Sweet Home Feliciana

Author: Rashauna Johnson

Central Southern states | Louisiana | c 1800 to c 1900 | History of other lands | Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 | Slavery & abolition of slavery | Social discrimination & inequality | Ethnic minorities & multicultural studies | Black & Asian studies

Published on 5^th March 2026 by Cambridge University Press in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 368 pages, Worked examples or Exercises
160mm x 237mm x 27mm | 666g

In this tapestry of intersecting stories, including those of her own family, Rashauna Johnson charts the global transformation of a rural region in Louisiana from European colonialism to Jim Crow. From her ancestor Virgil to her cousin Veronica and her hand-sewn Mardi Gras memorial suit more than a century later, this history is one of triumphs and trauma, illustrating the ways people of African descent have created sites of endurance, belonging, and resistance. Johnson uses her grandmother's birthplace in East Feliciana as a prism to illuminate foundational, if fraught, aspects of US history including colonialism, slavery, war, citizenship, and unfinished freedom. The result is a portrait of the world in a family, a family in a region, and a region in the world that insists on the bristling and complicated relationships of people to place and creates a new understanding of what it means to be American.