the advice received, and for the time and energy devoted to reading the work inmanuscript, I am truly grateful. VII This page intentionally left blank ...