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Summary
Summary
"A work of extraordinary imagination and sympathy, a journey from slavery to the mountaintop, perfectly realized." -Ken Burns, American filmmaker
Born on Emancipation Day, 1863, to a sharecropping family of black and Indian blood, Elijah Yancy never lived as a slave-but his self-image as a free person is at war with his surroundings- Spartanburg, South Carolina, in the Reconstructed South. Exiled for his own survival as a teenager, Elijah walks west to the Nebraska plains-and, like other rootless young African-American men of that era, joins up with the US cavalry.
The trajectory of Elijah's army career parallels the nation's imperial adventures in the late 19th century- subduing Native Americans in the West, quelling rebellion in the Philippines. Haunted by the terrors endured by black Americans and by his part in persecuting other people of color, Elijah is sustained only by visions, memories, prayers, and his questing spirit-which ultimately finds a home when his troop is posted to the newly created Yosemite National Park in 1903. Here, living with little beyond mountain light, running water, campfires, and stars, he becomes a man who owns himself completely, while knowing he's left pieces of himself scattered along his life's path like pebbles on a creek bed.
"Seen through the fresh eyes of buffalo soldier Elijah Yancy, Yosemite is Gloryland, his true home. Shelton Johnson has written a beautiful novel about Elijah's journey." -Maxine Hong Kingston, author of China Men and The Woman Warrior
Author Notes
Shelton Johnson , a native of Detroit, Michigan, currently serves as a ranger in Yosemite National Park. He has worked for the National Park Service since 1987, also serving in Great Basin National Park and Yellowstone National Park, as well as in parks in and around Washington D.C. He served with the Peace Corps in Liberia, and attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, where he won several writing awards. He has presented his original living history program about a buffalo soldier at venues around the country and has received many honors and awards for this work, which has also been widely covered in the media. He and his wife and children live just outside Yosemite National Park.
Reviews (1)
Booklist Review
Elijah Yancy was born with African and Indian blood in 1863 in Spartanburg, South Carolina, on Emancipation Day. But freedom is not synonymous with equality in Spartanburg. Out of fear for his safety, Elijah's parents force him to leave home at age 16. With few options, Elijah makes his way to Nebraska and enlists in the U.S. Cavalry. During stints in the Philippines, Cuba, and the Presidio, Elijah struggles with orders to subdue people fighting for their freedom. It isn't until he gets posted to Yosemite National Park that Elijah finally comes into his own. Patrolling the beautiful and wild nature preserve, Elijah has time to process all he has seen and been through, while finding comfort in a place indifferent to the color of his skin. Johnson's telling of Elijah's life takes the form of a diary written in prose with a soothing cadence, a medium in which a man feels at liberty to be brutally honest about himself and his circumstances. Johnson's novel is an engaging and poetic meditation on what it means to be truly free.--Kubisz, Carolyn Copyright 2009 Booklist
