马萨诸塞州的康科德一直被誉为美国自由和美国文学的发源地。正是在这里进行了革命战争的第一次军事行动，梭罗在这里“刻意地”生活在瓦尔登湖畔。然而，从革命到有豆子排的小木屋的定居，沃尔登森林是几代自由奴隶及其子女的家园。他们生活在社会的边缘，试图追求自由的生活，这是革命言论所承诺的，但却被种族主义的实践所抑制。梭罗几乎孤身一人试图“召唤出这些森林的前主人”除了他在《瓦尔登湖》中为他们写的那一章，康科德的奴隶制历史几乎被遗忘了。
在《黑瓦尔登湖：马萨诸塞州康科德的奴隶制及其后果》一书中，伊莉丝·莱米尔将瓦尔登湖森林的前奴隶以及18世纪奴役他们的男男女女复活。在描绘了康科德奴隶主约翰·卡明（John Cuming）的崛起之后，布莱克·沃尔登（Black Walden）追踪了卡明的奴隶布里斯特（Brister）的奋斗历程，他试图在35年的奴役后为自己建立一种生活。布里斯特·弗里曼（Brister Freeman）和镇上的其他奴隶能够利用推动美国革命的政治紧张局势，迫使他们的主人放弃他们。然而，解放后，前奴隶只能在最偏远、最贫瘠的地方蹲下。沃尔登·伍兹就是其中之一。在这里，弗里曼和他的邻居们耕种、纺织亚麻布、制作篮子、算命，并试图在贫困和骚扰中生存。
Black Walden的新序言反映了自精装书出版以来的社区发展，它提醒我们，这是一个在国际知名的绿色空间之前的一个黑色空间，保留了那些努力克服奴隶制和种族隔离的人们的遗产。
Black Walden: Slavery and Its Aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts
Concord, Massachusetts, has long been heralded as the birthplace of American liberty and American letters. It was here that the first military engagement of the Revolutionary War was fought and here that Thoreau came to “live deliberately” on the shores of Walden Pond. Between the Revolution and the settlement of the little cabin with the bean rows, however, Walden Woods was home to several generations of freed slaves and their children. Living on the fringes of society, they attempted to pursue lives of freedom, promised by the rhetoric of the Revolution, and yet withheld by the practice of racism. Thoreau was all but alone in his attempt “to conjure up the former occupants of these woods.” Other than the chapter he devoted to them in Walden, the history of slavery in Concord has been all but forgotten.
In Black Walden: Slavery and Its Aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts, Elise Lemire brings to life the former slaves of Walden Woods and the men and women who held them in bondage during the eighteenth century. After charting the rise of Concord slaveholder John Cuming, Black Walden follows the struggles of Cuming’s slave, Brister, as he attempts to build a life for himself after thirty-five years of enslavement. Brister Freeman, as he came to call himself, and other of the town’s slaves were able to leverage the political tensions that fueled the American Revolution and force their owners into relinquishing them. Once emancipated, however, the former slaves were permitted to squat on only the most remote and infertile places. Walden Woods was one of them. Here, Freeman and his neighbors farmed, spun linen, made baskets, told fortunes, and otherwise tried to survive in spite of poverty and harassment.
With a new preface that reflects on community developments since the hardcover’s publication, Black Walden reminds us that this was a black space before it was an internationally known green space and preserves the legacy of the people who strove against all odds to overcome slavery and segregation.
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