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The Secret Trust of Aspasia Cruvellier Mirault
This biography of a free woman of color who lived in Savannah, Ga., before the Civil War provides a portrait of the antebellum South and tells the story of a remarkable woman.
Janice L. Sumler-Edmond has traced the life of Aspasia Cruvellier Mirault, a widowed matriarch, who navigated the social, economic and political complexities of her time to leave a legacy for her family. In 1842 she entered into a secret trust with a white man whose help she needed to become a landowner. The outcome of this trust arrangement was finally determined by a three-party trial that went to the Georgia Supreme Court in 1878.
Sumler-Edmond’s book provides new perspectives on the African-American experience and on American history while resurrecting the life and times of this woman, who until now was lost to historical memory. n