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In this cohesive narrative, Edward Countryman explores the American Revolution in the context of the African American experience, asking a question that blacks have raised since the Revolution: What does the revolutionary promise of freedom and democracy mean for African Americans? Countryman, a Bancroft Prize-winning historian, draws on extensive research and primary sources to help him answer this question. He emphasizes the agency of blacks and explores the immense task facing slaves who wanted freedom, as well as looking at the revolutionary nature of abolitionist sentiment. Countryman focuses on how slaves remembered the Revolution and used its rhetoric to help further their cause of freedom. Many contend that it is the American Revolution that defines us as Americans. Edward Countryman gives the reader the chance to explore this notion as it is reflected in the African American experience.
List of contents
Chronology Prologue: "Proud of My Country" Chapter One: "Fire, Fire, Scorch, Scorch": Enslaved Africans in the Colonial World Chapter Two: "The Same Principle Lives in Us": Black Colonial People and the Revolutionary Crisis Chapter Three: "The Fruition of Those Blessings": Black People in the Emerging Republic Chapter Four: "Now Our Mother Country": Black Americans and the Unfinished Revolution Epilogue: "You May Rejoice, I Must Mourn": Slaves, Free Americans, and the Fourth of July Documents
About the author
Edward Countryman is the University Distinguished Professor of American History at Southern Methodist University. He has written numerous books on the social and political consequences of cultural clashes in early America, including A People in Revolution, which won the Bancroft Prize in 1981. He is also the author of The American Revolution, which is assigned in college courses across the country.
