This book collects previously unpublished letters written by a merchant in north Florida before the Civil War, offering a view of the region’s transformation to a market economy due in part to its increased reliance on slavery.

Excavations at cities including New York and Philadelphia reveal that slavery was a crucial part of the expansion of urban life as late as the 1840s. The case studies in this book also show that enslaved African-descended people frequently staffed suburban manor houses and agricultural plantations. Moreover, for free blacks, racist laws such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 limited the experience of freedom in the region. Delle explains how members of the African diaspora created rural communities of their own and worked in active resistance against the institution of slavery.

Historians have examined the American Civil War and its aftermath for more than a century, yet little work has situated this important era in a global context. Contributors to this volume open up ways of viewing Reconstruction not as an insular process but as an international phenomenon.

In Maya Salt Works, Heather McKillop details her archaeological team’s groundbreaking discovery of a unique and massive salt production complex submerged in a lagoon in southern Belize. Exploring the organization of production and trade at the Paynes Creek Salt Works, McKillop offers a fascinating new look at the role of salt in the ancient Maya economy.