The local pictorial histories published by Images of America offer readers tbe opportunity to explore familiar and unfamiliar communities that make up the diversity of the United States. David Collins' book "African Americans of Round Top" (2023) explores the history of a small little-known and resilient community of African American "pioneers' beginning from 1825 to the present. Round Top, Texas is a small town located in Fayette County in south central Texas. The history covers rural Fayette County and adjacent counties as well as the small town of Round Top. The author, David Collins, a Texas resident, is a civil engineer and a long-time student of African American history with extensive family ties to African American s who lived in Round Top.
The book is divided into six chapters beginning just after Texas achieved independence from Spain. Grants issued to Steven Austin allowed American slaveholders to enter the area that became Fayette County bringing their slaves with them. Collins discusses this early history through Texas'decade as an independent republic before becoming part a State in the United States in 1845. His account properly emphasizes the importance of slavery to this history.
Collins discusses the holiday of Juneteenth and how the end of the Civil War affected the African American pioneers near Round Top. While some stayed with their former masters under sharecropping and other onerous agreements, others set out for themselves and established what became known as "Freedom Colonies" of settlement. They received some support from some members of the German immigrant community to the area. They also establisheed churches and schools which helped unify the community and helped it survived and prosper. Descendants of the original pioneers still live in the area. The first five chapters of Collins' book essentially describe this history while the sixth and final chapter "Faces from the Past" includes photographs and short biographies of many past African American residents of the area who are shown with dignity.
This short book serves its purpose in commemorating the history of a small community that deserves to be remembered. A bibliography would have been welcome, but there does not appear to be much earlier writing about the African Americans of Round Top. I was moved to learn about the community and its history through reading this short book.
