I read this yesterday and today.  It’s by John Bailey, and is the other book that VATE sent me to review. It’s a mix of talking about what Louisiana was like before the Civil War, and the true story of a trial to try and prove that one Sally Miller, a slave, was actually Salome Muller, a German immigrant.  It’s very scary, in terms of the racism it shows as being completely endemic and accepted as natural.  They had a list of terms for people depending on the degree of ‘blackness’ in their blood.  Lots of people – up to and including legislators and judges – accepted that slavery was the ‘natural’ lot of Africans, and that black people could only be happy and productive as slaves; a free black man or woman was still not nearly the equal of the lowest white person.  I just don’t understand how people could think like that – I guess that’s because I too am a product of my society.  It’s a good book; I’ll be able to use it in Human Rights, which will be good.