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Book SynopsisIn Death or Liberty, Douglas R. Egerton offers a sweeping chronicle of African American history stretching from Britain''s 1763 victory in the Seven Years'' War to the election of slaveholder Thomas Jefferson as president in 1800. While American slavery is usually identified with antebellum cotton plantations, Egerton shows that on the eve of the Revolution it encompassed everything from wading in the South Carolina rice fields to carting goods around Manhattan to serving the households of Boston''s elite. More important, he recaptures the drama of slaves, freed blacks, and white reformers fighting to make the young nation fulfill its republican slogans. Although this struggle often unfolded in the corridors of power, Egerton pays special attention to what black Americans did for themselves in these decades, and his narrative brims with compelling portraits of forgotten African American activists and rebels, who battled huge odds and succeeded in finding liberty--if never equality--onl
Trade ReviewThe monumental accomplishments of Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington seem trivial in comparison to what many of their African American contemporaries achieved. Seizing the unprecedented opportunities presented by the Revolutionary War, thousands of enslaved Americans - including slaves owned by Jefferson and Washington - made their own declarations of independence and undertook the arduous and perilous journey from slave to freedom. Now, for the first time, the scores of recent investigations of black participation in the American Revolution have been synthesized into an elegant and seamless narrative. In Death or Liberty - a title taken not from Patrick Henry but from a participant in Gabriel's Rebellion in 1800 -Douglas Egerton shows that African Americans not only extracted the most liberty from the Revolutionary experience but also paid the highest price for it. * Woody Holton, University of Richmond *
Slowly, American understanding of the vital Revolutionary era is becoming more open, subtle, and realistic. Douglas Egerton's suggestive book uses real lives to weave surprising new threads into this familiar old flag. * Peter H. Wood, author of Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America *
In this highly readable account Douglas Egerton weaves together the stories of black and white men and women in a seamless and deeply human telling of the American Revolutionary war. Even scholars familiar with the subject matter will find fresh and original insights on virtually every aspect of American Revolutionary history. * Sylvia R. Frey, author of Water from the Rock: Black Resistance in a Revolutionary Age *
Table of ContentsPrologue: The Trials of William Lee: A Life in the Age of Revolution ; One: Equiano's World: The British Atlantic Empire in 1763 ; Two: Richard's Cup: Slavery and the Coming of the Revolution ; Three: The Transformation of Colonel Tye: Black Combatants and the War ; Four: Quok Walker's Suit: Emancipation in the North ; Five: Absalom's "Meritorious Service": Antislavery in the Upper South ; Six: Captain Vesey's Cargo: Continuity in Georgia and the Carolinas ; Seven: Mum Bett Takes a Name: The Emergence of Free Black Communities ; Eight: Harry Washington's Atlantic Crossings: The Migrations of Black Loyalists ; Nine: A Suspicion Only: Racism in the Early Republic ; Ten: Eli Whitney's Cotton Engine: Expansion and Rebellion ; Epilogue: General Gabriel's Flag: Unsuccessful Coda to the Revolution ; Notes
