The essays in this collection offer new evidence and new conclusions on topics in the history of African Americans in Virginia such as the demography of early slave imports, the means used to regulate slave labor, the situation of female hired slaves in the backcountry, African American women in the Civil War era, and the Garveyite grassroots organizations of the 1920s.

The essays in this collection offer new evidence and new conclusions on topics in the history of African Americans in Virginia such as the demography of early slave imports, the means used to regulate slave labor, the situation of female hired slaves in the backcountry, African American women in the Civil War era, and the Garveyite grassroots organizations of the 1920s.

Born in Connecticut, Lemuel Haynes was first an indentured servant, then a soldier in the Continental Army, and, in 1785, an ordained congregational minister. Haynes's writings constitute the fullest record of a black man's religion, social thought, and opposition to slavery in the late-18th and early-19th century. Drawing on both published and rare unpublished sources, John Saillant here offers the first comprehensive study of Haynes and his thought.

Nantucket's People of Color is a fascinating study of Nantucket's African population from historical, cultural, and racial perspectives. While most other Africans were sold into slavery and bondage, the African-Americans and Cape Verdeans on Nantucket worked as free people and established communities and institutions such as schools and churches. This anthology examines the relationships that developed between Africans, Quakers, others of European descent, and Cape Verdeans on Nantucket and the events and controversies that both united and divided the larger community along 'racial' lines. This anthology is the culmination of more than ten years of scholarly research on the culture and history of Nantucket Island by James Bradford Ames Scholars. The James Bradford Ames Fellowship Program was established at the University of Massachusetts Boston to foster research into the history and culture of African-Americans and Cape Verdeans on Nantucket.