Chasing freedom and hunting power: a multispecies history of emancipation and control in the American Civil War era

Smith, BL

Oxford Thesis Collection

Thesis

Chasing freedom and hunting power: a multispecies history of emancipation and control in the American Civil War era

Abstract:: This thesis places nonhuman animals and the natural world at the center of the history of the plantation system, self-emancipation, the American Civil War, and the Era of Reconstruction. It argues that animals ranging from alligators and dogs to snakes and insects acted within and upon historical events. Drawing on multiple types of sources interpreted through various methodological frameworks, this thesis reconstructs the interspecies spatial geography of the plantation system and the multidirectional landscapes of escape. It then follows the sectional and international disputes that followed emancipation attempts. Efforts by enslavers and their allies to reclaim formerly enslaved persons, and the animals with whom they sought freedom, forced courts and governments to address questions of jurisdiction and sovereignty. During the Civil War, animals that had been long associated with plantation discipline were absorbed into the Confederate military. Wartime disruptions destabilized the Southern animal regime of control, and in many cases, accelerated emancipation attempts, even as these flights continued to expose escapees to dangerous encounters with wild animals. In the postwar years and Reconstruction era, paramilitary groups continued to weaponize horses and dogs even as Black families relied on the same animals for protection and survival. The thesis concludes with an examination of the latter decades of the nineteenth century, during which embalmed animals as well as animal memorials and tributes became central to struggles over memory and silences that helped the process of reconciliation.

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APA Style

Smith, B. L. (2026). Chasing freedom and hunting power: a multispecies history of emancipation and control in the American Civil War era [PhD thesis]. University of Oxford.

MLA Style

Smith, BL. Chasing Freedom and Hunting Power: a Multispecies History of Emancipation and Control in the American Civil War Era. 2026. University of Oxford, PhD thesis.

Chicago Style

Smith, BL. 2026. “Chasing Freedom and Hunting Power: a Multispecies History of Emancipation and Control in the American Civil War Era.” PhD thesis, University of Oxford.
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