GLC@Lunch: Christopher L. Leadingham, “The Greenup Slave Revolt: Slavery, Environment, and Resistance at the Edges of the Southern Mountains”

Christopher L. Leadingham is the Associate Editor, Journal of Appalachian Studies; and Gilder Lehrman Center Visiting Scholar, May 2024

This work uses a slave revolt that happened in northeastern Kentucky, on the banks of the Ohio River, in August 1829, to ask new questions about forced migration and environment in and through the southern mountains. The few extant sources that tell the story of this moment of resistance suggest that the people involved wielded knowledge about the natural world—in addition to physical violence—to struggle toward freedom in new and unfamiliar landscapes.