The Iberia African American Historical Society will be presenting a talk by assistant professor of history Abigail Cooper on Civil War contraband camps Saturday.

The IAAHS will be hosting the event along with the Guilbeau Center for Public History at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette with funding support from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

The talk is the third in a series being presented by the IAAHS headed by award-winning historians. Cooper studies the Civil War contraband camps, areas where African Americans lived between slavery and freedom.

According to a prepared statement, Cooper seeks to demonstrate the existence of black kinship and self-emancipation in the contraband camps and has used her expertise to deliver keynote speaker addresses as well as write several scholarly papers. “

“These camps were known as “contraband camps” because African Americans were considered to be between slavery and freedom as ‘confiscated contraband property’ in U.S.-controlled territory across the South,” according to Cooper.

The project shows the possibilities and complications of black spiritual creativity in these camps for kinship formation and postwar political corruption, as well as reckons with religion as a dynamic and precarious mediating force between the enslaved and the state at the end of slavery.

Those interested in the event are asked to register on eventbrite.com. The event takes place from 1-3 p.m. Saturday at 320 E. Main St.