Debunking the Yule Log Myth

In this book historian Robert May takes readers on a detective caper as he corrects the historical record centered around enslaved people and a mythical freedom that the burning of a yule log was believed to have brought them during the holiday season.

Robert E. May is Professor Emeritus of History at Purdue University and the author of Yuletide in Dixie: Slavery, Christmas, and Southern Memory; Slavery, Race, and Conquest in the Tropics: Lincoln, Douglas, and the Future of Latin America and other works about slavery and the South.

Contents Introduction: The Biggest Sweet Gum We Could Find Chapter 1: Colonel Openheart's Great Back-Log Chapter 2: Prattville's Soggy Fixed Fact Chapter 3: Uncle Ned's Big Laugh Chapter 4: LaSalle Pickett's Deceits Chapter 5: A Wizard's Revelations Conclusion: I Allow Three Days at Christmas Coda: Samuel Agnew's Christmas Eve