Hector's Bliss: Black Homesteaders at Goose Lake, Nebraska (Used Signed Paperback) - Dennis Vossberg

When the first ex-slaves rolled into the desolate, rugged Sand Hills of northern Wheeler County, Nebraska, after the Civil War they must have thought they had landed at the end of the earth. Among other things, they had been told that their land contained abundant coal deposits, and that ample rain would follow once the sod was opened up by plowing. It was an elaborate lie, fostered by unscrupulous land hustlers, complete with a "salted" coal mine.

These black pioneers had little choice but to desperately try to make a living on 160 acres of dry, sandy soil that was barely suitable for grazing. In an ironic twist their community became known as Bliss, so called because a local family by that name had the first post office. A determined few stuck it out until about the end of World War I. THeyn they all simply vanished.

This novel is the culmination of a year and half's journey of research and writing. It traces the struggles of the Hector Dixon family from his early days as a slave in Virginia, and his wife's harrowing escape to the North as a young girl. The story continues through their burial in the lost Negro Cemetary by peaceful Good Lake. An eventual breakthrough led to the discovery of a present-day descendant of one of the black Bliss families, and a new perspective of this largely unknown aspect of Nebraska history.

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