W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history.
Published posthumously in 1968, The Autobiography of W. E. B. Du Bois is his last and most complete autobiography. Covering his life over almost a century of living in America, it's the closest thing we have to a true autobiography of this important scholar and activist. The book, broken up into three parts, delves into the 90-year-old Du Bois's thoughts on everything from his relationship with sex to his storied association with the NAACP to his political persecution during the Cold War years to his many travels abroad. As Du Bois writes, he takes the reader on a journey to "view my life as frankly and fully as I can." With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by Werner Sollors, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history.

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history.
"Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century."
More than one hundred years after its first publication in 1903, The Souls of Black Folk remains possibly the most important book ever penned by a black American. This collection of previously published essays and one short story, on topics varying from history to sociology to music to religion, expounds on the African American condition and life behind the "Veil," the world outside of the white experience in America. This important collection holds a mirror up to the face of black America, revealing its complete form, slavery, Jim Crow, and all. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by Arnold Rampersad, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history.

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history.
First published in 1899 at the dawn of sociology, The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study is a landmark in empirical sociological research. Du Bois was the first sociologist to document the living circumstances of urban Black Americans. The Philadelphia Negro provides a framework for studying black communities, and it has steadily grown in importance since its original publication. Today, it is an indispensable model for sociologists, historians, political scientists, anthropologists, educators, philosophers, and urban studies scholars. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by Lawrence Bobo, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history and sociology.

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history.
Written in very accessible prose, these two booklets, originally published in 1930, allowed W. E. B. Du Bois to reach a wide audience with an interest in Africa. What is so incredible about the two Africa booklets is their lasting relevance and value to the study of Africa today. Coupling Du Bois's breadth of scholarship with his passion for the subjects, the analyses in these booklets are integral to the study of Africa. Many of his arguments foreshadowed the issues and debates regarding Africa in the twentieth century. Expertly synthesized in an introduction by Emmanuel Akyeampong, this edition of the two Africa booklets is essential for anyone interested in African history.

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history.
Black Reconstruction in America tells and interprets the story of the twenty years of Reconstruction from the point of view of newly liberated African Americans. Though lambasted by critics at the time of its publication in 1935, Black Reconstruction has only grown in historical and literary importance. In the 1960s it joined the canon of the most influential revisionist historical works. Its greatest achievement is weaving a credible, lyrical historical narrative of the hostile and politically fraught years of 1860-1880 with a powerful critical analysis of the harmful effects of democracy, including Jim Crow laws and other injustices. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by David Levering Lewis, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history.

In 1841, a 33 year-old black carpenter named Simon Northup was living with his wife and children in upstate New York. A well-known fiddle player, he was asked by two white men to accompany them to Washington DC to perform at a show. He agreed, but no sooner had he arrived than he was drugged, and shipped off to the infamous Williams Slave Pen. Northup's identity papers had disappeared, and - unable to prove his 'free' status - he was shipped to the southern 'slave states' and a life of bondage. Twelve Years A Slave tells the story of Northup's time on the plantations of the Deep South, the horrors and atrocities he suffered and observed, his time of hopelessness and the astonishing tale of his eventual release. An immediate bestseller when it was first published in 1853, the book is now an Oscar-winning film. It remains a timeless reminder of human hypocrisy; of a period when, as Northup himself states, slavery was tolerated in "a nation, whose theory of government... rested on the foundation of man's inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness "

A new edition of the classic African American autobiography, now with with the inclusion of Douglass's other works. The pre-eminent American slave narrative published in 1845, the Narrative powerfully details the life of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass from his birth into slavery in 1818 to his escape to the North in 1838: how he endured the daily physical and spiritual brutalities of his owners and drivers, how he learned to read and write, and how he grew into a man who could only live free or die. Also included in this edition are Douglass's famous oration The Meaning of the Fourth of July to the Negro and his only known work of fiction, the novella The Heroic Slave. Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery in 1818 in Tuckahoe, Maryland. He changed his surname to Douglass to conceal his identity after escaping slavery in 1838 and making his way to Philadelphia and New York. Having been taught to read by the wife of one of his former owners, Douglass wrote later that literacy was his 'pathway from slavery to freedom', and in 1845 he published his instantly bestselling Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Renowned as the foremost African American advocate against slavery and segregation of his time, he repeatedly risked his own freedom as an antislavery lecturer, writer and publisher. He died in Washington, D.C., in 1895, and after lying in state in the nation's capital, was buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York. Ira Dworkin is Associate Director of the Prince Alwaleed Center for American Studies and Research and Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at The American University in Cairo.

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history. Du Bois called his epic Black Flame trilogy a fiction of interpretation. It acts as a representative biography of African American history by following one man, Manuel Mansart, from his birth in 1876 until his death. The Black Flame attempts to use this historical fiction of interpretation to recast and revisit the African American experience. Readers will appreciate The Black Flame trilogy as a clear articulation of Du Bois's perspective at the end of his life. The second book in this profound trilogy, Mansart Builds a School, opens with Mansart's election to superintendent of Negro schools in Atlanta and follows him as he ascends to the position of president of Georgia State A&M College. The book provides a damning portrait of the state of education for African Americans in the south. Building upon the drama and intrigue of The Ordeal of Mansart in Du Bois's signature lyrical style, Mansart Builds a School delves into the realities of the ordinary southern black experience of the early twentieth century. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by Brent Hayes Edwards, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American literature.

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. DuBois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history.
The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870, W. E. B. Du Bois's groundbreaking monograph, recounts the moral failures and missed opportunities of the American Revolution and the consequences of compromising with slavery. As Du Bois's first published work and doctoral dissertation, Suppression lays the groundwork for his early commitment to the study of the African American experience. At the time of its publication in 1896, Du Bois's monograph was at the forefront of developments in historiography, embodying a new, empirical approach to history. Suppression is integral to understanding Du Bois's early theories and his evolution into a leading scholar and activist. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by Saidiya Hartman, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history.

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history.
Intended as an accessible, up-to-date introduction to African American history by its 1915 publisher, The Negro was much more to W. E. B. Du Bois. The chance to write on African American History for a wide audience became his chance to write a manifesto on African history worldwide. Du Bois focuses on the continent of Africa, giving justice to its oft-neglected positive history. Drawing on anthropological and linguistic literature of the time, Du Bois captures a succinct portrait of African and African American history ready for any reader no matter their prior knowledge. His argument enters the narrative fully, revealing his quest for the vindication of black history. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by John K. Thornton, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history.

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history.
Considered a sequel to Du Bois's wildly popular The Souls of Black Folks, Darkwater revisits many of the same themes with a more militant edge, even revising previously published essays and poems to include in this newer volume. Published in 1920, Darkwater focuses on the political climate following World War I. In ten carefully crafted chapters, Du Bois explores the important issues of that period- labor, capital, politics, gender, education, and international relations-in tandem with an overarching theme of race. Blending lyrical autobiography with political thoughts and even poetry, Du Bois makes a powerful, forceful argument regarding race and the color line. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history.

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history.
Published in 1924 in response to growing racial tensions, W. E. B. Du Bois's The Gift of Black Folk explores the contributions African Americans have made to American society, detailing the importance of racial diversity to the United States. Writing for a general audience, Du Bois employs a sweeping scope for his argument, covering the European discovery of America to the twentieth century. In doing so he works to prove that through African Americans' struggle for freedom and equality, they have most fully realized the goal of democracy. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by Glenda Carpio, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history.

America's Book shows how the Bible decisively shaped American national history even as that history influenced the use of Scripture. It explores the rise of a strongly Protestant Bible civilization in the early United States that was then fractured by debates over slavery, contested by growing numbers of non-Protestant Americans (Catholics, Jews, agnostics), and torn apart by the Civil War. This first comprehensive history of the Bible in America explains why Tom Paine's anti-biblical tract The Age of Reason (1794) precipitated such dramatic effects, how innovations in printing by the American Bible Society created the nation's publishing industry, why Nat Turner's slave rebellion of 1831 and the bitter election of 1844 marked turning points in the nation's engagement with Scripture, and why Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were so eager to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. Noll's magisterial work highlights not only the centrality of the Bible for the nation's most influential religious figures (Methodist Francis Asbury, Richard Allen of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Catholic Bishop Francis Kenrick, Jewish scholar Solomon Schechter, agnostic Robert Ingersoll), but also why it was important for presidents like Abraham Lincoln; notable American women like Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frances Willard; dedicated campaigners for civil rights like Frederick Douglass and Francis Grimke; lesser-known figures like Black authors Maria Stewart and Harriet Jacobs; and a host of others of high estate and low. The book also illustrates how the more religiously plural period from Reconstruction to the early twentieth century saw Scripture become a much more fragmented, though still significant, force in American culture, particularly as a source of hope and moral authority for Americans on both sides of the battle over white supremacy-both for those hoping to fight it, and for others seeking to justify it.

Manhood Enslaved reconstructs the lives of three male captives to bring intellectual and historical clarity to our understanding of enslaved peoples in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century central New Jersey. Manhood Enslaved reconstructs the lives of three male captives to bring greater intellectual and historical clarity to the muted lives of enslaved peoples in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century central New Jersey, where blacks were held in bondage for nearly two centuries. The book contributes to an evolving body of historical scholarship arguing that the lives of bondpeople in America were shaped not only by the powerful forces of racial oppression, but also by their own notions of gender. The volume uses previously understudied, white-authored, nineteenth-century literature about central New Jersey slaves as a point of departure. Reading beyond the racist assumptionsof the authors, it contends that the precarious day-to-day existence of the three protagonists -- Yombo Melick, Dick Melick, and Quamino Buccau (Smock) -- provides revealing evidence about the various elements of "slave manhood" that gave real meaning to their oppressed lives. Kenneth E. Marshall is Assistant Professor of History at the State University of New York at Oswego.

Black Milk is the first in-depth analysis of the visual archives that effloresced around slavery in Brazil and North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In its latter stages the book also explores the ways in which the museum cultures of North America and Brazil have constructed slavery over the last hundred years. These institutional legacies emerge as startlingly different from each other at almost every level.
Working through comparative close readings of a myriad art objects - including prints, photographs, oil paintings, watercolours, sculptures, ceramics, and a host of ephemera -- Black Milk celebrates just how radically alternative Brazilian artistic responses to Atlantic slavery were. Despite its longevity and vastness, Brazilian slavery as a cultural phenomenon has remained hugely neglected, in both academic and popular studies, particularly when compared to North American slavery. Consequently much of Black Milk is devoted to uncovering, celebrating, and explaining the hidden treasury of visual material generated by artists working in Brazil when they came to record and imaginatively reconstruct their slave inheritance. There are painters of genius (most significantly Jean Baptiste Debret), printmakers (discussion is focused on Angelo Agostini the "Brazilian Daumier") and some of the greatest photographers of the nineteenth century, led by Augusto Stahl. The radical alterity of the Brazilian materials is revealed by comparing them at every stage with a series of related but fascinatingly and often shockingly dissimilar North American works of art. Black Milk is a mold-breaking study, a bold comparative analysis of the visual arts and archives generated by slavery within the two biggest and most important slave holding nations of the Atlantic Diaspora.

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. Du Bois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history. Arguably a contender for the Great American Novel, The Quest of the Silver Fleece is W. E. B. Du Bois's powerful first novel about Zora, a determined, strong Southern black woman who seeks to transcend race and social class in the late nineteenth century. Following the same path of the Greek myth after which it was named, Du Bois's novel confronts not only economic and political circumstances, but also racial and social issues of the time. Over a century after its original publication, we return to The Quest again and again for its political boldness about sexual, gender, and economic institutions. Zora, a breakthrough in the portrayal of black women, stands as a model of courage in a volatile moment in history. The novel portrays not only a story of economics but also of love, gender, and race. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by William L. Andrews, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history.

The first full-length study of Frederick Douglass' visit to Scotland in 1846 Frederick Douglass (1818-95) was not the only fugitive from American slavery to visit Scotland before the Civil War, but he was the best known and his impact was far-reaching. This book shows that addressing crowded halls from Ayr to Aberdeen, he gained the confidence, mastered the skills and fashioned the distinctive voice that transformed him as a campaigner. It tells how Douglass challenged the Free Church over its ties with the Southern plantocracy; how he exploited his knowledge of Walter Scott and Robert Burns to brilliant effect; and how he asserted control over his own image at a time when racial science and blackface minstrel shows were beginning to shape his audiences' perceptions. He arrived as a subordinate envoy of white abolitionists, legally still enslaved. He returned home as a free man ready to embark on a new stage of his career, as editor and proprietor of his own newspaper and a leader in his own right. Key Features: First full-length study of Frederick Douglass' visit to Scotland in 1846 Reveals fresh information about, and deepens our understanding of, a major 19th-century intellectual at a crucial stage in his political and professional development Subjects Douglass' speeches and letters to close readings and situates them in the immediate context of their delivery and composition Demonstrates the extent to which Douglass was closely acquainted with Scottish literature, history and current affairs Enhances our knowledge of Douglass as a performer, his ability to read audiences, and how he moved and influenced them

W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. DuBois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history. The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870, W. E. B. Du Bois's groundbreaking monograph, recounts the moral failures and missed opportunities of the American Revolution and the consequences of compromising with slavery. As Du Bois's first published work and doctoral dissertation, Suppression lays the groundwork for his early commitment to the study of the African American experience. At the time of its publication in 1896, Du Bois's monograph was at the forefront of developments in historiography, embodying a new, empirical approach to history. Suppression is integral to understanding Du Bois's early theories and his evolution into a leading scholar and activist. With a series introduction by editor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and an introduction by Saidiya Hartman, this edition is essential for anyone interested in African American history.

By virtue of being both black and female in antebellum America, black women abolitionists confronted a particular set of tensions. Whether they supported the movement directly or indirectly, cooperated with whites or primarily with other blacks, worked in groups or independently, were well off financially or struggled to make ends meet, their lives reflected the complex dynamics of race, sex, and class. Against the background of slavery, constructing a life in "freedom" meant adopting many of the values of free white society, symbolized in part by male dominance and female subordination. In championing both their race and their sex, female black abolitionists found themselves caught between the sexism of the antislavery movement and the racism of the (white) women's movement. Through their writing, speeches, petitions, and participation in antislavery and self-help organizations, these women established a pattern of black female activism-centered on community-building, political organizing, and forging a network of friendships with other activists-that served as a model for later generations of black women. Drawing on a wide array of previously untapped primary sources, Shirley Yee examines the activism of black women in the Northeast, the Midwest, and, to some extent, California and Canada. The activists' experiences render heartbreakingly clear the pervasiveness of middle-class white values in antebellum America and the contradictions and ironies inherent in prevailing conceptions of "freedom."

This book profiles the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, during the two-year period leading up to the Declaration of Independence. It focuses on the dramatic hanging and burning of Thomas Jeremiah, a free black harbor pilot and firefighter accused by the patriot party of plotting a slave insurrection during the tumultous spring and summer of 1775. To examine the world of this wealthy, slave-holding African American through his trial and execution, William R. Ryan uses a wide array of letters, naval records, personal and official correspondence, memoirs, and newspapers. He shows that the black majority of the South Carolina Low Country managed to assist the British in their invasion efforts, despite patriot attempts to frighten Afro-Carolinians into passivity and submission. Although Whigs attempted, through brutality and violence, to keep their slaves from participating in the conflict, Afro-Carolinians became actively involved in the struggle between colonists and the Crown as spies, messengers, navigators and marauders. The book demonstrates that an understanding of what was going on in this vital seaport during the mid-1770s has broader implications for the study of the Atlantic world, African American history, naval history, urban race relations, labor history, and the turbulent politics of America's move toward independence.

Yorkshireman Lionel Abson was the longest surviving European stationed in West Africa in the eighteenth century. He reached William's Fort at Ouidah on the Slave Coast as a trader in 1767, took over the English fort in 1770, and remained in charge until his death in 1803. He avoided the 'white man's grave' for thirty-six years. Along the way he had three sons with an African woman, the eldest partly schooled in England, and a bright daughter named Sally. When Abson died, royal lackeys kidnapped his children. Sally was placed in the king's harem and pined away; her brothers vanished. That king became so unpopular as a result that the people of Dahomey disowned him. Abson also mastered the local language and became an historian. After only two years as fort chief, he was part of the king's delegation to make peace with an enemy, a unique event in centuries of Dahomean history. This singular book recounts the remarkable life of this key figure in an ignominious period of European and African history, offering a microcosm of the lives of Europeans in eighteenth-century West Africa, and their relationships with and attitudes towards those they met there.

From the author of the widely acclaimed King Leopold's Ghost comes the taut, gripping account of one of the most brilliantly organized social justice campaigns in history -- the fight to free the slaves of the British Empire. In early 1787, twelve men -- a printer, a lawyer, a clergyman, and others united by their hatred of slavery -- came together in a London printing shop and began the world's first grass-roots movement, battling for the rights of people on another continent. Masterfully stoking public opinion, the movement's leaders pioneered a variety of techniques that have been adopted by citizens' movements ever since, from consumer boycotts to wall posters and lapel buttons to celebrity endorsements. A deft chronicle of this groundbreaking antislavery crusade and its powerful enemies, Bury the Chains gives a little-celebrated human rights watershed its due at last.

The practice of slavery has been common across a variety of cultures around the globe and throughout history. Despite the multiplicity of slavery's manifestations, many scholars have used a simple binary to categorize slave-holding groups as either 'genuine slave societies' or 'societies with slaves'. This dichotomy, as originally proposed by ancient historian Moses Finley, assumes that there were just five 'genuine slave societies' in all of human history: ancient Greece and Rome, and the colonial Caribbean, Brazil, and the American South. This book interrogates this bedrock of comparative slave studies and tests its worth. Assembling contributions from top specialists, it demonstrates that the catalogue of five must be expanded and that the model may need to be replaced with a more flexible system that emphasizes the notion of intensification. The issue is approached as a question, allowing for debate between the seventeen contributors about how best to conceptualize the comparative study of human bondage.

Tracing the lives and experiences of 100,000 Africans who landed in Sierra Leone having been taken off slave vessels by the British Navy following Britain's abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, this study focuses on how people, forcibly removed from their homelands, packed on to slave ships, and settled in Sierra Leone were able to rebuild new lives, communities, and collective identities in an early British colony in West Africa. Their experience illuminates both African and African diaspora history by tracing the evolution of communities forged in the context of forced migration and the missionary encounter in a prototypical post-slavery colonial society. A new approach to the major historical field of British anti-slavery, studied not as a history of legal victories (abolitionism) but of enforcement and lived experience (abolition), Richard Peter Anderson reveals the linkages between emancipation, colonization, and identity formation in the Black Atlantic.

The Routledge History of Slavery is a landmark publication that provides an overview of the main themes surrounding the history of slavery from ancient Greece to the present day. Taking stock of the field of Slave Studies, the book explores the major advances that have taken place in the past few decades of study in this crucial field. Offering an unusual, transnational history of slavery, the chapters have all been specially commissioned for the collection. The volume begins by delineating the global nature of the institution of slavery, examining slavery in different parts of the world and over time. Topics covered here include slavery in Africa and the Indian Ocean World, as well as the Transatlantic Slave Trade. In Part Two, the chapters explore different themes that define slavery such as slave culture, the slave economy, slave resistance and the planter class, as well as areas of life affected by slavery, such as family and work. The final part goes on to study changes and continuities over time, looking at areas such as abolition, the aftermath of emancipation and commemoration. The volume concludes with a chapter on modern slavery. Including essays on all the key topics and issues, this important collection from a leading international group of scholars presents a comprehensive survey of the current state of the field. It will be essential reading for all those interested in the history of slavery.