Europeans, Africans, and American Indians practiced slavery long before the first purchase of a captive African by a white land-owner in the American colonies; that, however, is the image of slavery most prevalent in the minds of Americans today. This Very Short Introduction begins with the Portuguese capture of Africans in the 1400s and traces the development of American slavery until its abolition following the Civil War. Historian Heather Andrea Williams draws upon the rich recent scholarship of numerous highly-regarded academics as well as an analysis of primary documents to explore the history of slavery and its effects on the American colonies and later the United States of America. Williams examines legislation that differentiated American Indians and Africans from Europeans as the ideology of white supremacy flourished and became an ingrained feature of the society. These laws reflected the contradiction of America's moral and philosophical ideology that valorized freedom on one hand and justified the enslavement of a population deemed inferior on another. She explores the tense and often violent relationships between the enslaved and the enslavers, and between abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates as those who benefited from the institution fought to maintain and exert their power. Williams is attentive to the daily labors that enslaved people performed, reminding readers that slavery was a system of forced labor with economic benefits that produced wealth for a new nation, all the while leaving an indelible mark on its history.

Parks need to know where incipient populations of highly invasive plants are becoming established, and protect the most critical areas from invasion. This year was the first full field season of testing the early detection protocol. The methods detailed in this report focus on surveying road- and trail-side in priority areas using volunteers, and is based on the SFAN I&M Network's Early Detection Monitoring of Invasive Plant Species in the San Francisco Bay Area Network: A Volunteer-Based Approach

The National Park Service, Natural Resource Program Center publishes a range of reports that address natural resource topics of interest and applicability to a broad audience in the National Park Service and others in natural resource management, including scientists, conservation and environmental constituencies, and the public.

The San Francisco Bay Area Network (SFAN) is one of eight networks in the Pacific West Region of the NPS. SFAN is composed of eight park units and includes Point Reyes National Seashore (PORE), Pinnacles National Monument (PINN), John Muir National Historic Site (JOMU), Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site (EUON), and Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GOGA) including Muir Woods National Monument and Fort Point National Historic Site. The network fosters collaboration and creates efficiencies of scale in designing and implementing a natural resource focused Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) program. The network has identified vital signs, indicators of ecosystem health, which represent a broad suite of ecological phenomena operating across multiple temporal and spatial scales. Our intent has been to monitor a balanced and integrated "package" of vital signs that meets the needs of current park management, but will also be able to accommodate unanticipated environmental conditions in the future. Invasive plants represent a particularly high priority vital sign for SFAN because of the negative effects they have on the park resources, including altering landscapes and fire regimes, reducing native plant and animal habitat, and blocking views and increasing trail maintenance needs. Parks need to know where incipient populations of highly invasive plants are becoming established, and protect the most critical areas from invasion. This year was the second full field season of testing the early detection protocol. The methods detailed in this report focus on surveying road- and trail-side in priority areas using volunteers, and is based on the SFAN I&M Network's Early Detection Monitoring of Invasive Plant Species in the San Francisco Bay Area Network: A Volunteer-Based Approach.

In this previously untold story of African American self-education, Heather Andrea Williams moves across time to examine African Americans' relationship to literacy during slavery, during the Civil War, and in the first decades of freedom. Some slaves devised creative and subversive means to acquire literacy, and when slavery ended, they became the first teachers of other freedpeople. Williams argues that by teaching, building schools, supporting teachers, resisting violence, and claiming education as a civil right, African Americans transformed the face of education in the South to the great benefit of both black and white southerners.