Slavery, enslaved persons and abolition of slavery Books

Book SynopsisV. S. Naipaul was born in Trinidad in 1932. He came to England on a scholarship in 1950. He spent four years at University College, Oxford, and began to write, in London, in 1954. He pursued no other profession.His novels include A House for Mr Biswas, The Mimic Men, Guerrillas, A Bend in the River, and The Enigma of Arrival. In 1971 he was awarded the Booker Prize for In a Free State. His works of nonfiction, equally acclaimed, include Among the Believers, Beyond Belief, The Masque of Africa, and a trio of books about India: An Area of Darkness, India: A Wounded Civilization and India: A Million Mutinies Now.In 1990, V. S. Naipaul received a knighthood for services to literature; in 1993, he was the first recipient of the David Cohen British Literature Prize. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. He lived with his wife Nadira and cat Augustus in Wiltshire, and died in 20Trade ReviewNaipaul’s writing is supple and fluid, meticulously crafted, adventurous and quick to surprise. And, as usual, there’s the freshness and originality of his way of looking at things. * Sunday Times *Naipaul writes as if a modern oracle has chosen to speak through him. It is a tissue of brilliantly recorded hearsay, of intense listening by a man with a remarkable ear. * New York Times Review of Books *This is a journey below the Mason–Dixon line into a society riven by too many defeats; the broken cause of the old Confederacy, and the frustrated anger of Southern blacks whose power is circumscribed . . . It is the best thing outside fiction that I have read on the Old South pregnant with the new since W. J. Cash’s The Mind of the South published over fifty years ago. * Sunday Telegraph *

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Book SynopsisThe first and only successful slave revolution in the Americas began in 1791 when brutally exploited slaves rose up against their masters on Saint-Domingue. Dubois weaves the stories of slaves, free people of African descent, wealthy whites, and French administrators into an unforgettable tale of insurrection, war, heroism, and victory.Trade ReviewA stern and brilliant new book… The Haitian Revolution, in all its ugliness and brutality, was the response of the oppressed, indentured and enslaved to their unjust condition. And it is this whirling and chaotic world that Dubois so vividly brings to life in Avengers of the New World and so accurately deconstructs… Dubois starts this book about war with chapters about love, death, books and graveyards. His discussions of interracial love affairs and the attitudes of slaves both toward death among slaves and toward death among masters are riveting and eloquent. Indeed, Dubois’ literary sensibility informs the book from start to finish, so that at its beginning as well as its end, the reader feels as if the story must be fiction, yet it is not… Dubois calls Haiti a nation ‘founded on ashes,’ and he has written splendidly about the fires, both political and cultural, that lit up the land during the days of revolution and that are still, in a sense, burning today. -- Amy Wilentz * Los Angeles Times Book Review *[A] sinuous and stirring account of ‘the largest slave revolt in the history of the world, and the only one that succeeded.’ -- John Leonard * Harper’s *Laurent Dubois’s patient study offers a valuable glimpse into the complexities of the creation of modern Haiti that supplants the usual commonplaces on this ‘first black republic.’ -- Nick Caistor * Times Literary Supplement *There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of books about the Haitian Revolution, but only a handful are indispensable. Avengers of the New World joins that select company. A powerful narrative informed by the latest research, it digs beneath ready-made notions—whether of purely heroic rebels or of implacable caste hatreds—to bring to light the forging of new identities and new ideals. -- Robin Blackburn * The Nation *In this exhaustively researched and valuable account, Laurent Dubois, a history professor at Michigan State, looks back to the founding of Haiti… Dubois, writing in an accessible style and with a wide-ranging focus, has done an impressive job depicting the tumultuous founding of Haiti. Readers wanting to place the Caribbean nation’s current struggles in a larger historical context will find Dubois an eminently worthwhile resource. -- Chuck Leddy * Christian Science Monitor *Avengers of the New World weaves the experiences and stories of slaves, free Blacks, wealthy whites, and French administrators into an unforgettable tale of insurrection, war, heroism, and victory. Laurent Dubois examines the actions of the famous leaders of the revolt such as Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, but also of lesser-known men and women caught up in the violent and tumultuous events. Dubois establishes the Haitian Revolution, which is often misunderstood or forgotten, as a foundational moment in the history of democracy and of human rights… Avengers of the New World can help us put the current situation in Haiti in context, explain the reasons behind the violence, and give us an idea of what the future might hold. * Caribbean Life *How well Dubois wears the mantle of this exciting area of study. His engaging analysis of the social forces at play in Saint Domingue (now Haiti) at the turn of the nineteenth century reveals this conflict to be of wider significance than we may previously have thought… Dubois’s masterful grasp of the ‘contorted human relationships’ that define the period renders his study infinitely relevant to our global society… With his help, we may yet come to understand the far-reaching impact of this amazing revolution and the true meaning of Haiti’s beloved motto: L’Union fait la force. -- Patti M. Marxsen * French Review *In Avengers of the New World, Laurent Dubois has crafted a nuanced yet highly readable narrative of the Haitian Revolution… It is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the revolutionary Atlantic World. Readers new to the Haitian Revolution will especially benefit from Dubois’s lucid explanation of an enormously complex period. -- Yvonne Fabella * New West Indian Guide *For those who wish to recall the dramatic events that led to the creation of the world’s first black republic and the Western Hemisphere’s second independent nation, I would strongly recommend Laurent Dubois’s Avengers of the New World… The story of Haitian independence is well known and has been told many times before, but Dubois’s vigorous text brings the story to vibrant new life. The battles, personalities, and complex sociopolitical turmoil brought about in Haiti and elsewhere in the world, especially the slave-owning American South, are recalled with a depth and passion that makes this an invigorating work of historical writing. -- Phil Hall * New York Resident *Readers unfamiliar with the history of Haiti will find this thoughtful, gracefully written book an eye-opening account of the complexities of the Haitian revolution. -- Milton Berman * Salem Press Online *This wonderfully readable account is a timely reminder of the perils and sacrifices that marked Haiti’s revolutionary path, resulting in only the second independent nation of this hemisphere. Dubois rightfully emphasizes the impact of French revolutionary principles (i.e., the Rights of Man) on the Haitian rebel slaves, as well as the inextricable influence of French politics on the fate of its Caribbean colony, highlighted by the power struggles between Napoleon and Louverture. The author’s insights about the nature of solidarity, trust, and leadership among the slaves, as well as the organization of insurgents across the colony, are well worth recalling, especially in this fateful year. -- R. M. Delson * Choice *What Laurent Dubois has achieved is a synthesis of the most current research in a strikingly accessible and appealing presentation, be it to experts or to general readers unfamiliar with the subject. Avengers of the New World is more than likely to become the new standard work in English on one of the most under-reported events in the history of the Western Hemisphere. -- Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls Rising and Master of the CrossroadsBy abolishing slavery and granting citizenship to all men, the Haitian Revolution fulfilled the ideals of the Age of Democratic Revolution in a way that France, the United States, and other nations were not yet ready to accept. Dubois demonstrates the revolutionary determination of enslaved Caribbean- and African-born people and captures the voices of key actors including Toussaint Louverture, individual slaves, free people of color, rival black generals, and white women. This is a story that needs to be told in the engaging yet scholarly voice that Dubois achieves. -- John Garrigus, Professor of History, Jacksonville UniversityBrilliantly conceived, beautifully rendered, Laurent Dubois’s narrative places the Haitian Revolution at the center of the Age of Revolutions—one of three that shook the world—challenging in the process the stubborn academic myopia that divides the history of Europe from its colonies, and whites from blacks. -- Thomas Holt, author of The Problem of Race in the 21st CenturyThe course of the Haitian Revolution was as checkered as the storyline of an Italian opera. Laurent Dubois wisely and eloquently reduces that complexity to understandable proportions. He shows how the revolutionary leadership evolved over time, both defining its own objectives and winning its battles along the way. With care and good judgment, Dubois builds for us a compelling picture of the emergent consciousness of the slaves. His distinctive contribution is to bring to life one of the most significant events in modern political history, an event that has been deliberately misrepresented for the past two centuries. -- Sidney Mintz, author of Caribbean Transformations and Sweetness and PowerAvengers of the New World is a luminous model for the history of revolution, for a ‘people’s’ history of freedom, and, not least, for a history that is truly Atlantic in scope. At once original, deeply learned, and gracefully written, Dubois’s achievement is worthy of its great lineage: that of C. L. R. James and Aime Cesaire. -- James C. Scott, author of Domination and the Arts of Resistance and Weapons of the WeakTable of ContentsPrologue 1. Specters of Saint-Domingue 2. Fermentation 3. Inheritance 4. Fire in the Cane 5. New World 6. Defiance 7. Liberty's Land 8. The Opening 9. Power 10. Enemies of Liberty 11. Territory 12. The Tree of Liberty 13. Those Who Die Epilogue: Out of the Ashes Notes Index

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Book SynopsisJames Walvin offers a new and an original interpretation of the barbaric world of slavery and of the historic end to the slave trade in April 1807.John Newton (1725-1807), author of 'Amazing Grace', was a slave captain who marshalled his human cargoes with a brutality that he looked back on with shame and contrition.Trade ReviewMuch more than just a catalogue of horrors... James Walvin is extraordinarily alert to the contradictions within the human heart... Walvin is never blind to the horrors of slavery, nor to the responsibility of individuals for their actions. But he recognises that the world was different then and that the institution of slavery encouraged individual acts of evil that would otherwise never have occurred -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *Taken together, their stories provide a remarkably intimate insider's perspective on the slave trade, and give us some sense of its staggering human cost -- Michael Kerrigan * Scotsman *How did Britain, the 'slave trading poacher' of the 18th century, transform herself into the 'abolitionist game-keeper' of the 19th century?... James Walvin, a renowned historian of black people in Britain, finds answers to this mystery in the lives of three men who contributed, sometimes unwittingly, to the demise of a seemingly unassailable evil -- Esther Godfrey * Daily Telegraph *James Walvin here addresses the enormity of the slave trade by looking in depth at three individuals inextricably bound up in it * London Review of Books *A remarkable and gripping story, asking profound questions * Independent *

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Book SynopsisAfter examining more than 700 lawsuits decided by the supreme courts of former slave states, Giuliana Perrone asserts that slavery remained actionable in American law well after its ostensible demise. An important study for scholars of slavery and the US Civil War.Trade Review'The monumental history of Emancipation and Reconstruction is irresistible, but it can be deceptive. Giuliana Perrone directs us to the quieter lanes of American common law discourse, where the bitter realities of abolition's adjudication are to be found - the 'smaller, private legal matters' that piled up routinely, remorselessly, in the shadow of slavery. Those of us who wonder at Reconstruction's rejection and Emancipation's dire legacy can learn much from this eloquent history of legal failure.' Christopher Tomlins, author of In the Matter of Nat Turner: A Speculative History'Nothing More Than Freedom is the first comprehensive history of state appellate law, where the afterlife of slavery lasted for decades. Giuliana Perrone shows us that even the supposed common-law rights of property and contract were limited by previous enslavement across former slave states, where the badges of servitude outlived emancipation.' Ariela Gross, co-author of Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana'Nothing More than Freedom is a fresh and provocative take on legal change at a crucial juncture in American history. Judges who confronted slavery's demise in the aftermath of the Civil War made active choices about whether to adjust legal rules to accommodate this transformation in minimal ways or to root the edifice of slavery entirely out of the law.' Cynthia Nicoletti, author of Secession on Trial: The Treason Prosecution of Jefferson Davis'Perrone delivers an unflinching look at how American judges perpetuated the vestiges of slavery through state-based private law, fatally undermining the abolitionist promise of the Reconstruction Amendments. Now, when so many are entranced by the fiction of colorblindness, Perrone's excavation of ongoing slavery-based logics in American law and commerce is a welcome counterpoint.' Dylan C. Penningroth, author of The Claims of Kinfolk: African American Property and Community in the Nineteenth-Century South'… a rigorous, essential work of legal history, far from easy reading but fascinating throughout. … Highly recommended.' P. Harvey, ChoiceTable of ContentsIntroduction: an abolitionist vision; 1. The contract controversy; 2. 'Wreck and ruin'; 3. 'By force it was destroyed'; 4. Confederate reckonings; 5. Life after the death of slavery; 6. 'Back into the days of slavery'; 7. 'The grave question'; 8. Final failure; Epilogue: an abolitionist revision.

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Book SynopsisThis volume examines the evolution of the depictions of black femininity in French visual culture as a prism through which to understand the Global Northâs destructive relationship with the natural world. Drawing on a broad spectrum of archives extending back to the late 18th century â paintings, fashion plates, prints, photographs, and films â this study traces the intricate ways a patriarchal imperialism and a global capitalism have paired black women with the realm of nature to justify the exploitation both of people and of ecosystems. These dehumanizing and speciesist strategies of subjugation have perpetuated interlocking patterns of social injustice and environmental depletion that constitute the most salient challenges facing humankind today. Through a novel approach that merges visual studies, critical race theory, and animal studies, this interdisciplinary investigation historicizes the evolution of the boundaries between human and non-human animals during the modern

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Book SynopsisCapitalizing on the rich historical record of late antiquity, and employing sophisticated methodologies from social and economic history, this book reinterprets the end of Roman slavery. Kyle Harper challenges traditional interpretations of a transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages, arguing instead that a deep divide runs through 'late antiquity', separating the Roman slave system from its early medieval successors. In the process, he covers the economic, social and institutional dimensions of ancient slavery and presents the most comprehensive analytical treatment of a pre-modern slave system now available. By scouring the late antique record, he has uncovered a wealth of new material, providing fresh insights into the ancient slave system, including slavery's role in agriculture and textile production, its relation to sexual exploitation, and the dynamics of social honor. By demonstrating the vitality of slavery into the later Roman empire, the author shows that Christianity triTable of ContentsPart I. The Economy of Slavery: Introduction; 1. Among slave systems: a profile of late Roman slavery; 2. The endless river: the supply and trade of slaves; 3. Oikonomia: households, consumption, and production; 4. Agricultural slavery: exchange, institutions, estates; Part II. The Making of Honorable Society: Introduction; 5. Semper timere: the aims and techniques of domination; 6. Self, family, and community among slaves; 7. Sex, status, and social reproduction; 8. Mastery and the making of honor; Part III. The Imperial Order: Introduction; 9. Citizenship and litigation: slave status after the Antonine constitution; 10. The enslavement of Mediterranean bodies: child exposure and child sale; 11. The community of honor: the state and sexuality; 12. Rites of manumission, rights of the freed; Conclusion: Roman slavery, proto-modernity, and the end of antiquity; Appendices.

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Book SynopsisRunning from Bondage examines the ways in which enslaved women fought for their freedom during and after the Revolutionary War. Exploring who these women were and what motivated them to escape, Karen Cook Bell places their compelling stories within the broader historical narratives of slave resistance and the American Revolution.Trade Review'Karen Cook Bell's research brilliantly shows that the phenomenon of Black female flight in the period of slavery was not idiosyncratic but was, in fact, pervasive. This pathbreaking and beautifully written work centers the voices of Black women in slavery and abolition. A must-read.' Anne C. Bailey, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, History Department, and Director of the Harriet Tubman Center for the Study of Freedom and Equity, Binghamton University'In this new account of the American Revolution, Karen Cook Bell tells the story of how Black women flipped slavery's geography of containment upside down and redrew it as a treasure map to self-liberation. Her deep dives into fugitive sources bring back amazing stories of women who seized a time of war and disruption as the opportunity to carry themselves and their loved ones out of bondage. After Running from Bondage, no account of this period will be complete unless it shows how Black women's freedom-seeking brought about revolutionary changes.' Edward E. Baptist, Professor of History, Cornell University'Fugitive lives matter! Through the lives and actions of fugitive enslaved women, Running from Bondage will compel the reader to consider the impact of the enslaved upon the American Revolutionary Era. Karen Cook Bell simultaneously restores women to the discussion of fugitivity while restoring both women and fugitivity to the larger narrative of slave resistance during the period.' Peter J. Breaux, Associate Professor of History, Southern University and A&M College'Collectively, Running from Bondage artfully situates fugitive women in the history of the American Revolution and Black resistance … Future scholars of Black women's experience in the Revolution and beyond would be wise to consult Bell's findings and to mirror her approach.' G. Patrick O'Brien, H-Net Reviews'Gracefully written and convincingly argued, Running from Bondage deserves the attention of anyone interested in gender, slavery, or the American Revolution.' Natalie Zacek, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History'Bell has offered an invaluable service in bringing to the center those who have held a 'peripheral position' in the historical record.' Ryan C. McIlhenny, Journal of the Early RepublicTable of ContentsIntroduction: Enslaved women's fugitivity; 1. 'A negro wench named Lucia': Enslaved women during the eighteenth century; 2. 'A mulatto woman named Margaret': Pre-Revolutionary fugitive women; 3. 'A well-dressed woman named Jenny': Revolutionary Black women, 1776–1781; 4. 'A negro woman called Bett': Overcoming obstacles to freedom in Post-Revolutionary America; 5. Confronting the power structures: Marronage and Black women's fugitivity; Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisOffers a new look at slave revolts in ancient history and ancient historiography

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Book SynopsisMy Story: Ignatius Sancho is the extraordinary true story of a youngboy's journey from slave to abolitionist. Greenwich 1738, and eight-year-old Ignatius lives with three sisters. He fetches and carries, does their bidding and all without thanksor a smile. Ignatius must escape and start to build a realand brilliant life for himself.

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Book SynopsisNow in English for the first time, Keila Grinberg's compelling study of the nineteenth-century jurist Antonio Pereira Reboucas (1798-1880) traces the life of an Afro-Brazilian intellectual who rose from a humble background to play a key as well as conflicted role as Brazilians struggled to define citizenship and understand racial politics.

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Book SynopsisThis book provides a sophisticated investigation into the experience of being exterminated, as felt by victims of the Holocaust, and compares and contrasts this analysis with the experiences of people who have been colonized or enslaved. Using numerous victim accounts and a wide range of primary sources, the book moves away from the ''continuity thesis'', with its insistence on colonial intent as the reason for victimization in relation to other historical examples of mass political violence, to look at the victim experience on its own terms. By affording each constituent case study its own distinctive aspects, The Victims of Slavery, Colonization and the Holocaust allows for a more enriching comparison of victim experience to be made that respects each group of victims in their uniqueness. It is an important, innovative volume for all students of the Holocaust, genocide and the history of mass political violence.Trade Review[An] ambitious and complex book … Significant for graduate collections. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students, faculty. * CHOICE *Kitty Millet’s study sounds the subjectivity of persecution by looking at victims’ lived experiences of colonial occupation, physical confinement, and large-scale violence. I was moved as much as informed by her evocation of “what was lost”: the sense of absence, the being with death, a feeling “outside the world,” “a people without the memory of autonomy.” A thorough and creative inquiry into the shared sense of experience. * Dennis B. Klein, Professor of History and Director of Jewish Studies Program, Kean University, USA *With The Victims of Slavery, Colonialism, and the Holocaust, Kitty Millet has delivered an extraordinarily compelling interpretation of three historical spheres that are rarely examined comparatively. Drawing primarily on victim and perpetrator narratives, Millet’s brilliant analysis focuses on the victims’ self-imagination, including their minds and physical bodies, toward the goal of surviving persecution. * Michael Berkowitz, Professor of Modern Jewish History, University College London, UK *Kitty Millet's comparative study offers a thought-provoking exploration of the imagined communities of victims and perpetrators of mass atrocities. In lucid prose, she draws from individual narratives to consider the subjectivity of victimization. A valuable addition to Genocide Studies. * Kjell Anderson, Lecturer/Researcher and Coordinator of Master in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD), The Netherlands *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction: Comparative Histories of Persecution Part I: Slavery 1. A World of Slaves 2. The Formula and 'the Being of Slavery' Part II: Colonialism 3. A World of Colonies and the Evolving Colonial Consciousness 4. The Empirical Colony in German Southwest Africa and a Formula of Colonization 5. From a Formula for Colonization to a Formula of Extermination and Victims' 'Shared Sense' Part III: The Holocaust 6. An Aryan World and the 'Worldlessness' of Jews 7. 'Being' Exterminated and the Formulas of Extermination Conclusion: Observations on the Future Store, the Future Map and the Future Notes Bibliography Name Index Subject Index

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Book SynopsisA new framework for studying slaves and slavery in ancient societiesTrade Review"Treating slavery as a single thing was politically vital to abolitionism, but has become an impediment to scholarly understanding. Vlassopoulos shows how vital it is to stop considering slaves and slavery to be one thing if we are to understand Greek and Roman slavery. His rich and compelling picture of ancient slavery is the first step towards an honest mapping of the dynamics of power and domination across ancient societies that does not hide behind the classifications that they and we have found it politically convenient to adopt." -Robin Osborne, University of Cambridge

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Book SynopsisOne of the preeminent Black scholars of his era traces the life and bold aspirations of a man who devoted his life to opposing slavery at any cost. W.E.B. Du Bois examines John Brown as a man as well as a motive force behind the abolitionist sympathies that helped lead to the Civil War. He traces Brown’s sympathy for slaves to an incident in his youth when he was warmly received by a family that treated their slave with casual brutality. At the time it was written, John Brown was widely considered a fanatic at best, a lunatic at worst, but here he is seen clearly as a man driven by his Christianity and his personal morals to oppose what he clearly perceived as a tremendous wrong in society, and to do so regardless of whatever toll it might take upon him. The author examines Brown’s impact on the minds of those who understood that the abolitionist cause was supported primarily by Blacks, on the lives of Blacks who discovered a white man willing to fight and die for their freedom, and by the masses who found that slavery was not only an actionable moral issue, but one of deadly urgency. Originally published in 1909, on the 50th anniversary of Brown’s execution, this is W.E.B. Du Bois’s only work of biography. Although less known than the author’s The Souls of Black Folk or Black Reconstruction in America, John Brown remains a classic distinguished by its author’s deep understanding and eloquence. With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of John Brown is both modern and readable.

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Book SynopsisIreland, slavery and the Caribbean is a complex and ground-breaking collection of essays. Grounded in history, it integrates perspectives from art historians, architectural and landscape historians, and literary scholars to produce a genuinely interdisciplinary collection that spans from 1620-1830: the high point of European colonialism. By exploring imperial, national and familial relationships from their building blocks of plantation, migration, property and trade, it finds new ways to re-create and question how slavery made the Atlantic world.Trade ReviewNatalie A Zacek provides a sharply contemporary perspective on public debate and identity, deconstructing, inter alia, the ‘Irish Slave’ meme in ‘How the Irish became black’. This invaluable publication disentangles the polarities of subjects and agents, insularity and global dynamics.Sylvie Kleinman, History Island, September 2023. -- .Table of ContentsForeword - Sir Hilary BecklesIntroduction – Finola O’Kane and Ciaran O’NeillPart I: Setting Out the Terrain1. Setting out the terrain: Ireland and the Caribbean in the eighteenth century - David Dickson 2. From Perfidious Papists to Prosperous Planters: Making Irish elites in the early modern English Caribbean - Jenny Shaw3. Free, and unfree – Ireland and Barbados, 1620-60- David Brown4. Trade, plunder and Irishmen in early English Jamaica – Nuala Zahedieh5. Doing business in the wartime Caribbean: John Byrn, Irish merchant of Kingston, Jamaica (September – October 1756) - Thomas M. TruxesPart II: Consolidating Territories6. Ireland and British Colonial Slave-ownership 1763-1833 - Nick Draper7. Soldiers, settlers, slavers: Irish lives on the Spanish borderlands of North America and the Caribbean in the revolutionary 1790s- José Shane Brownrigg-Gleeson8. Searching for sovereignties: the formation of the penal laws and slave codes in Ireland and the British Caribbean, c. 1680 to c. 1720 - Aaron Graham9. Comparing Imperial design strategies; The Franco-Irish plantations of Saint-Domingue - Finola O'Kane10. Eyre Coote, the House of Assembly and the Defence of Jamaica, 1806-8 - David Fleming11. In search of excess: Lambert Blair and his appetites - Ciaran O'NeillPart III: Comparative Perspectives12. Two islands, many forts: Ireland and Bermuda in 1624 - Emily Mann13. Imperial barrack-building in 18C Ireland and Jamaica– Charles Ivar McGrath14. The architectures of empire in Jamaica: the Irish legacy ­ Louis P. Nelson15. Designed in parallel or in translation?: The connected landscapes of Kelly’s Pen, Jamaica and Westport, Co. Mayo - Finola O’Kane16. Formations and Deformations of Empire: Maria Edgeworth and the West Indies - Claire Connolly17. How the Irish became black- Natalie Zacek18. ‘Where are you actually from?’: Racial issues in the Irish context – Sandrine Uwase NdahiroIndex

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Book SynopsisMoving between Britain and Jamaica The bonds of family reconstructs the world of commerce, consumption and cultivation sustained through an extended engagement with the business of slavery. Transatlantic slavery was both shaping of and shaped by the dynamic networks of family that established Britain’s Caribbean empire. Tracing the activities of a single extended family – the Hibberts – this book explores how slavery impacted on the social, cultural, economic and political landscape of Britain. It is a history of trade, colonisation, enrichment and the tangled web of relations that gave meaning to the transatlantic world. The Hibberts’s trans-generational story imbricates the personal and the political, the private and the public, the local and the global. It is both the intimate narrative of a family and an analytical frame through which to explore Britain’s history and legacies of slavery.Trade Review'Katie Donington’s fascinating, formidably researched and very important investigation of the manifold ways in which the Hibbert family established its wealth through slave trading and slavery and its outsized role in important aspects of British history, including philanthropy and proslavery, is a book for our times. It deserves a wide readership.'Family and Community History'The Bonds of Family is an engaging, methodically-presented study that brings a unique perspective on the British Atlantic and promises to contribute significantly to studies of Caribbean and British history.'New West Indian Guide'Through its focus on a single family, The bonds of family thus offers a refreshingly human view of how Britain’s slave economy was made, operated, justified and sustained by its perpetrators. Atlantic slavery, Donington shows, was created not by abstract market forces, but through the actions of individuals such as the Hibberts: ambitious people who elevated themselves through the ruthless exploitation of enslaved people.'Continuity and Change'The Bonds of Family is a book about power. [...] Donington’s work, as suggested by the title, is also a book about those bonds that are able to cross geographical and temporal boundaries and connect the past with the present, the inside with the outside, the private and intimate story of a family with the public history of the nation and the empire.'Matilde Cazzola, American Journal of Legal History'Donington’s book is a fascinating read that builds upon a rich literature on the history of families and family enterprise in the British Atlantic world over the long eighteenth century. Yet Donington goes beyond earlier studies in her thorough assessment of the family’s cultural accumulation, physical legacies and investments in Britain and, crucially, her close attention paid to the role of free women – both white women and women of colour – in the cultural economy of West Indian family enterprise. A thoroughly researched and well written book that resonates with contemporary politics, this book contributes to literature on the legacies of slavery in Britain as well as to histories of families, race, and slavery in the Atlantic world.'Erin Trahey, Slavery & Abolition -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction: Family matters - slavery, commerce, and culture Part I: Family business - commerce, commodities, and credit 1. Manchester 2. Jamaica 3. London Part II: Family politics - defending the slave trade and slavery4. Defending the slave trade 5. Defending slavery Part III: Family culture - domesticating slavery6. Intimate relations: the colony and the metropole7. Consuming passions: Collecting and connoisseurship 8. The culture of refinement: Country houses and philanthropy Epilogue: Family legacies - after abolition Select bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis collection brings together academics from a range of disciplines to examine modern slavery. Providing a platform to critique the legal, ideological and political responses to the issue, experts interrogate the construct of modern slavery and the anti-trafficking discourse which have dominated contemporary responses to exploitation.

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Book SynopsisThe horrific world of modern slavery is exposed in this book based on the first-hand experiences of victims of human trafficking. Through the stories of three remarkable individuals who share how they fell victim to traffickers and how their bodies and souls resisted an enterprise of total destruction, Monique Villa takes us around the world—from Ohio to Tokyo, London to India, Qatar to Colombia—to uncover a parallel world where men, women, and children are dehumanized and reduced to obedient machines. Written by a global leader in the fight against human trafficking, this powerful book uncovers the hidden world of slaves—no longer physically in chains—who walk among us, trapped in a cycle of exploitation. Despite significant progress in the fight for human rights, slavery continues to flourish. In fact, there are more slaves today, in countries rich and poor, than at any point in the past.By giving voice to survivors of this horrific trade, Villa vividly illustrates dire situations we can do something about. Her call to action outlines concrete steps to safeguard the vulnerable among us and to eliminate slavery in our time.Trade ReviewAs a survivor myself, I know firsthand how Monique’s fierce and relentless drive in fighting modern slavery and empowering those who have endured it has been transformative. Her knowledge and expertise, strengthened over many years of being at the frontline of this fight, is stamped on every page of this book, a real page turner. -- Evelyne Chumbow, survivor of forced laborI discovered sex trafficking through filming SOLD, and Monique Villa’s book is an eye opener on the human experience of slavery. She keeps the survivors’ voices and weaves them with a global insight into modern slavery. I don’t usually feel hopeful when I read about the issue, but this book had that effect on me. A tour de force. -- Gillian Anderson, award-winning actressMonique Villa’s years of experience as an esteemed journalist, along with her tenacity and passion to protect those who suffer in modern slavery, is so clearly demonstrated in this book. She has led the way in the fight against slavery, bringing so many along with her. -- Kevin Hyland, former UK Independent Anti-Slavery CommissionerTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Preface: Why? 1 Who Are the Modern Slaves? 2 The Most Despicable Crime: Techniques of the Human-Trafficking Business Model 3 From Nepal to Qatar: Debt Bondage 4 A Tattoo on Your Soul: Corruption and Impunity 5 The Psychological Impact of Enslavement 6 The Children of Bal Ashram 7 In the Mind of a Trafficker 8 Limited Options 9 Business Is Key—To the Problem and the Solution 10 Solutions: From Individuals to Cross-Sector Engagement, Worldwide 11 My Heroes Index

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Book SynopsisUncle Tom's Cabin may well have excited more controversy than any other work of fiction in American history. Welcomed by many abolitionists and met with indignation by supporters of slavery, it gave crucial impetus to the antislavery movement, and its characters and dramatic scenes were quickly absorbed into the nation's consciousness; at the same time, its employment of racial stereotypes and emphasis on Christian nonresistance in the face of violence left behind a troubling legacy that was debated by black Americans in the nineteenth century and that culminated in the popular tradition of 'Tom shows' that persisted well into the twentieth century. With a brief but robust introduction, judicious selection of the most essential and frequently taught portions of the novel, and examples of contemporary responses, this abridged edition of Harriet Beecher Stowe's antislavery classic provides an overview of the novel's plot, themes, and rhetorical strategies, and is ideal for classroom use. This volume is one of a number of editions that have been drawn from the pages of the acclaimed Broadview Anthology of American Literature; like the others, it is designed to make a range of material from the anthology available in a format convenient for use in a wide variety of contexts.Trade ReviewThe expansion, diversification, and revitalization of the texts and terms of American literary history in recent years is made marvelously accessible in the … new Broadview Anthology of American Literature."—Hester Blum, Penn State University"The Broadview Anthology of American Literature is, quite simply, a breakthrough. … Meticulously researched and expertly assembled, this anthology should be the new gold standard for scholars and teachers alike."—Michael D’Alessandro, Duke University"So much thought has been put into every aspect of the Broadview Anthology of American Literature, from the selection of texts to their organization to their presentation on the page; it will be a gift to classrooms for years to come."— Lara Langer Cohen, Swarthmore College "The multiplicity of early American locations, languages, and genres is here on wondrous display."—Jordan Alexander Stein, Fordham University "Above all, this is a volume for the 21st century. … Its capaciousness and ample resource materials make for a text that is always evolving and meeting its readers in new ways."—Russ Castronovo, University of Wisconsin-Madison"a rich collection that reflects the diversity of American literatures…. [and] that never forgets its most important audience: students. There is a wealth of material here that will help them imagine and reimagine what American literature could be."— Michael C. Cohen, UCLATable of ContentsIntroductionUncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly: SelectionsIn Context American Slavery: Contemporary Accounts from Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimké Weld, and Sarah Grimké, American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (1839) from The Narratives of Fugitive Slaves in Canada (1856) Runaway Advertisements (1820–67) Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Public William Lloyd Garrison, The Liberator, 26 March 1852 from William J. Wilson [Ethiop], Uncle Tom's Cabin!, Frederick Douglass' Paper, 17 June 1852 from Charles Sumner, US Senate Speech on his Motion to repeal the fugitive Slave Bill (as reprinted in the Anti-Slavery Bugle, Lisbon, Ohio), 18 September 1852 from anonymous, Uncle Tom's Cabin, The New York Observer, 21 October 1852 from Louisa S. McCord, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Southern Quarterly Review, January 1853 from George Sand, George Sand and Uncle Tom, The National Era, 27 January 1853 from George Frederick Holmes, A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, Southern Literary Messenger, June 1853 from anonymous, The North American Review, October 1853 from Mary Chesnut, Diary, 1861–62, 1981 Advertisement, New England Farmer (Boston, Massachusetts), 25 December 1852 (An Edition for the Million) Advertisement, Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut), 12 August 1852 The Anti-Tom Novel from Caroline Lee Hentz, The Planter's Northern Bride (1854) Martin Delany and Frederick Douglass Debate Harriet Beecher Stowe Visualizing Uncle Tom's Cabin

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Book SynopsisSlavery is a phenomenon that appears to interfere with neither the daily lives of most people nor with their contemporary worlds.For many, the term ‘slavery’ is reminiscent of black slaves on their journey to America or, perhaps, of slaves in ancient Rome or Greece. And yet, despite the fact that slavery had formally been abolished at the end of the nineteenth century in most countries, it still remains an inherent part of modern life.In 2023 it still consists of a large group of people. For more than 50 million individuals worldwide, freedom does not exist. People are still being exploited and traded as commodities.In the first place, this issue concerns people who end up working as slave labour in all economic branches, including clothing, fishing, agriculture, construction, transport and catering industries. This form of slavery has many connections to Western companies and, often, it actually occurs in Western countries. In addition, in all European countries, the sex industry makes abundant use of so-called sex slaves.This book will give you a glimpse of what slavery looks like today.

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Book SynopsisA witty and provocative treatise on the policies we’ll need to make our public schools work for all children From the anti-CRT panic to efforts to divert tax dollars to charter schools, the right-wing attack on education has cut deep. In response, millions of Americans have rallied to defend their cherished public schools. But this incisive book asks whether choosing between our embattled status quo and the stingy privatized vision of the right is the only path forward. In As Public as Possible, education expert David I. Backer argues for going on the offensive by radically expanding the very notion of the “public” in our public schools.Helping us to imagine a more just and equitable future, As Public as Possible proposes a concrete set of policies aimed at providing a high-quality and truly public education for all Americans, regardless of wealth and race. With witty and provocative prose, Backer takes the reader on an enlightening tour of radical policy alternatives. He shows how we can decouple school funding from property tax revenue, evening out inequalities across districts by distributing resources according to need. He argues for direct federal grants instead of the predations of municipal debt markets. And he offers eye-opening examples spanning the past and present, from the former Yugoslavia to contemporary Philadelphia, which help us to imagine a radically different way of educating all of our children.

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Book SynopsisIn the U.S. Civil War, Mary Richards, a free Black woman, risked her life posing as an illiterate slave to spy in the home of rebel President Jefferson Davis. Whether as a Union agent sending vital intelligence to the U.S. military or facing down the Klan while teaching freed slaves in postwar Georgia, hers was a heroic one-woman fight for justice.

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Book SynopsisThe Fearless Benjamin Lay chronicles the transatlantic life and times of a singular and astonishing man-a Quaker dwarf who became one of the first ever to demand the total, unconditional emancipation of all enslaved Africans around the world. He performed public guerrilla theatre to shame slave masters, insisting that human bondage violated the fundamental principles of Christianity. He wrote a fiery, controversial book against bondage that Benjamin Franklin published in 1738. He lived in a cave, made his own clothes, refused to consume anything produced by slave labour, championed animal rights, and embraced vegetarianism. He acted on his ideals to create a new, practical, revolutionary way of life.Trade ReviewBenjamin Lay was a Quaker, a philosopher, a sailor, a commoner and a revolutionary abolitionist. Crossing the seas from Colchester to Philadelphia and beyond he spoke truth to power and, as a little person, waged a politics of the body in his everyday life. His antinomian radicalism has been wonderfully excavated by Marcus Rediker in this eloquent testament. -- Catherine Hall, author of Legacies of British Slave-Ownership and Civilising SubjectsAdmirers of Marcus Rediker’s splendid The Slave Ship will be delighted by this historian’s new book. Sailor, pioneer of guerrilla theater, and a man who would stop at nothing to make his fellow human beings share his passionate outrage against slavery, Benjamin Lay has long needed a modern biographer worthy of him, and now he has one. -- Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost

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Book SynopsisThe 2020 toppling of slave-trader Edward Colston's statue by Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol was a dramatic reminder of Britain's role in trans-Atlantic slavery, too often overlooked. Yet the legacy of that predatory economy reaches far beyond bronze memorials; it continues to shape the entire visual fabric of the country. Architect Victoria Perry explores the relationship between the wealth of slave-owning elites and the architecture and landscapes of Georgian Britain. She reveals how profits from Caribbean sugar plantations fed the opulence of stately homes and landscape gardens. Trade in slaves and slave-grown products also boosted the prosperity of ports like Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, shifting cultural influence towards the Atlantic west. New artistic centres like Bath emerged, while investment in poor, remote areas of Wales, Cumbria and Scotland led to their 're-imagining' as tourist destinations: Snowdonia, the Lakes and the Highlands. The patronage of absentee planters popularised British ideas of 'natural scenery'--viewing mountains, rivers and rocks as landscape art--and then exported the concept of 'sublime and picturesque' landscapes across the Atlantic. A Bittersweet Heritage unearths the slavery-tainted history of Britain's manors, ports, roads and countryside, and powerfully explains what this legacy means today.Trade Review''A Bittersweet Heritage' illuminates how Caribbean profits shaped not only family trees, but the planting and painting of Britain's landscape--and the mansions erected thereon.' -- Church Times'An impressive, highly readable, and beautifully illustrated book.' -- The Round Table'[A] fine, well-illustrated work of (often painful) history.' -- Context'An important and engrossing contribution to the history of Britain's place in the global slave trade, and how it shaped our urban and rural, domestic and civic fabric. Perry successfully charts this brutal past and reminds us all of how its everyday legacies continue today.' -- Tristram Hunt, historian, former MP and Director, Victoria and Albert Museum'This book showing how profits from Black slavery helped to transform Britain's architecture and landscapes gripped me from beginning to end. Enhanced by a lucid and accessible prose style together with many fascinating images, it most certainly deserves a very wide readership.' -- Sir Tom Devine, Professor Emeritus, University of Edinburgh, and editor of 'Recovering Scotland's Slavery Past: The Caribbean Connection''This is a scholarly and timely history of great country seats created from the profits of plantation slavery. It is a fascinating story of how the political, cultural, social and economic milieu both shaped their history and informs our present.' -- Simon Allford, President of the Royal Institute of British Architects'This book is eye-opening. From her essay in the renowned volume Slavery and the British Country House to this magnificent new study, Victoria Perry continues to illuminate the myriad--and surprising--architectural, rural and cultural legacies of Britain's slavery business.' -- Corinne Fowler, Professor of Postcolonial Literature, University of Leicester'A captivating if uncomfortable account of the connections – strategic and individual – between the trans-Atlantic slave trade and Britain's built and natural heritage. The design ideals of this cruel historic period have been successfully buried for generations, but Perry's meticulous research and excellent storytelling bring them to new audiences.' -- Louise Thomas, Director, Historic Towns & Villages Forum

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Book SynopsisThe epic story of a man born into Caribbean slavery, who defeated Napoleon’s armies and crowned himself a free black king. How did a man born enslaved on a plantation triumph over Napoleon’s invading troops and become king of the first free black nation in the Americas? This is the forgotten, remarkable story of Henry Christophe. Christophe fought as a child soldier in the American War of Independence, before serving in the Haitian Revolution as one of Toussaint Louverture’s top generals. Following Haitian independence, Christophe crowned himself King Henry I. His attempts to build a modern black state won the support of leading British abolitionists—but his ambition helped to plunge his country into civil war. Christophe saw himself as an Enlightenment ruler, and his kingdom produced great literary works, epic fortresses and opulent palaces. He was a proud anti-imperialist and fought off French plots against him. Yet the Haitian people chafed under his authoritarian rule. Today, all that remains is Christophe’s mountaintop Citadelle, Haiti’s sole World Heritage site—a monument to a revolutionary black monarchy, in a world of empire and slavery.Trade Review‘Black Crown' grasps the essential tragedy of history, in all its ambiguity and contingency.’ -- The Telegraph'With narrative verve and a deep understanding of the country's extraordinary past, Clammer opens a window on to the life and times of one of the most tragic figures of the francophone Antilles, le roi Christophe.' -- The Spectator'Paul Clammer brings this extraordinary story to life in his deeply researched biography of Christophe, the first to appear in decades... a detailed and rewarding read.' -- History Today‘An excellent record of many different aspects of Haiti’s little-known history.’ -- Liberation'An important contribution to Haiti's little-known history.' -- Morning Star‘A great historical narrative that introduces the reader to an array of fascinating characters in an age of revolution.’ -- Counterfire'A rich story... important and well-written.' -- The Zambia Daily Mail'Meticulously researched and compellingly written, Black Crown is the biography of Henry Christophe we have been waiting for. Through Christophe's story, Clammer describes the country's transition from plantation colony to independent nation-state. Essential reading, not only for those interested in the history of Haiti but also for anyone seeking to understand the emergence of the modern Atlantic world.' -- Charles Forsdick, co-author of Toussaint Louverture: A Black Jacobin in the Age of Revolutions'The majesty of Haiti's foundations is reflected in the almost unreal story of King Henry Christophe. Bold, nationalistic, and unrelenting, Christophe long occupied outside imaginations that for a century subjected him to myth and ridicule. Black Crown is a major corrective to this: a carefully researched, beautifully written and deeply absorbing biography. It shines on every page with subtle insights on a story too little understood. Paul Clammer's triumph is to recover the man, his country, and his age, and present Haiti's proud black king in all his conflicting glory.' -- Matthew J. Smith, Professor of History and Director of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, University College of London'This adds greatly to our growing understanding of the Haitian Revolution, its turbulent aftermath and the cutthroat politics of revolutionary Haiti. Clammer seems to have left no stone unturned in his research and brings a great deal to the table for both Haiti scholars and the general reader wishing to understand the reign of King Christophe. Black Crown also represents another point of evidence for an interesting question--do you have to be a professional academic to write a great history book? Clearly not.' -- Johnhenry Gonzalez, University of Cambridge, author of Maroon Nation: A History of Revolutionary Haiti

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Book SynopsisAn enduring history of how race and class came together to mark the course of the antebellum US and our present crisis. Roediger shows that in a nation pledged to independence, but less and less able to avoid the harsh realities of wage labor, the identity of "white" came to allow many Northern workers to see themselves as having something in common with their bosses. Projecting onto enslaved people and free Blacks the preindustrial closeness to pleasure that regimented labor denied them, "white workers" consumed blackface popular culture, reshaped languages of class, and embraced racist practices on and off the job. Far from simply preserving economic advantage, white working-class racism derived its terrible force from a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforced stereotypes and helped to forge the very identities of white workers in opposition to Blacks. Full of insight regarding the precarious positions of not-quite-white Irish immigrants to the US and the fate of working class abolitionism, Wages of Whiteness contributes mightily and soberly to debates over the 1619 Project and critical race theory.Trade ReviewThe Celestine Prophecy of whiteness studies. * SPIN *An extremely important and insightful book. * The Nation *A brilliant account of how white workers in antebellum America constructed a social identity fundamentally premised on their 'whiteness.' -- Steve Fraser * American Historical Review *Compelling. -- John White * Times Higher Education Supplement *Delivers powerful insights into the collective psyche of the U.S. working class. Striking. -- Chris Searle * Morning Star *An important contribution to our understanding of what has often been called 'American exceptionalism.' Sensitive and detailed handling of a wide range of original sources. -- Louis Kushnick * Race and Class *Brilliant. Remarkable for its subtlety, its penetrating and honest analysis. -- Fred Whitehead * People's Culture *Scholarly and thoroughly documented, The Wages of Whiteness is nonetheless a highly readable, compact and compelling narrative. A provocative illumination of the long and tortuous history of racism in the U.S. -- Franklin Rosemont * Heartland Journal *Casts a new light on a broad social, cultural and political landscape. -- Iver Bernstein * Journal of American History *Far and away the best treatment of white working-class racial attitudes in the nineteenth century that I have seen. -- George M. FredricksonAn indispensable addition to our knowledge of American working class formation. -- Joe W. Trotter * Journal of Social History *In this penetrating study of the origins of white working-class racial attitudes, Roediger profoundly illuminates the new labor history. A distinctive extension of the scholarly studies that locate the nexus of American society in race and labor. -- Joseph Boskin * Choice *A timely and important intervention in the current debates over 'race' and ethnicity. Roediger has opened up the question of white identity. -- Catherine Hall * New Left Review *Interesting and useful. Reconstructs how labor in America made racism part of its very being. -- John DeBrizzi * Telos *A brilliant, authoritative, carefully researched study of major importance. -- Michael Rogin * Radical History Review *A real contribution to the study of the dynamic relationship that exists between the variables of race and class. A very engaging and compelling book. Wages of Whiteness will have a broad appeal to students and researchers across a wide array of disciplines. -- Lisa Reilly and Cameron McCarthy * European Journal of Intercultural Studies *A welcome challenge to the old and new mythmakers. -- Noel Ignatiev * Labor [Le Travail] *A significant contribution, particularly necessary for those who want to see the struggle for labor unity across racial lines move forward. -- Paul Mishler * Science and Society *Roediger's lasting contribution ensures that the history of race and class can no longer be written from the perspective of romantic working class heroes, nor can it be written in a spirit of self-righteous 'anger.' -- Barry Goldberg * New Politics *Subtle, serious, commands our attention -- J. Milton Yinger * Ethnic and Racial Studies *Roediger's excellent book is must reading for those interested in American working-class formation. -- Andrew Kim * Critical Sociology *In The Wages of Whiteness David Roediger takes a courageous look at the development of white working-class racism and attempts to unravel its complex skein of economic, cultural, and psycho-political issues. -- Soledad Santiago * Foundation News *Of great originality and yet firmly grounded in a rich and diverse scholarship. There is no denying the enormous achievement of this book. Henceforth there will be no evading the question of racism in our contemplation of working-class formation in America. -- David Brody * Journal of Interdisciplinary History *Offers a compelling understanding of working-class racism. A rich and detailed history that traces notions of whiteness from the early seventeenth century to the late nineteenth. -- Rhonda Levine * Contemporary Sociology *Much has been written about the sources of racism and the wellsprings of racial conflict but few historians have shown David Roediger's sensitivity to the process by which race figured in defining the very nature of American society. The author's most important contribution is to elucidate how racial identity was critical to the formation of the working class during the nineteenth century. Roediger's central argument is most compelling. -- Ronald Mendel * Labour History Review *David Roediger's fascinating and vital study will satisfy even the most jaded intellectual palate and deserves the widest circulation. -- Martin Crawford * History *The book speaks so clearly to what historians know about the American working class, but with enormous originality. Broadly accessible to a wide audience, it connects the histories of slave labor and free labor thus providing a more profound understanding of American working class formation. Theoretically sophisticated, pulling together subtle but significant connections among race, class and gender. Blindingly revealing and of lasting scholarly value. * Organization of American Historians Prize Committee on awarding Wages the 1992 Merle Curti Prize *At last an American labor historian realizes that white workers have a racial identity that matters as race matters to those who are not white. -- Neil Irvin PainterPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Although long dismissed as irrelevant or biased, African American views on whiteness are in fact crucial to any intelligent discussion on race. By documenting the history of these views, David Roediger is not only addressing a compelling need, he is enriching the ?eld of Race Studies. -- Toni MorrisonPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Black on White is a brilliantly disturbing collection of work by black authors who are the often unappreciated foreparents of contemporary debates about the fallacies and functions of whiteness. These writings throw generous light on Fannie Lou Hamer's deliciously cryptic claim: the mistake that whites made with blacks is that they put us behind them leaving blacks little choice, for survival's sake, but to learn and master white culture. Black on White is proof that not only was Hamer right, but that if white Americans are to survive the madness of whiteness, they must now listen to and learn from those who made a glorious art out of a painful necessity. -- Michael Eric Dyson author of Race RulesPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Brilliant, wide-ranging and beautifully executed, Black on White puts to rest any claims that 'whiteness' is a passing fad meant to put white folks at the center again. -- Robin D.G. KelleyPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Yet another ?ash of brilliance illuminates and largely defines a vital subject area. Black on White deserves the widest reading. -- Sterling Stuckey, Presidential Chair, University of California Riverside and author of Slave CulturePraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:This valuable collection provides a new and badly-needed perspective on America's deep seated problems of racial inequality and antagonism. Much has been written and anthologized to show what whites thought and felt about blacks. This is the ?rst effort to present a range of black opinion on the meaning of whiteness, and it is a notably successful one. -- George M. Fredrickson, Edgar E. Robinson Professor of United States History, Stanford UniversityPraise for Black on White: Black Writers on what It Means to be White edited by David R. Roediger:Black on White is a superb collection of writings by African Americans about the nature of White identity in the United States. David Roediger's informed and inspired introduction and the eloquent and insightful works he has collected expose the ideas, attitudes, and actions that transform the ?ction of white racial identity into an all too real social fact. At a time when white politicians, pundits, and private citizens base many public policies and even more private decisions in the knowledge they claim to have about black people, whiteness seems to disappear. Black on White redirects our focus to the way white people appear to blacks, to the insights, analyses, and interpretations emanating from people who became experts on whiteness out of dire necessity. -- George Lipsitz, University of California, San DiegoPraise for The Sinking Middle Class:An incisive, timely, clear-eyed analysis of race and class in America. -- Robin D.G. KelleyPraise for The Sinking Middle Class:Brilliant and Insightful [it] explores the ways in which appeals to save the middle class in electoral politics harm the very constituencies they purport to help. -- George LipsitzPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:No contemporary intellectual has better illuminated the interwoven social histories and conceptual dimensions of race and class domination. With this stunning new collection of essays, David Roediger once again demonstrates that he is a vital thinker for all of us seeking to bridge the imperatives of economic and social justice. -- Nikhil Singh, New York UniversityPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:David Roediger's work is always as learned as it is profoundly engaged with the pursuit of social justice. From his signature study of the 'wages of whiteness,' to the analysis of links between settler colonial dispossession, gendered social reproduction, plantation management, and immigrant labor in the making of modern racial capitalism-Roediger's bold commitments to demonstrating the historical and ongoing implications of race and class in the United States are timely, and more necessary than ever. -- Lisa Lowe, Tufts UniversityPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:These bracing essays express hard truths and grounded hopes as they help us to rethink a past too much with us still. Portraying a history of oppression and resistance made at the intersections of social identities, Roediger makes sophisticated analyses of culture and political economy accessible to scholars and to activists. -- Kimberlé Crenshaw, Columbia University School of LawPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:When it comes to thinking about the history of racism, anti-racism and the US working class, David Roediger has no peer. Incisive, provocative, and uncannily timely, Class, Race, and Marxism reckons honestly with the challenges of building class solidarity across the fissures of race, the difficulties of writing about it, and the ways in which the two are entwined. If there is a single lesson here, it is that solidarity is not forever-it is elusive, fragile, and hard as hell. -- Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great DepressionPraise for Class, Race, and Marxism:David Roediger wades into the fray with refreshing nuance and generosity. * In These Times *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Roediger's book couldn't have appeared at a more timely moment. * Brooklyn Rail *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:A scintillating compilation . Roediger's book explains exactly why even the most sickening atavisms of racism are fully compatible with the capitalist order, with ramifications into the 21st century. -- Alan Wald * Against the Current *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Roediger addresses the challenges that class and race continue to present for U.S. radicals . should be required reading for anyone trying to understand the era of Trumpian politics. This is an important book, with lessons that some way wish to ignore, but at their peril. * Working Class Studies Association C.L.R. James Award *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Studying, understanding, struggling against, and ultimately replacing this centuries-old, foundational, and deep societal reality remains essential, as Roediger, a consistently pathbreaking historian, makes clear in these insightful essays. * Monthly Review *Praise for Class, Race, and Marxism:Amid the cacophony of competing perspectives, David Roediger's Class, Race and Marxism not only expertly evaluates the historical, theoretical, and political stakes of contemporary debates on race and class, but also significantly contributes to scholarship that 'refus[es] to place race outside of the logic of capital.' * Black Scholar Journal *Praise for Seizing Freedom:Seizing Freedom persuasively documents the self-emancipation of the enslaved Black folk of the American South. A meticulously researched book, it offers close readings of verbal and visual texts, unfailingly attentive to issues of race, gender, and labor coming together and falling apart. It brilliantly brings together disability studies, race in the Civil War, and the disappearance of the gold standard. A worthy supplement to Du Bois's Black Reconstruction. -- Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia UniversityPraise for Seizing Freedom:This sparkling book does more than merely restore and underscore the agency of bold worker-slaves in attempts to make the US democratic and free. It aims artfully at the underlying mechanisms of revolutionary transformation: imagination and solidarity, time, labor and the human body, gender, class and race. In Roediger's hands, these are neither dry nor overly abstract categories. The insurgent history of abolition gets resuscitated and used vividly to address a host of stalled contemporary debates and ossified styles of thought. -- Paul Gilroy, King's College LondonPraise for Seizing Freedom:Sweeping in its scope and filled with brilliant and original insights, this book reminds us of how little still is our appreciation both for what slaves accomplished between 1860 and 1865 and how beholden the national labor movement and the woman suffrage campaigns were to the 'general strike' they won...Evocative and inspiring, Seizing Freedom represents a landmark study by one of the foremost scholars of the history of race and labor in our time that will fundamentally challenge the way we understand the moral and practical power of emancipation. -- Thavolia Glymph, Duke UniversityPraise for Seizing Freedom:Seizing Freedom, David Roediger's spellbinding account of black self-emancipation and the array of movements accelerated by this 'general strike of the slaves' as DuBois put it, reminds us that it is never too late to take up the democratic promise of Radical Reconstruction. -- Angela Y. Davis, University of California, Santa CruzPraise for How Race Survived US History:Sometime in the US of the past quarter-century, calling policies and the people who dream them up racist became a worse offense than for them to be racist. This inversion, always dressed in self-righteous indignation, is actually part of the social evolution of white supremacy. David Roediger's book details in sharp and readable prose how race survived US history. It is a must-read for all who strive to understand-and abolish-what underlies the strangely strident rhetoric enveloping everything from presidential contests to prison expansion. -- Ruth Wilson GilmorePraise for How Race Survived US History:In a trenchant, broad-ranging analysis, the leading US historian of racism, David Roediger, demonstrates white supremacy's incredible staying power against major societal forces that should long ago have dismantled it. Not capitalism, not emancipation, not labor movements, not mass immigration, not the civil rights movement, not colorblind liberalism, and not the Barack Obama presidential campaign-not one of these forces separately, and not all of them together-have been able to destroy the deep structures of white racism in the United States. -- Joe R. FeaginPraise for How Race Survived US History:David Roediger's bold and brilliant book presents an extraordinary new framework for understanding the persistence of racism in the history of the United States. This book is a wake-up call and a warning, an appeal for understanding and action. It offers a clear and convincing demonstration that white supremacy is not merely a relic of the past but rather a perpetually renewed and infinitely renewable resource for inequality and injustice in the present. -- George LipsitzPraise for How Race Survived US History:A staggering re-interpretation of the whole course of American history in which the skeletons in the closet walk again. From genocide and massacre to lynching to the coded tongue of liberalism, the bankruptcy of white supremacy is found in the racialized structures maintained by the enclosures of incarceration and the foreclosures of impignoration -- Peter LinebaughPraise for How Race Survived US History:An extremely timely argument about the enduring significance of 'race' in American society, as well as a sophisticated polemic against the complacent assumption that the Obama phenomenon spells the end of American racism. -- Richard SeymourPraise for Colored White:David Roediger has been showing us all for years how whiteness is a marked and not a neutral color in the history of the United States. Colored White . . . marks yet another advance. In the burgeoning literature on whiteness this book stands out for its groundedness, its analytic clarity, and its scope. -- Michael RoginPraise for Colored White:No other writer on whiteness can match Roediger's historical breadth and depth; his grasp of the formative role played by race in the making of the nineteenth-century working class, in defining the contours of twentieth-century US citizenship, and in shaping the meaning of emerging social identities and cultural practices in the twenty-first century. -- George LipsitzPraise for Working toward Whiteness:Whiteness Studies can enable us to see American history in a wholly new light, and for the development of the field we must thank Roediger . . . full of thought-provoking observations. * Boston Globe *Praise for Working toward Whiteness:A tour de force. Roediger marshals vast knowledge extending from social and labor history to popular culture and the role of the state. This book will be the point of departure for future studies of whiteness. -- Rudolph J. VecoliPraise for Working toward Whiteness:This book is a major achievement by all standard. A more than worthy successor to Roediger's groundbreaking The Wages of Whiteness, this new book tells in rich detail how the 'new immigrants' from eastern and southern Europe . . . went from being an 'in-between' racial group to to one that was unequivocally white. -- George FredricksonPraise for Working toward Whiteness:Roediger has given us another of our most compelling, incisive, and elegant analyses of racial subjugation and privilege-in-the-making in the US. A brilliant investigation of that historical zone where institutions, ideas, and street-level experiences meet and give form to one another. It may be Roediger's most powerful contribution yet. -- Matthew Frye JacobsonPraise for History against Misery:This wonderful collection of essays is not only a powerful indictment of late capitalism . . . but also a fascinating survey of resistance voices, from the IWW to the Surrealists, from the Chicago Idea Anarchists to Black Liberation. -- Michael LöwyPraise for History against Misery:It is to the summer of our discontent that the surrealist brings us a wintry elation: humor, a poetics of resistance, purposeful deviance motivated by genuine compassion and a love of truth. -- Blake Schwarzenbach

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Book SynopsisIn musical, evocative language, her poems imagine the what-if-that-almost-was of Scotland’s best-loved Bard, following Robert Burns into the life he might have lived as a plantation overseer in Jamaica—then seeing his enslaved granddaughter come back to Scotland to claim a life reserved for white women. Evie Shockley This collection is timely and timeless as it reframes the complicated genealogies created by colonialism. Erasure is one of the colonizer’s most insidious tools and McCallum’s gorgeous monologues serve to reclaim the voices ignored, unsaid, and unclaimed because of colonialism. Adrian Matejka A subtle, multi-layered verse narrative… The worlds it vividly presents beget reflections on creativity, history, slavery, race and many other issues. It is an exceptional work, a memorable achievement. Mervyn Morris Seemingly controlled words surge with echoes; poems keep double-entry accounts, striping the page, laddering like stockings. McCallum achieves an un-haunting. Characters are realer than real, less imaginary than re-storied. Like the returning dead, whom nothing ‘will quench or unhunger’, this work wants you, wants us, ‘to begin again’. Vahni Capildeo

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Book SynopsisNewly available in paperback, this edition is an important volume of international significance, drawing together contributions from some of the leading scholars in the field and edited by a team headed by the acclaimed historian David Richardson. The book sets Liverpool in the wider context of transatlantic slavery and addresses issues in the scholarship of transatlantic slavery, including African agency and trade experience. Emphasis is placed on the human characteristics and impacts of transatlantic slavery. It also opens up new areas of debate on Liverpool’s participation in the slave trade and helps to frame the research agenda for the future.Trade ReviewAnyone seeking a clear, balanced and thoughtful presentation of the issues surrounding one of the most shameful episodes of human history could not do better than to arm themselves with a copy of this absorbing and well-edited book. * Urban History Journal *Undoubtedly of use to anyone who has more than a passing interest in the role the African slave trade played in developing one of the Atlantic World’s most prominent ports. * Journal of African History *This book is an important addition to the rapidly growing literature on the Atlantic slave trade. * American Historical Review *The volume is recommended to researchers and students interested in better understanding Liverpool's place in the history of British slavery and the slave trade. * The Journal of African American History *.. anyone seeking a clear, balanced and thoughtful presentation of the issues surrounding one of the most shameful episodes of human history could not do better than to arm themselves with a copy of this absorbing and well-edited book. * Urban History Volume 35/3 *What Liverpool and Transatlantic Slavery offers is a close, careful and highly quantitative analysis of the multiple factors that contributed to Liverpool's ascendancy in turn shaped attitudes and aspirations both abroad and at home. * International Journal of African Historical Studies, Volume 41, Number 2 *This is a book of substance that offers both new insights and information, and which, at its best, contextualizes the city in its regional and its global context. As such, it enriches our understanding both of Liverpool's and Britain's involvement in the transatlantic slave system. * H-Net Reviews *Liverpool and the Transatlantic Slave Trade will be undoubtedly of use to anyone who has more than a passing interest in the role the African slave trade played in developing one of the Atlantic World's most prominent ports. * African History, Volume 49 *The essays in this volume stem from a 2005 conference on Liverpool and slavery held at the Merseyside Maritime Museum. The resulting collection often essays seeks to provide a current understanding of the relationship between Liverpool and slavery in the eighteenth century by building upon, and revising, the 1976 collection of essays, Liverpool, the African Slave Trade, and Abolition, edited by Roger Anstey and Paul Hair. The biggest difference between these two collections of essays can be found in their titles as we see an evolution from the African Slave Trade to transatlantic slavery. It is this Atlanticization of Liverpool's participation in the slave trade that marks the divergence between the two volumes and that brings focus, and some tension, to the present volume. By viewing Liverpool's participation in an Atlantic context, the reader gains a fuller understanding of the larger consequences of this within Liverpool and its hinterland, West Africa and the Americas. In its attempt to explore the role of Liverpool in transatlantic slavery this work succeeds while demonstrating how the rise of Atlantic history as a field of inquiry has changed the questions being asked and the research being conducted on the eighteenth century. Within this volume are essays that build upon the traditional approach to the subject. These essays seek to explain why, after 1740, Liverpool came to dominate the British slave trade, the role that human capital, captains and crews, played in this, and, through several essays, a better understanding of the connections and consequences of Liverpool's participation in the slave trade upon the city and the region. The regional approach of several essays i\1ustrates the factors that contributed to Liverpool's continued growth and the importance of the slave trade in integrating this regional economy. These included the geographic advantages of Liverpool, such as its ability to acquire goods from Ho\1and critical for the slave trade, its relationship with not only the sea but also its hinterland, the availability of experienced captains and crews and a wi\1ingness of Liverpool slave traders to work to open new markets, both in West Africa and, as one essay shows, the Chesapeake, and to adapt to the customs and systems of the West African trading environment. This regional approach is then supplemented by three essays that take the co\1ection in a more Atlantic direction as they provide insight into the role of trust and credit in creating successful coastal transactions in West Africa, the growing stress on African ethnicities within studies of slavery, and the role of minor, rather than major, disembarkation points within Liverpool's se\1ing of slaves in the Americas. The final two essays, while strong in various ways, do not fit in as we\1 with the others. They do, in their examination of the Sierra Leone Company and abolition within Liverpool, mark an end to Liverpool's relationship to transatlantic slavery yet they do not bring any finality to the larger themes and issues developed within the work. The essays in the co\1ection provide a broad overview of the subject with some having a strong maritime focus and others not. What the essays do provide is a thorough introduction to the causes and consequences of Liverpool's participation in Transatlantic slavery. The essays by Kenneth Morgan, Stephen D. Behrendt, Melinda Elder, David Pope and Jane Longmore provide the reader with a clear and insightful understanding of the reasons why Liverpool became involved in the slave trade, the organization of Liverpool's slave trade and the consequences, both positive and negative, upon Liverpool and its environs. The other essays, by Paul E. Lovejoy and David Richardson, Lorena S. Walsh, Trevor Burnard, Suzanne Schwartz and Brian Howman, illustrate the larger Atlantic consequences of Liverpool's participation in transatlantic slavery. Read together, the essays provide the reader with an introduction to the ways in which historians are exploring Liverpool's role in transatlantic slavery. * Internatioanl Journal of Maritime History, Volume XXIII, no. 1 *Table of Contents Foreword DAVID FLEMING Advisory Committee and Curators Foreword to First Edition SIR PETER MOORES Introduction ANTHONY TIBBLES The Rise of the Atlantic Empires DAVID RICHARDSON Human Cargoes: Enslavement and the Middle Passage EDWARD REYNOLDS ‘Guineamen’: Some Technical Aspects of Slave Ships M. K. STAMMERS African Resistance to Enslavement STEPHEN SMALL AND JAMES WALVIN Caribbean Slave Society ALISSANDRA CUMMINS Women in Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade JENNIFER LYLE MORGAN Liverpool and the English Slave Trade DAVID RICHARDSON Oil not Slaves: Liverpool and West Africa after 1807 ANTHONYTIBBLES Black People in Britain JAMES WALVIN British Abolitionism 1787–1838 JAMES WALVIN The Impact of the Slave Trade on the Societies of West and Central Africa PATRICK MANNING An African View of Transatlantic Slavery and the Role of Oral Testimony in Creating a New Legacy MARY E. MODUPE KOLAWOLE Racist Ideologies STEPHEN SMALL On the Meaning and History of Slavery PRESTON KING The General Legacy of the Atlantic Slave Trade STEPHEN SMALL The Challenge of Remembering Slavery LONNIE G. BUNCH Interpreting Transatlantic Slavery: The Role of Museums ANTHONY TIBBLES Catalogue Select Bibliography Photographic Credits Index

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Book SynopsisWarfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800 investigates the impact of warfare on the history of Africa in the period of the slave trade and the founding of empires. It includes the discussion of:: * the relationship between war and the slave trade * the role of Europeans in promoting African wars and supplying African armies * the influence of climatic and ecological factors on warfare patterns and dynamics * the impact of social organization and military technology, including the gunpowder revolution * case studies of warfare in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Benin and West Central AfricaTable of ContentsMaps, Preface, Introduction: African War and World History, 1 Cavalries of the Savannah, 2 War in the Rivers: Senegambia and Sierra Leone, 3 War in the Forest: The Gold Coast, 4 Horses, Boats and Infantry: The Gap of Benin, 5 War on the Savannah: West Central Africa, 6 War, Slavery and Revolt: African Slaves and Soldiers in the Atlantic World, Conclusion, Notes, Index

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Book SynopsisWestern slavery goes back 10,000 years to Mesopotamia, today’s Iraq, where a male slave was worth an orchard of date palms. Female slaves were called on for sexual services, gaining freedom only when their masters died. This book traces slavery from classical times to the present. It shows how the enforced movement of more than 12 million Africans on to the Atlantic slave ships, and the scattering of more 11 million survivors across the colonies of the Americas between the late 16th and early 19th centuries, transformed the face of the Americas. Though they were not its pioneers, it was the British who came to dominate Atlantic slavery, helping to consolidate the country’s status as a world power before it became the first major country to abolish slavery. James Walvin explores the moral and economic issues slavery raises, examines how it worked and describes the lives of individual slaves, their resilience in the face of a brutal institution, and the depths to which white owners and their overseers could on occasion sink in their treatment of them.

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Book SynopsisBreaking the Maafa Chain chronicles two sisters' struggle for true freedom in the mid-nineteenth century, when transporting slaves from Africa to America was an illegal but lucrative businessNineteenth century—Two sisters, Fatmata and Salimatu, are captured and sold separately into slavery. Forced to change their names to Faith and Sarah, they end up in two different countries with opposite slavery laws. Faith ends up in America, where slavery is still legal and slaves don't have any rights. Sarah ends up in a Victorian England and as the goddaughter of Queen Victoria. Can the two sisters reclaim their freedom and identity in a world that is trying to break them down and mold them to its coloniser's will?Based on the true story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Breaking the Maafa Chain will take the readers on a journey of loss, survival, hope, identity and tradition.Trade ReviewPart fact, part fiction, Breaking the Maafa Chain is an important book, beautifully told. Domingo's premise is a bold and uncompromising one - taking what is known, the story of Salimatu, the 'black princess', Sarah Forbes Bonetta, and weaving through it the story of her fictionalised sister, Fatmata, Faith. Domingo makes an eloquent point: that although the sisters suffered different fates, both were unfree: Fatmata enslaved in North America and Salimatu gifted to Queen Victoria, and utterly at her whim.It is a story that has resonance today, where Meghan Markle was expected to shape herself to a white institution, to belong. * Guinevere Glasfurd *Part fact, part fiction, Breaking the Maafa Chain is an important book, beautifully told. Domingo's premise is a bold and uncompromising one - taking what is known, the story of Salimatu, the 'black princess', Sarah Forbes Bonetta, and weaving through it the story of her fictionalised sister, Fatmata, Faith. Domingo makes an eloquent point: that although the sisters suffered different fates, both were unfree: Fatmata enslaved in North America and Salimatu gifted to Queen Victoria, and utterly at her whim.It is a story that has resonance today, where Meghan Markle was expected to shape herself to a white institution, to belong. * Guinevere Glasfurd *The story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, extraordinary even in extraordinary times, known to some in Sierra Leone , though virtually unknown elsewhere. Now Anni Domingo has brought her vividly to life in this richly imagined and compellingly told tale. Breaking the Maafa Chain is a gift to readers everywhere. * Aminatta Forna *Anni Domingo's Breaking the Maafa Chain is so rich in detail and dialogue, it is simply seductive. She captures so well, a little girl, Salimatu, who recalls the security of her family life, who is transported to a bewildering future in England to become Sarah, where she has to stand strong and survive. Not only will this book be read for the sheer enjoyment of a beautifully written novel, but for the learning gained. It is a historical novel that cannot be ignored. * Kadija Sesay, Literary Activist, author of Irki *Anni Domingo brings great sensitivity to her fictionalised account of the remarkable young life of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, the 'African Princess', who became a god-daughter to Queen Victoria. The internal struggles of Salimatu (Sarah) are movingly explored as she struggles to remain true to her identity as an African after being taken from her homeland and brought to England as a gift from "the King of the Blacks to the Queen of the Whites." A comparable story is told of Salimatu's sister Fatmata (Faith) who is transported to the United States before emancipation. Carefully constructed with a keen eye for historical accuracy, Domingo reveals a compassionate and affectionate Queen Victoria who is devoted to her African god-daughter. This is also an epic story of two sisters who are separated towards the end of the transatlantic slave trade, but never forget each other. * Stephen Bourne, author of War to Windrush and Evelyn Dove *

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Book SynopsisFirst published in 1688, Oroonoko, or, The Royal Slave is a short, politically charged novella by the Restoration playwright – and spy – Aphra Behn, and is arguably one of the founding texts of the novel form. Purporting to chart the life of an African prince, Oroonoko, who is tricked into slavery and taken to South America, the narrative follows the Prince through his trials of love, loss and rebellion. Vying for the title of the first English novel – and certainly the first to be read as an indictment of the treatment of Africans – Oroonoko has all the hallmarks of Behn’s stage works, which are widely considered to be amongst the most important of the Restoration period.Trade Review'All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.' (Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own)Table of ContentsTo the Right Honourable the Lord Maitland, Oroonoko, Note on the Text, Notes, Extra Material: A Brief Introduction to Aphra Behn, More Information about Aphra Behn, A Note on Oroonoko

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Book SynopsisIn 1861, Harriet Jacobs became the first formerly enslaved African American woman to publish a book-length account of her life. In crafting her coming-of-age story, she insisted upon biographical accuracy and bold creativity telling the truth while giving herself and others fictionalized names. She also adapted conventions from other popular genres, the sentimental novel and the slave narrative. Then, despite facing obstacles not encountered by Black men and white women, she orchestrated the book's publication and became a traveling bookseller in an effort to inspire passive Americans to support the abolition of slavery.Engaging with the latest research on Jacobs's life and work, this edition helps readers to understand the enormity of Jacobs's achievement in writing, publishing, and distributing her life story. However, it also shows how this monumental accomplishment was only the beginning of her contributions, given her advocacy work over the nearly forty years that she lived after its publication. As a survivor of sexual abuse who became an advocate, Jacobs laid a foundation for activist movements such as #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo. This edition also features six appendices, placing resources at readers' fingertips that further illuminate the issues raised by Jacobs's remarkable life and legacy.Trade Review“Those familiar with Harriet Jacobs’s autobiography will discover new, vital details about her lifelong struggle in defense of Black women and Black people. Those encountering this work for the first time will be profoundly altered by Jacobs’s relentless pursuit of equal rights and justice. This beautifully rendered edition is a must-read for all.” — Kali Gross, Emory University“Koritha Mitchell is a brilliant literary historian and theorist. With breathtaking sensitivity to the forces, conditions, and places in Jacobs’s life, Mitchell breathes new life—and brings deeper understanding and refreshing insight—into this classic narrative. Though it is over a century and a half old, through Mitchell’s keen critical lens, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl remains relevant and impactful. Black women’s lives and letters are in the very best of hands with Professor Koritha Mitchell.” — Imani Perry, Princeton University“Koritha Mitchell’s exemplary edition of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is what happens when a Black feminist-activist sharpens her pencil today. Engaging with an expansive array of archival documents and current scholarship, Mitchell goes beyond excellent historicizing to deftly demonstrate how ‘[US] society doles out life chances according to identity.’ It’s the best edition I’ve seen to date, in large part because of Mitchell’s introduction.” — Joycelyn Moody, University of Texas San AntonioTable of ContentsAppendix A: Historical Contexts 1. 'Handed by The Blacks of New Haven City,' petition, 1788 2. From the Fugitive Slave Act, 1850 3. Notice warning Black people in Boston to be on guard after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, 24 April 1851 4. United States Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney, the Dred Scott decision, 6 March 1857 5. From the First Confiscation Act, 1861 6. From the Second Confiscation Act, 1862 7. The Emancipation Proclamation, 1863 8. From the Freedmen's Bureau Act, 1865 9. The Thirteenth Amendment, 1865 10. From the Fourteenth Amendment, 1868 11. From the Fifteenth Amendment, 1870 12. From United States Supreme Court Justice Billings Brown, Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896 Appendix B: Other Historical Connections 1. Laws of Virginia, Act XII, 1662 2. From Olive Gilbert, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth,1850 3. Documents regarding Nat Turner's Insurrection, 1831 a. 'Anonymus' to Governor John Floyd, 28 August 1831 b. Proclamation by Governor John Floyd, 17 September 1831 4. Advertisement, American Beacon, 30 June 1835 5. South Carolina Negro Seamen Act, 1822 Appendix C: The Composition, Publication, and Reception of Incidents1. Harriet Jacobs's First Forays into Writing for Publication a. From New York Daily Tribune, 21 June 1853 b. New York Tribune, 25 July 1853 2. Correspondence from Harriet Jacobs to Amy Post a. From Harriet Jacobs to Amy Post, after 28 December 1852 b. From Harriet Jacobs to Amy Post, 14 February 1853 c. Harriet Jacobs to Amy Post, 4 April 1853 d. From Harriet Jacobs to Amy Post, c. May 1853 e. From Harriet Jacobs to Amy Post, 9 October 1853 f. From Harriet Jacobs to Amy Post, March 1854 3. Correspondence from Lydia Maria Child to Harriet Jacobs a. Lydia Maria Child to Harriet Jacobs, 13 August 1860 b. Lydia Maria Child to Harriet Jacobs, 27 September 1860 4. Original Title Page 5. Correspondence from John Greenleaf Whittier to Lydia Maria Child, 1 April 1861 6. William C. Nell, 'Linda, the Slave Girl,' Liberator, 24 January 1861 7. From unsigned book review, Weekly Anglo-African, 13 April 1861 8. From unsigned book review, Anti-Slavery Advocate, 1 May 1861 Appendix D: Life after Incidents 1. From Linda [Harriet Jacobs], 'Life Among the Contrabands,' Liberator, 5 September 1862 2. From 'Jacobs (Linda) School, Alexandria, Va,' Freedmen's Record, February 1865 3. 'From Harriet Jacobs,' Freedman, February 1866 4. 'From Louisa Jacobs,' Freedmen's Record, March 1866 5. Linda [Harriet] Jacobs, 'Savannah Freedmen's Orphan Asylum,' Anti-Slavery Reporter, 2 March 1868 6. Letters by an Adult Louisa Jacobs (1880-84) a. 'Ah me!' 25 March 1880 b. 'Rest and quiet is what she needs,' 7 September 1884 c. 'I was sure Mother would not refuse him,' 21 December 1884 7. Remembrances upon Jacobs's Death a. From the Eulogy by Reverend Francis Grimké b. From the Obituary for Harriet Jacobs, Woman's Journal, May 1897 Appendix E: Enduring Legacy 1. From Ellen Driscoll, 'The Loophole of Retreat' 2. From Lydia Diamond, Harriet Jacobs: A Play, 2011 3. Quotations from Lorna Ann Johnson, Freedom Road, 2004 Appendix F: People and Places Relevant to Incidents 1. Who Is Who in Incidents 2. Image of Dr. Norcom 3. Image of Louisa Jacobs 4. Visual Rendering of Floor Plan of Grandmother's House and Hiding Place 5. Visual Rendering of the Edenton Neighborhood in Which Jacobs Was Born and Hid 6. Image of Amy Post 7. Image of Harriet Beecher Stowe 8. Image of Lydia Maria Child

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Book SynopsisThe 1853 memoir and slave narrative by Solomon Northup as told to and written by David Wilson. Northup, a black man who was born free in New York, relates his tale, of being tricked to go to Washington, D.C., where he was kidnapped and sold into slavery in the Deep South. He was in bondage for 12 years in Louisiana before smuggling information to friends and family in New York, who in turn secured his release with the aid of the state. Northup's account provides extensive details on the slave markets in Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, and describes the cotton and sugar cultivation and slave treatment on major plantations in Louisiana. FLAME TREE451: From mystery to crime, supernatural to horror and myth, fantasy and science fiction, Flame Tree 451 offers a healthy diet of werewolves and robots, mad scientists, secret worlds, lost civilizations and escapist fantasies. Discover a storehouse of tales, ancient and modern gathered specifically for the reader of the fantastic. The Foundations titles also explore the roots of modern fiction and brings together neglected works which deserve a wider readership as part of a series of classic, essential books.

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Book SynopsisThe forgotten history of women slaves and their struggle for liberation.Enslaved West Indian women had few opportunities to record their stories for posterity. In this riveting work of historical reclamation, Stella Dadzie recovers the lives of women who played a vital role in developing a culture of slave resistance across the Caribbean.Dadzie follows a savage trail from Elmina Castle in Ghana and the horrors of the Middle Passage, as slaves were transported across the Atlantic, to the sugar plantations of Jamaica and beyond. She reveals women who were central to slave rebellions and liberation. There are African queens, such as Amina, who led a 20,000-strong army. There is Mary Prince, sold at twelve years old, never to see her sisters or mother again. Asante Nanny the Maroon, the legendary obeah sorceress, who guided the rebel forces in the Blue Mountains during the First Maroon War.Whether responding to the horrendous conditions of plantation life, the sadistic vagaries of their captors or the 'peculiar burdens of their sex', their collective sanity relied on a highly subversive adaptation of the values and cultures they smuggled from their lost homes. By sustaining or adapting remembered cultural practices, they ensured that the lives of chattel slaves retained both meaning and purpose. A Kick in the Belly makes clear that subtle acts of insubordination and conscious acts of rebellion came to undermine the very fabric of West Indian slavery.Trade ReviewShocking, enlightening, fascinating, challenging, A Kick in the Belly reframes the overwhelmingly male perspective on the transatlantic slave trade through female experiences and acts of resistance. It is a essential corrective to centuries of sublimation and the presentation of black women who lived through this history as passive victims. I cannot recommend it highly enough. -- Bernardine Evaristo, author of Girl, Woman, OtherIn clear, accessible prose, this book upturns versions of the past that privilege his-story, revealing a more complex and many-layered past, one in which enslaved women were central to the struggle for freedom. -- Suzanne Scafe, co-author of The Heart of the RaceStella Dadzie has given us another chapter in women's history by uncovering resistance that is uniquely rooted in controlling reproduction. This is a meticulously researched narrative that privileges the people who were so brutally treated that it was easy to assume they had no agency. We now know that such an assumption would be mistaken. This is an essential addition to the corpus of historical study into the nature, legacy and impacts of the period of African enslavement. It's finally a work that allows us to better understand and recognise how women disrupted the principal economic principles supporting the enslavement of generations of people. -- Arike Oke, Director of The Black Cultural ArchivesWhat has become distinctive of Dadzie's scholarship is the way she centres black women in their own stories and this continues in A Kick in the Belly...After being fed narratives that 'the material doesn't exist', A Kick in the Belly shows that it is really a matter of knowing where to look and how to listen. -- Sarah Lusack * Black Ballad *Amplifies and honours the innovative ways women fought for freedom and kept their cultures alive despite the brutality they faced...When filmmaker Ava DuVernay says she is her ancestor's wildest dreams, these are the women she's talking about. -- Sharmaine Lovegrove * Red *Highlighting the experiences of enslaved women in the Anglo-Caribbean, Dadzie gives primacy, as she did in her seminal book Heart of the Race (with Beverley Bryan and Suzanne Scafe), to Black women's voices. In doing so, she puts a narrative of empowerment and hope at the centre of the brutal history of slavery. -- Meleisa Ono-George * Times Literary Supplement *

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Book SynopsisOffers the first book-length study of the slave narrative as a material artifact. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Michael Roy reconstructs the publication histories of a number of famous and lesser-known narratives, placing them against the changing backdrop of antebellum print culture.Trade Review“This evocative study throws into stark relief the material conditions of authors who not only produced texts but also shepherded them through print infrastructures and into the hands of readers. Making contributions to African American literary history, book history, and print culture studies, Fugitive Texts encourages continued conversations about the material conditions of this literary history.”—Brigitte Fielder, author of Relative Races: Genealogies of Interracial Kinship in Nineteenth-Century America Praise for the French edition: “Offers a new approach to slave narratives.”—Études littÉraires africaines “The historical sweep MichaËl Roy carries out here allows him to advance strong conclusions.”—Lectures “Rethinking the place of slave narratives in the literary and political fields of the antebellum United States, revisiting presuppositions: these are the points which allow this rigorous, vigorous, and very well-written work to stand out from other analyses of these texts.”—Textes & Contexte “Gives slave narratives a renewed breath of life. . . . Fugitive Texts significantly contributes to studies on slavery, abolition, gender, print culture, the antebellum era, and African American studies. . . . Treating narratives as an artifact to unveil new layers of how the formerly enslaved asserted themselves and made their voices ‘heard’ broadens our understanding of the antebellum period. It allows us to grasp how people came to form meanings for these printed volumes.”—H-Net ReviewsTable of Contents List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Introduction: Runaway Best Sellers? 1 “The General Diffusion of Abolition Light”: The Institutional Origins of the Antebellum Slave Narrative 2 “My Narrative Is Just Published”: Agency, Itinerancy, and the Slave Narrative 3 “Quite a Sensation”: Slave Narratives in the Age of Uncle Tom Notes Index

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Book SynopsisEstablished to calm intracolonial tensions, the Mason-Dixon Line first marked a region of breakneck development and Native American resistance, then the boundary between pro- and antislavery regimes. Edward Gray’s is the first comprehensive history of the line and its dynamic role in the US from the colonial period to the Civil War—and beyond.Trade ReviewA magisterial yet highly nuanced account that ventures back and forth across Mason and Dixon’s fabled demarcation line as audaciously as 18th-century raiding parties once did. -- Harold Holzer * Wall Street Journal *Deeply researched and highly readable. -- Eric Foner * Times Literary Supplement *A rich history of regional distinctions, especially as they shaped the antebellum Republic. * Kirkus Reviews *Erudite, gripping, and highly significant. Gray puts his talents as a historian of the American Revolution and the early republic to excellent use, persuasively arguing that the Mason-Dixon Line is worth seeing as a geopolitical border—a place where the layered sovereignties of colonies, empires, states, Native powers, and the US government often clashed. -- Kathleen DuVal, author of Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American RevolutionA splendid book. The Mason-Dixon Line has always been much more than a boundary, and Gray gives us a richly researched, elegantly written history, exploring all of the twists and turns of a cartographic projection that was never quite as straight or simple as the surveyors hoped it would be. -- Edward L. Widmer, author of Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to WashingtonAn ambitious, engrossing book by one of our most prolific scholars of early America. This inspired history of the Mason-Dixon Line reveals that America’s most notorious borderland was also deeply representative of the broader national experience. Long before the region became synonymous with the frontier between slavery and freedom, its history was forged in imperial intrigue, Native dispossession, and rural resentment against coastal elites. -- Brian DeLay, author of War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.–Mexican WarThis impressive book expertly excavates the meaning of the iconic Mason-Dixon Line, bringing into view its territorial, economic, legal, political, ethnic, religious, and cultural layers. With precision and flair, Gray reveals a profound irony: while ‘the Line’ was meant to quell dissension in the volatile Maryland-Pennsylvania borderlands, it became an enduring metaphor for a divided nation. -- Elizabeth R. Varon, author of Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil WarA fresh and illuminating reframing of Anglo-American and US history through the Civil War. Gray’s great achievement is to center our attention on a neglected region—neglected precisely because the Mason-Dixon Line divides it, distinguishing the two great sections that have dominated our national narrative, North and South. -- Peter S. Onuf, author of Jefferson and the Virginians: Democracy, Constitutions, and Empire

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Book SynopsisExplores the long history of Black people in Britain, with an emphasis on women, queer projects and political activismTrade Review'A forceful revolt against Eurocentric history and imperialist nostalgia, this sweeping collection illuminates the everyday lives and interconnected freedom struggles of generations of Black people in Britain, particularly Black women. An indispensable resource and gift to students, scholars and activists alike.' -- W. Chris Johnson, University of Toronto'An extensive collection grounded in African and Caribbean historical agency over centuries. Contributors offer nuanced and probing narratives investigating the many issues (freedom and bondage, citizenship, migration, local activism, political Blackness, Black Power) animating Black British histories.' -- James Cantres, author of 'Blackening Britain: Caribbean Radicalism from Windrush to Decolonization''Unveils outstanding scholarship capturing the nature and dynamics of Black British History. A diverse and inclusive narrative that is not one-dimensional in understanding Black Diaspora community.' -- Dr Christopher Roy Zembe, History Department, De Montfort University'A kaleidoscopic collection that is both a wonderful showcase of the most exciting work happening in Black British History right now and a rousing call to action. Essential reading!' -- Christienna Fryar, historian of Britain and the Caribbean'An important collection that brings together new and established voices of Black History in Britain, spanning early modern to contemporary history, rural and urban Black lives, radical politics and Black feminist organising.' -- Dr Rochelle Rowe, Lecturer in Black British History, University of Edinburgh'They can destroy our landing cards, but they’ll never erase our history! Packed with lucid, rigorous and ground-breaking new research, this collection will be essential reading for students and the general reader alike.' -- Kevin Searle, editorial board, History Matters'Essential reading for anyone interested in learning about the lives of African and Caribbean people in Britain. A book that reflects a range of voices who are transforming the study of Britain’s Black histories.' -- Kennetta Hammond Perry, author of 'London is the Place For Me: Black Britons, Citizenship and the Politics of Race''This valuable book enriches our understanding of the contribution of African and Caribbean people across British cities and towns from the 17th century to contemporary times, as well as their transnational connections and commitments to the Caribbean and Africa.' -- Dr Ama Biney, lecturer in Black British history, University of LiverpoolTable of ContentsAbout the contributors Introduction by Hakim Adi 1. ‘A Diamond in the Dirt’: The Experiences of Anne Sancho in Eighteenth-Century London - Montaz Marché 2. Out in the English Countryside: Black People in Eighteenth-Century Warwickshire - Annabelle Gilmore 3. Chasing shadows: Conducting a regional Black history of Falmouth and Penryn during the Packet Boat Years of 1688 to 1850 - Kate Bernstock 4. ‘Comrade Algerine Sankoh of West Africa’ – Pan-Africanist and Britain’s first Black revolutionary socialist? - Christian Høgsbjerg 5. Dusé Mohamed Ali, the African Times and Orient Review and the British Government - Rey Bowen 6. Dark Lovers and Desdemonas: Gender, Race and Pan-Africanism in Britain, 1935-1945 - Theo Williams 7. A Luta Continua: The political journey of Manchester’s Black women activists, 1945-1980 - A.S. Francis 8. How West Indian students and migrants cooperated in fighting racialised injustices in Britain 1950s-1970s - Claudia Tomlinson 9. ‘The Black Power Desk’: The Response of the State to the British Black Power Movement - Perry Blankson 10. Black Power in Britain and the Caribbean: establishing connections, 1968-1973 - Elanor Kramer-Taylor 11. ‘The enemy in our midst’: Caribbean women and the protection of community in Leeds - Olivia Wyatt 12. Moving through Britain with Rastafari Women: Resistance & Unity in Babylon - Aleema Gray 13. The Black Parents’ Movement - Hannah Francis 14. Mollie Hunte: Educational Psychologist, Educator and Activist: What archival collections can tell us - Rebecca Adams 15. ‘Black Footprints’ – A trio of experiences - Zainab Abbas, Tony Soares, Ansel Wong

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Book SynopsisWhen Pueblo Indians say, ‘The first white man our people saw was a black man’, they are referring to Esteban, who came to New Mexico in 1539. After centuries of negative portrayals, this book highlights Esteban’s importance in America’s early history.Trade ReviewA well-crafted and thorough synthesis of the existing documentary evidence and the most recent scholarly speculations regarding the life of the black African Moor who played a pivotal role in the earliest Spanish reconnaissance of what is now the southern United States and northwest Mexico."—Richard Flint, author of No Settlement, No Conquest: A History of the Coronado EntradaTable of Contents Preface Acknowledgments Noteworthy Dates Notes for the Modern ReaderChapter One. A Man of Mysteries Chapter Two. The Morocco Connection Chapter Three. Terrorism in the Caribbean Chapter Four. Esteban Arrives at Hispaniola Chapter Five. Early Indian Resistance Chapter Six. A Disastrous Beginning Chapter Seven. Invasion of Florida Chapter Eight. The Quest for Gold Chapter Nine. Arrows Penetrating "Good Armor" Chapter Ten. Fleeing in Rickety Boats Chapter Eleven. Spaniards Forced into Slavery Chapter Twelve. Faith Healing and Proselytizing Chapter Thirteen. Esteban's Rise and Fall Chapter Fourteen. Return to Slavery, but an Indispensable Man Chapter Fifteen. An African in Arizona and New Mexico Chapter Sixteen. A Mysterious Fate Chapter Seventeen. Death? Or Freedom? Chapter Eighteen. The Durability of Myth Chapter Nineteen. Inhumane Bondage and Historical Context Chapter Twenty. What Isn't Known about EstebanAppendix. An American Sculptor's Tribute Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExamines the history of the Fante people of southern Ghana during the transatlantic slave trade, 1700 to 1807. The history of Ghana attracts popular interest out of proportion to its small size and marginal importance to the global economy. Ghana is the land of Kwame Nkrumah and the Pan-Africanist movement of the 1960s; it has been a temporary home to famous African Americans like W. E. B. DuBois and Maya Angelou; and its Asante Kingdom and signature kente cloth—global symbols of African culture and pride—are well known. Ghana also attracts a continuous flow of international tourists because of two historical sites that are among the most notorious monuments of the transatlantic slave trade: Cape Coast and Elmina Castles. These looming structures are a vivid reminder of the horrific trade that gave birth to the black population of the Americas. The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade explores the fascinating history of the transatlantic slave trade on Ghana's coast between 1700 and 1807. Author Rebecca Shumway brings to life the survival experiences of southern Ghanaians as they became both victims of continuous violence and successful brokers of enslaved human beings. The era of the slave trade gave birth to a new culture in this part of West Africa, just as it was giving birth to new cultures across the Americas. The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade pushes Asante scholarship to the forefront of African diaspora and Atlantic World studies by showing the integral role of Fante middlemen and transatlantic trade in the development of the Asante economy prior to 1807. Rebecca Shumway is assistant professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh.Trade ReviewShumway's work is important in that it expands our understanding of Fante's evolution over the eighteenth century and thereby develops a more thorough understanding of the causes and consequences of the rise of Atlantic trade along the Gold Coast. * H-NET *Offers an important new analysis of the interaction of Fante and European societies in the long eighteenth century. Such work has been long overdue...This is a significant contribution to the literature which all serious scholars of the subject will want to engage with. * ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW *This is a rich study, carefully conceived and argued. * H-AFRICA *[A] significant contribution...Shumway argues her case with an abundance of carefully marshalled evidence. * LUCAS BULLETIN *A valuable contribution to the history of modern-day Ghana. * ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW *Rebecca Shumway's The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade is an elegantly written masterpiece of a crucial period in West African history when a coastal belt of European slave forts and African chiefdoms consolidated new forms of 'fetishism' and political economy. * ANTHROPOLOGY OF THIS CENTURY *This is a rich study, carefully conceived and argued. * H-AFRICA *[A] significant contribution. . . . Shumway argues her case with an abundance of carefully marshaled evidence. * LUCAS BULLETIN *A valuable contribution to the history of modern-day Ghana. * ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW *Rebecca Shumway's The Fante and the Transatlantic Slave Trade is an elegantly written masterpiece of a crucial period in West African history when a coastal belt of European slave forts and African chiefdoms consolidated new forms of 'fetishism' and political economy. * ANTHROPOLOGY OF THIS CENTURY *Table of ContentsIntroduction Selling Gold and Sellng Captives Fanteland in the Atlantic World A New Form of Government Making Fante Culture Conclusion

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Book SynopsisA survey and interpretive study of one of the defining issues in America's past Americans have vigorously debated and interpreted the role of slavery in American life for as long as enslaved people and their descendants have lived in North America. Contemporaries and later writers and scholars up to the present day have explored the meaning of slavery as a system of labor, an ideological paradox in a "free" political and social order, a violent mode of racial exploitation, and a global system of human commodification and trafficking.To fully understand the various ways in which slavery has been depicted and described is a difficult task. Like any other important historical issue, this requires a thorough grasp of the underlying history, methodological developments over time, and the contemporary politics and culture of historians' own times. And the case of slavery is further complicated, of course, by changes in the legal and political status of African Americans in the 20th and 21st centuries.Slavery: Interpreting American History, like other volumes in the Interpreting American History series, surveys interpretations of important historical eras and events, examining both the intellectual shifts that have taken place and various catalysts that drove those shifts. While the depth of Americans' historiographical engagement with slavery is not surprising given the turbulent history of race in America, the range and sheer volume of writing on the subject, spanning more than two centuries, can be overwhelming. Editors Aaron Astor and Thomas Buchanan, together with a team of expert contributors, highlight here the key debates and conceptual shifts that have defined the field. The volume will be an especially helpful guide for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, professional historians new to the field, and other readers interested in the study of American slavery.Trade Review"Writing interesting and engaging historiographical surveys of a topic such as slavery is difficult. Yet, this volume succeeds. In its prose and content, Slavery: Interpreting American History will appeal to both specialists and nonspecialists alike."—Hilary Green, author of Educational Reconstruction: African American Schools in the Urban South, 1865–1890"Slavery: Interpreting American History is more than a collection of exceptional essays on the historiography of American slavery. The essays connect to and enhance major interpretations in the field. Both seasoned scholars and those new to the topic will find great value in this book."—Justin Behrend, author of Reconstructing Democracy: Grassroots Black Politics in the Deep South after the Civil War

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Book SynopsisA writer in search of his roots discovers stories of African American struggle, sacrifice, and achievement. In The Garretts of Columbia, author David Nicholson tells a multigenerational story of Black hope and resilience. Carefully researched and beautifully written, The Garretts of Columbia engages readers with stories of a family whose members believed in the possibility of America. Nicholson relates the sacrifices, defeats, and affirming victories of a cohort of stalwart men and women who embraced education, fought for their country, and asserted their dignity in the face of a society that denied their humanity and discounted their abilities. The letters of Anna Maria "Mama" Threewitts Garrett, along with other archival sources and family stories passed down through generations, provided the framework that allowed Nicholson to trace his family's deep history, and with it a story about Black life in segregated Columbia, SC, from the years after the Civil War to World War II.

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Book SynopsisGeorge Washington spent most of his time farming, often employing experimental methods. Washington saw slave-powered scientific agriculture as the key to the nation's prosperity. Bruce Ragsdale argues that it was slave labor's inefficiency as much as its inhumanity that finally convinced Washington to emancipate the men and women bonded to him.Trade ReviewDelightfully instructive…In this reliable and thorough rendering of ‘the most celebrated farmer of the age,’ Ragsdale undeniably casts new light on Washington on the question of slavery. By bringing to life Washington’s farming world, he does more than that. Washington at the Plow reminds us of the importance of agriculture and its enlightened improvement to America’s founding. In doing so, it illuminates much for early-American specialists and general readers alike. -- Mark G. Spencer * Washington Post *George Washington is typically known as the first U.S. president and a general. But for most of his life he was a farmer, and the implications of this agrarian background are, Ragsdale argues, far-reaching. Washington’s understanding of nation-building was inextricably linked to the concept of land cultivation, and his attempt to modernize farming techniques led him to reconsider, and ultimately reject, slave labor. * Bloomberg *Ragsdale does a masterful job presenting the quandary that slavery created for the first president…[This book] adeptly uses the lenses of agricultural development and slavery to present a multidimensional representation of America’s first—and arguably most revered—president. Both scholars and lay readers will find Ragsdale’s account a strong contribution to the historiography of Washington as a landowner, a public leader, and a private citizen. -- Camille Davis * H-Net Reviews *Bruce Ragsdale’s excellent work advances the scholarship of Washington and slavery using the rich resources Washington left behind…The flowing prose and readability make this book accessible to scholars and a general audience looking for a unique perspective on George Washington the farmer. -- Lynn Price Robbins * North Carolina Historical Review *Washington played a cautious, often contradictory role with respect to slavery. Why he did so is the subject of [this] timely new book…A portrait of Washington deeply rooted in the culture and politics of his era. -- Nicolaus Mills * Daily Beast *A fascinating and richly informative portrait of George Washington focused on how ‘agricultural improvement and the work of nation building were firmly joined in [his] mind.’…Ragsdale’s lucid explanations of agricultural and financial matters and excellent usage of underexamined primary sources make this a must-read for fans of early American history. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *A landmark work that both deepens and complicates our understanding of George Washington. Ragsdale’s focus on farming—the subject the general and president cared most about—casts new light on nearly every other aspect of his life, not least the vexed issue of slavery. This fascinating book has done more to change my views on Washington than anything I have read in a long time. -- François Furstenberg, author of In the Name of the Father: Washington’s Legacy, Slavery, and the Making of a NationRagsdale depicts a wealthy white man in a slave society aspiring to be an enlightened farmer and a republican icon. Washington at the Plow is detailed, discerning, judicious. -- Richard Brookhiser, author of Founding Father: Rediscovering George WashingtonThis absorbing study of Washington as citizen farmer makes for compelling reading. Ragsdale is an authoritative guide to the famed Virginian’s embrace of agricultural innovations, then being pioneered in Britain, and to his attempts to make the enslaved workforce at Mount Vernon more productive, leading to his subsequent disillusionment with forced labor. He sheds new light on the African American communities on the Washington farms and the former president’s decision to emancipate his slaves after his death. -- Flora Fraser, author of The WashingtonsIn his engagingly written study of Washington as the ‘founding farmer,’ Bruce A. Ragsdale reveals that although the American Revolutionary War and the presidency would take Washington away from Virginia, the cultivation of the plantations at Mount Vernon were never far from his mind. Ragsdale convincingly argues that the ‘story of Washington’s life as a farmer fundamentally reshapes the familiar biography of the general and president.’ -- James MacKay * Agricultural History Review *An excellent book, clearly written and argued. What is most impressive is how far-reaching it is: Ragsdale helps us realize that agriculture tells us so much about Washington’s thought and character, from his plans for the political economy of the new nation to his view of slavery. Washington tried every device he could to make slavery work before eventually deciding the slave system was hopelessly flawed and must be abandoned. Better than anyone, Ragsdale explains Washington’s complicated decision to free his slaves in his will. -- Richard L. Bushman, author of The American Farmer in the Eighteenth Century

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Groundbreaking. . . . Radical and influential, Nascimento’s work is available here for the first time in English."---Karla J. Strand, Ms. Magazine

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