Historic Black Settlements of Ohio

Uncommon trove of knowledge to carry beside you when scouting about and visiting sites in Ohio.

I love black history and especially the history of African Americans in Ohio. I felt this book's greatest aspects was the list of black settlements. It is wonderful to have a text that includes reference to all of them in one place.The authors writing style was easy to follow and read and they gave a decent overview of the communities and their founding for the most part.Cons for me as a student and amateur historian of African American history in NW Ohio is the fact that this book seems to center its focus on the white founders of these settlements and also on the emancipation of enslaved persons by whites. Of course, this should be included in the book where these sorts of situations occurred, but I felt that the focus on almost every chapter was on the white people and not the black residents of these settlements or their activities. There were some chapters that were better than others. The portion on the Longtown/Greenville settlement, of which I have ancestors who have roots in that community, I felt was the best. Since I do have family and have done research on this community, it was sad to me that less was told about the beginnings of the other communities from a black perspective.The families who also have very deep free roots moving to Ohio, their backgrounds for moving to the state were not as adequately explored in my view versus how the emancipated slaves came to arrive. This would have been interesting to review and is a topic that has little scholarly research and especially not in book form.But I'm grateful to the authors for this work as it provides those of us who are African Americans with deep roots in Ohio or those who research the black history of this state, a general overview and list of these settlements/communities. We can use the text as a starting point to explore more about these settlements and the people who lived in them.

This is a very eye opening book. I think everyone should read it. What most of us know about this topic is nothing or a very glossed over version of events.

This is a very well written, well organized history of the various black settlements in Ohio that were created in both pre and post civil times for black people as a means of escaping slavery in the South. In the pre-civil war era the settlements provided an oasis for escaped slaves to begin a new life of freedom. In post civil war times, they were another type of oasis for the freed slaves to begin lives of freedom that they had finally been granted. This is straightforward portrayal of what these settlements were like. It takes you through the various settlements, county by county and the issues that the residents faced and the sometimes even tragic barriers they endured. This is well worth the read.