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WORK TITLE: Aiming for Pensacola
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http://www.uh.edu/class/history/faculty-and-staff/clavin_m/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Male.
EDUCATION:American University, Ph.D., 2005.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and educator. University of Houston, TX, associate professor. Also, taught at a school in Pensacola, FL.
AWARDS:Awards and fellowships from organizations, including the American Antiquarian Society; the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition; and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
WRITINGS
Contributor of articles to publications, including Civil War History, Early American Studies, Florida Historical Quarterly, Journal of Southern History, and Slavery and Abolition. Contributor to anthologies.
SIDELIGHTS
Matthew J. Clavin is a writer and educator. He teaches in the history department at the University of Houston and previously taught at a school in Pensacola, Florida. Clavin holds a Ph.D. from American University. He has received fellowships and awards from organizations, including the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, the American Antiquarian Society, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Clavin’s research is focused on American and Atlantic history, and he has written books on the subject. He has also contributed to anthologies and to scholarly journals, including Florida Historical Quarterly, Early American Studies, Journal of Southern History, and Civil War History.
Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War
Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War: The Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution, published in 2010, is Clavin’s first book. In this volume, he suggests that the slave rebellion in Haiti, which lasted from 1794 to 1804, was a precursor to the American Civil War. Clavin explains that people on both sides of the Civil War looked to the events in Haiti to support their own arguments. He notes that John Brown, the abolitionist, was inspired by Haitian revolutionary Louverture.
Writing in the Journal of African American History, Ronald Angelo Johnson described Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War as “a commendable addition to the historical literature that encourages us to view the Haitian Revolution … beyond a localized event.” Johnson added: “Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War is written with effortless prose, prudent argumentation, and a clear organization that will make it accessible to both students and scholars. Much of the narrative will likely seem familiar to informed readers of antebellum and Civil War history. But Clavin’s insertion of the Haitian Revolution as part of these discussions convincingly adjusts the vantage point from which historians traditionally observe the role of African Americans in the war that ended legal slavery in the United States.” R.I. Rotberg, writing in Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, called the book “highly recommended.”
Aiming for Pensacola
In Aiming for Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontiers, released in 2015, Clavin highlights the Florida city’s significance during the period surrounding the American Civil War. He explains that runaway slaves often found safety in the progressive city. Clavin offers details on Pensacola’s history, from colonial times through the Civil War. In an interview with John Fea, contributor to the Way of Improvement Leads Home Web site, Clavin described the main points in the book, stating: “This study proves that despite the legend of the Underground Railroad, fugitive slaves routinely ran south towards freedom, often with the assistance of their free African American, European American, and Native American allies. Because of its reputation as an enclave of diverse people and cultures, Pensacola was in the colonial, antebellum, and Civil War eras, a popular destination for many of these runaways.”
Aiming for Pensacola received favorable reviews. S.C. Hyde, critic in Choice, asserted: “The book offers a lively, engaging narrative that makes it appropriate for general readers as well as scholars.” In a lengthy assessment of the volume on the H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, Joshua Butler remarked: “Aiming for Pensacola is more than an attempt to make the city matter. Clavin challenges the boundaries and chronological barriers that continue to divide scholars.” Butler concluded: “Although it remains doubtful that Pensacola will become a widespread topic in college classrooms when discussing the Underground Railroad, this book certainly lends itself to readers (especially general readers) with different interests, including early America, the Atlantic world, and Southern and African American history. As Clavin shows, preconceived notions of resistance and the Underground Railroad need to expand to include those who were aiming for Pensacola.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, September, 2010, R.I. Rotberg, review of Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War: The Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution, p. 167; April, 2016, S.C. Hyde, review of Aiming for Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontiers, p. 1221.
Journal of African American History, fall, 2011, Ronald Angelo Johnson, review of Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War, p. 563.
ONLINE
H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, https://networks.h-net.org/ (February, 2017), Joshua Butler, review of Aiming for Pensacola.
University of Houston, Department of History Web site, http://www.uh.edu/ (March 15, 2017), author faculty profile.
Way of Improvement Leads Home, http://www.philipvickersfithian.com/ (October 1, 2015), John Fea, author interview.
LC control no.: n 2009067064
Personal name heading:
Clavin, Matthew J.
Found in: Clavin, Matthew J. Toussaint Louverture and the American
Civil War, c2009: CIP t.p. (Matthew J. Clavin)
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AUTHORITIES
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540
Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
Faculty and Staff
Matthew J. Clavin
Associate Professor
Matthew J. Clavin
Phone:(713)743-3109
Email: mjclavin@uh.edu
Office: 561 Agnes Arnold Hall
Professor Clavin writes and teaches in the areas of American and Atlantic history, with a focus on the history of race, slavery, and abolition. He received his Ph.D. at American University in 2005 and is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and others.
Teaching
Professor Clavin teaches both halves of the United States survey course as well as a wide variety of upper level and graduate courses in early American and Atlantic history, from the earliest days of colonization through the late nineteenth century.
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Research Interests
Professor Clavin is the author of Aiming for Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontiers (Harvard University Press, 2015) and Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War: the Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010). He has authored several articles and chapters on race, slavery, and memory in Civil War History, Early American Studies, Florida Historical Quarterly, Journal of Southern History, Slavery and Abolition, and several anthologies.
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Selected Publications
Aiming for Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontiers (Harvard University Press, 2015)
Toussaint Louverture and the Civil War: the Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010)
Matt Clavin, Professor of History at the University of Houston, writes and teaches in the areas of early America and Atlantic world. He is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships from the American Antiquarian Society, the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and others.
QUOTED: "This study proves that despite the legend of the Underground Railroad, fugitive slaves routinely ran south towards freedom, often with the assistance of their free African American, European American, and Native American allies. Because of its reputation as an enclave of diverse people and cultures, Pensacola was in the colonial, antebellum, and Civil War eras, a popular destination for many of these runaways."
Thursday, October 1, 2015
The Author's Corner with Matthew J. Clavin
Matthew J. Clavin is Associate Professor of History at University of Houston. This interview is based on his new book, Aiming for Pensacola (Harvard University Press, 2015).
JF: What led you to write Aiming for Pensacola?
MC: After receiving my Ph.D. in 2005, my first time full-time teaching job was in Pensacola, Florida, where shortly after arriving I began researching the city’s history. One day, while viewing a handful of antebellum-era newspapers, I was amazed by the number of runaway slave advertisements published in the local press. At times, these papers contained a dozen or more advertisements in a single issue and frequently on the front page, proving just how extensive the problem of runaway slaves was in this unique frontier town. It wasn’t long before I decided that I had to tell the story of the generations of enslaved people who made the desperate bid for freedom in a part of the United States where the attainment of freedom was for most African Americans nearly impossible.
JF: In 2 sentences, what is the argument of Aiming for Pensacola?
MC: This study proves that despite the legend of the Underground Railroad, fugitive slaves routinely ran south towards freedom, often with the assistance of their free African American, European American, and Native American allies. Because of its reputation as an enclave of diverse people and cultures, Pensacola was in the colonial, antebellum, and Civil War eras, a popular destination for many of these runaways who sought refuge on the city’s waterfront, which verged on a boundless world of ocean and sea, and the surrounding villages that opened into a vast expanse of forests, swamps, and streams.
JF: Why do we need to read Aiming for Pensacola?
MC: The book demonstrates that resistance to slavery was much more widespread than previously understood. Even in the Deep South, where slavery was deeply embedded in the culture and the cars and conductors of the Underground Railroad stopped only infrequently, African Americans and their allies resisted the white supremacist culture that slaveowners and other white elites imposed on the region. There has long been a tendency to read American history as the story of two oppositional regions: a non-racist North and a racist South. Having lived in southern cities most of my life, and now being a resident of Houston, TX, what many consider the most diverse city in the entire United States, I have always been motivated by my own personal experiences to challenge this interpretation by finding examples of interracial cooperation and collaboration in early Southern history. This book is a case in point.
JF: When and why did you decide to become an American historian?
MC: Though I’m sure they wouldn’t even remember me today, two truly extraordinary Jr. high school history teachers convinced me at an early age to become a teacher; however, it was while writing my senior thesis in college that I became enamored with the idea of research and writing history professionally, and I decided that I wanted to⎯or rather needed to⎯ become a college professor. There is no other job on earth that I would enjoy more, though, truth be told, if any NBA team was interested in a 44-yr. old shooting guard I would definitely consider the opportunity.
JF: What is your next project?
MC: I am currently working on two major projects, though the one much closer to completion is a narrative history of the Battle of Negro Fort, a bloody conflict between hundreds of fugitive slaves, Indians, and American soldiers under the leadership of Andrew Jackson at an abandoned British fort in Spanish Florida in the aftermath of the War of 1812.
JF: Thanks, Matthew!
And thanks to Abby Blakeney for facilitating this installment of The Author's Corner
QUOTED: "The book offers a lively, engaging narrative that makes it appropriate for general readers as well as scholars."
Clavin, Matthew J.: Aiming for Pensacola: fugitive slaves on the Atlantic and Southern frontiers
S.C. Hyde
53.8 (Apr. 2016): p1221.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
Clavin, Matthew J. Aiming for Pensacola: fugitive slaves on the Atlantic and Southern frontiers. Harvard, 2015. 252p index ISBN 9780674088221 cloth, $35.00; ISBN 9780674088238 ebook, contact publisher for price
(cc) 53-3645
E450
2015-2553 CIP
The continuing stream of studies highlighting slave resistance and attempts to escape from bondage in the US South includes a common perception. With few exceptions, most new studies continue the prevailing view that most, if not all, escape attempts were directed to the free states of the North or Canada. Clavin (Univ. of Houston) demonstrates that such perceptions must be revised. Focusing on the port city of Pensacola in the Florida panhandle, Clavin reveals not only a progressive society that in many ways transcended the racial and cultural confines of the antebellum South but also one that served as a magnet for fugitive slaves. The convoluted colonial background of the city, along with the intrigues practiced by a variety of would-be foreign overlords, contributed to a lingering frontier mentality that qualified traditional social expectations in the antebellum South just as it diminished the power of white supremacy. Clavin traces Pensacola's unique status as a pseudo-refuge from the colonial period through the Civil War. In addition to a groundbreaking perspective, the book offers a lively, engaging narrative that makes it appropriate for general readers as well as scholars. Summing Up: **** Essential. All levels/libraries.--S. C. Hyde, Southeastern Louisiana University
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Hyde, S.C. "Clavin, Matthew J.: Aiming for Pensacola: fugitive slaves on the Atlantic and Southern frontiers." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Apr. 2016, p. 1221. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA449661776&it=r&asid=66b2a415d9245a736fc9a2a8ca9f499c. Accessed 24 Feb. 2017.
QUOTED: "a commendable addition to the historical literature that encourages us to view the Haitian Revolution ... beyond a localized event."
"Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War is written with effortless prose, prudent argumentation, and a clear organization that will make it accessible to both students and scholars. Much of the narrative will likely seem familiar to informed readers of antebellum and Civil War history. But Clavin's insertion of the Haitian Revolution as part of these discussions convincingly adjusts the vantage point from which historians traditionally observe the role of African Americans in the war that ended legal slavery in the United States."
Gale Document Number: GALE|A449661776
Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War; The Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution
Ronald Angelo Johnson
96.4 (Fall 2011): p563.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 Association for the Study of African American Life and History, Inc.
http://www.jaah.org/
Matthew J. Clavin, Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War; The Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2010. Pp. 248. Cloth $39.95. Paper $22.50.
Matthew J. Gavin's Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War is a commendable addition to the historical literature that encourages us to view the Haitian Revolution (1 791-1804) beyond a localized event in what has become the poorest nation of the Western Hemisphere. Since the bicentennial of Haiti's independence in 2004, many important works such as Laurent Dubois's Avengers of the New World (2004) and David Geggus and Norman Fiering's The World of the Haitian Revolution (2009) have illuminated the country's significance in the Atlantic world during the "Age of Revolutions." Despite the burgeoning interest in this Held, scholars of U.S. history have been slow to study the important connections between Haiti and the United States from 1791 to 1865. Clavin locates his work in the latter part of this era and makes a needed contribution.
The book's main argument is straightforward: the Haitian Revolution had a much greater impact on U.S. slavery and abolition than has been suggested. From this stance, Clavin describes how the memory of Africans in the Diaspora gaining their freedom through revolutionary violence influenced the decades-long debates in the North and South over slavery and racial identities that culminated in the Civil War. Abolitionists used the Haitian Revolution and the actions of African-descended revolutionaries to outline a more just, racially tolerant society after the end of slavery in the United States. Secessionists used the same event and the same revolutionaries to suggest that post-emancipation "race wars" would result in the wholesale slaughter of white Americans.
Memory is the protagonist of this book. We learn much about late 18th-century undocumented accounts of senseless murder and heinous depredations by the Haitian freedom fighters. Instead of adjudicating disparate accounts, Clavin explains the use and exposes the power of these images on the American public sixty years after they allegedly occurred. He marshals an impressive collection of primary source lectures, books, and newspaper and magazine accounts, and provides printed materials and circulation figures (whenever possible) to document the public responses to what a speaker said or what an author wrote. This method offers the reader a greater understanding of ideological interchanges within early U.S. print media and literary culture.
One thing is evident from Gavin's work: Toussaint Louverture remains a colossal and controversial figure in U.S. history. Alfred H. Hunt's Haiti's Influence on Antebellum America (1988) argued that Louverture "helped change the course of the history of the Americas and ... the map of the United States." As historians continue to debate the veracity of the Louverturian influence on the Atlantic world, Clavin demonstrates that the history and legends about the great Haitian leader influenced Americans of all colors during the Civil War. African Americans strove to be Toussaint Louverture. His image of courageous masculinity rising up against European oppression provided enslaved and free Africans and African Americans in the new United States with a model of black manhood. White abolitionists also wanted black people to be like Toussaint and they played up his Christian beliefs, devotion to family, and benevolence toward Europeans, hoping to lobby their fellow white Americans to consider a place for free African Americans in U.S. society. Southern secessionists countered positive images of Louverture and decried a black man being compared to George Washington, only in the end to affirm him as one of "the Great Men of the Age of Revolutions."
In the introductory section, Gavin divides American memory of the Haitian Revolution into two categories. The first is the "horrific narrative" that the white southerners embraced, complete with tropes of bloodthirsty enslaved Africans massacring slaveholding men, raping chaste white women, and impaling angelic white infants upon stakes. African Americans and northern white abolitionists employed the "heroic narrative" to portray the Haitians as desirous of the freedom offered by Atlantic World revolutions, not so unlike the Americans' passions for liberty in 1776. Part one focuses on these two narratives in the antebellum years. In the capable hands of black and white Americans such as Williams Wells Brown and James Redpath, the heroic narrative helped to radicalize the abolitionist cause and prepare northerners for the approaching struggle. We learn also that John Brown found inspiration in the Haitian Revolution for his attack on Harper's Ferry in 1859.
Part two can be considered the heart of the book. It examines the tumultuous years 1861-1863 and, in so doing, makes its strongest arguments for the impact of the Haitian Revolution on the Civil War. Abolitionist Wendell Phillips's lectures on Toussaint Louverture and African American agitation pushed for Abraham Lincoln to allow the enlistment of black men in the Union Army. These efforts helped to influence "the most decisive stand ever taken by an American president against slavery": an Emancipation Proclamation that welcomed African American men into the Union forces.
Part three brings the book to the sober postwar conclusion that "white Americans in both sections shared a commitment to white nationalism that the Civil War not only failed to eliminate, but in fact reinforced." Racial divides polarized the memory of the Haitian Revolution even more than sectional lines. The horrific narrative bound white Americans together in fear and racial bigotry as the heroic version strengthened African Americans' embrace of freedom in a Louverturian fashion--with great dignity.
Gavin suggests the existence of a transatlantic identity among African Americans during the Civil War. However, this conclusion overlooks an important aspect: the Haiti of Toussaint Louverture with which African Americans identified had long ceased to exist. The conclusion instead points to the book's relative silence on 19th-century Haitians or other black Caribbean populations before and after the U.S. Civil War. The "black Atlantic" connections, requiring different documentary sources, are not as well developed as other points.
Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War is written with effortless prose, prudent argumentation, and a clear organization that will make it accessible to both students and scholars. Much of the narrative will likely seem familiar to informed readers of antebellum and Civil War history. But Clavin's insertion of the Haitian Revolution as part of these discussions convincingly adjusts the vantage point from which historians traditionally observe the role of African Americans in the war that ended legal slavery in the United States.
Ronald Angelo Johnson
Texas State University
Johnson, Ronald Angelo
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Johnson, Ronald Angelo. "Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War; The Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution." The Journal of African American History, vol. 96, no. 4, 2011, p. 563+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA281521666&it=r&asid=efffb2533152b513338a289f0f601be2. Accessed 24 Feb. 2017.
QUOTED: "highly recommended."
Gale Document Number: GALE|A281521666
Clavin, Matthew J.: Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War: the promise and peril of a second Haitian revolution
R.I. Rotberg
48.1 (Sept. 2010): p167.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2010 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
48-0458
E453
M A R C
Clavin, Matthew J. Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War: the promise and peril of a second Haitian revolution. Pennsylvania, 2010. 238p index ISBN 9780812242058, 539.95
Clavin (Univ. of West Florida) argues that "the seeds of the Civil War were planted in the revolutionary eighteenth-century world." Abolitionists and anti-abolitionists both used Haiti's slave insurrection of 1794 to 1804 to advance their own views about ending slavery in the US, using the symbols of the Haitian Revolution to strengthen their own causes. Indeed, Clavin asserts that Haiti's experience had a profound and enduring influence on the Civil War and the years preceding it that has long been overlooked. Toussaint Louverture's example emboldened many, even John Brown, just as what Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines accomplished in Haiti alarmed opponents of freedom for slaves. Innumerable discussions of black freedom and black violence drew on the Haitian example. Clavin suggests the US Civil War was, in fact, fought in the shadow of Haiti's struggle to be free. On the brink of the Civil War, moreover, "Louverture and the Haitian Revolution were resonant, polarizing, and ultimately subversive symbols." Some proponents of emancipation saw the Civil War as a second Haitian Revolution. Southern secessionists countered with their own descriptions of Haiti under black rule. Summing Up: Highly recommended. *** Researchers and faculty.--R. I. Rotberg, Harvard University
Rotberg, R.I.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Rotberg, R.I. "Clavin, Matthew J.: Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War: the promise and peril of a second Haitian revolution." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Sept. 2010, p. 167. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA249057784&it=r&asid=67214d297ecfad0c89986a3f3bd996d4. Accessed 24 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A249057784
QUOTED: "Aiming for Pensacola is more than an attempt to make the city matter. Clavin challenges the boundaries and chronological barriers that continue to divide scholars."
"Although it remains doubtful that Pensacola will become a widespread topic in college classrooms when discussing the Underground Railroad, this book certainly lends itself to readers (especially general readers) with different interests, including early America, the Atlantic world, and Southern and African American history. As Clavin shows, preconceived notions of resistance and the Underground Railroad need to expand to include those who were aiming for Pensacola."
Butler on Clavin, 'Aiming for Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontiers'
Author:
Matthew J. Clavin
Reviewer:
Joshua Butler
Matthew J. Clavin. Aiming for Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontiers. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015. 252 pp. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-08822-1.
Reviewed by Joshua Butler (Florida State University)
Published on H-Slavery (February, 2017)
Commissioned by David M. Prior
Our historical understanding of slavery has changed significantly over the past generation as scholars have delved deeper into the bondspeoples' lives by region, chronology, or method of resistance. One of the more common ways that enslaved individuals fought against slavery was to flee from their owner’s farm, plantation, or business. This act of self-emancipation is often associated with the courageous acts of antebellum black and white conductors along the Underground Railroad, which has considerable symbolic value to many outside of academia. Matthew Clavin, in his Aiming for Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontiers, seeks to expand popular notions of self-emancipation by focusing on the city of Pensacola from the 1500s through the Civil War as a destination for fugitive slaves.
Clavin utilizes archival sources on two continents and in multiple languages in addition to local caches, including court records, company papers housed at the University of West Florida, and newspapers, to produce a work that centers on “the intersection of three historical conversations” (p. 4): the Atlantic world, the Southern frontier, and interracialism. Since this work covers centuries (although most of these are compressed into the first chapter), these themes work interdependently at times and separately at others. The first two themes are more chronological in their rendering, whereas the latter challenges preconceived ideas of boundaries in time, race, and land claims.
Therefore, the book can be divided into three parts, with the first two chapters centering on the Atlantic world. Clavin uses archival materials that shed light on the Spanish and British occupations of West Florida. Moreover, he treats Native Americans and people of African descent as key players in the New World. Sometimes, Native Americans aided in securing freedom for those absconding from slaveholders; at others they took them as their own property, and at still others they acted as tracking agents for whites. Slavery also blurred the boundaries between each country’s land claims, as leaders in Pensacola and New Orleans willingly returned escapees with the sincere hope of reciprocity, which typically materialized. Despite these efforts, even as Pensacola passed through empires, it developed as a destination for those enslaved in the deepest regions of the South because it offered freedom and opportunities to those who safely arrived with forged freedom papers.
The next three chapters (3-5) focus on the Southern frontier as Florida became part of the United States in 1821. These chapters differ in scope and content. Native Americans, for example, largely disappear from the analysis, with those who managed to escape and become Black Seminoles discussed in chapter 2. Likewise, most Europeans fade away as the drama of slave resistance becomes one mostly between Americans, white and black, except for British abolitionists who aided those jailed or ostracized because of their roles in liberating blacks. Such was the case for Northern-born Jonathan Walker, whose life, efforts at helping slaves escape, and ultimate punishment Clavin discusses in great detail in chapter 5. Clavin uses these three chapters to explore the relationships between slaves and owners. Slaves desired an escape, despite and perhaps because of slaveowners' threats and examples of excruciating punishments. He also examines the complications added by whites who defied fugitive slave acts by refusing to assist in the search for absconded refugees. Some Pensacola citizens sought to extinguish the idea that its city welcomed and harbored fugitive slaves by branding Walker's hand with the initials S.S., for "slave stealer" (p. 139), although it proved difficult for them to find locals willing to create something designed to sear the flesh of a white man.
The concluding chapters (6 and conclusion), on the Civil War, are different still. This section shifts away from detailing how Pensacola fits into the Atlantic world or the Southern frontier to a history of how former slaves made their way to the city in hopes of freedom and the chance to fight as Union soldiers. The final chapter details the chronology and escalation of blacks’ roles once they landed among Union lines and encountered Northern soldiers, who occupied Pensacola's Fort Pickens for the duration of the war. Clavin asserts that witnessing these fugitives from slavery “taught Northern soldiers that the men and women of African descent who stood before them were not the racial caricatures they had been led to believe populated the South” (p. 161).
Aiming for Pensacola is more than an attempt to make the city matter. Clavin challenges the boundaries and chronological barriers that continue to divide scholars as to what, where, and when early America was. The book also, however, falls victim to this same conundrum. The Civil War presents itself as an unceremonial end to a book on generations of slaves who had risked lives, limbs, and fingertips (p. 110) for the idea of freedom. The three-page conclusion gestures towards the topic of emancipation's legacies during the postbellum years, but only very briefly. Although it remains doubtful that Pensacola will become a widespread topic in college classrooms when discussing the Underground Railroad, this book certainly lends itself to readers (especially general readers) with different interests, including early America, the Atlantic world, and Southern and African American history. As Clavin shows, preconceived notions of resistance and the Underground Railroad need to expand to include those who were aiming for Pensacola.