During the American Revolution, over 3,000 persons of African descent were promised freedom by the British if they would desert their American rebel masters and serve the loyalist cause. Those who responded to this promise found refuge in New York. In 1783, after Britain lost the war, they were evacuated to Nova Scotia, where for a decade they were treated as cheap labor by the white loyalists. In 1792, they were finally offered a new home in West Africa; over 1,200 responded, and became the founders of Freetown in Sierra Leone. This history follows ten of these freed slaves from their escape from masters in Virginia and the Carolinas to their sojourn in wartime New York, their evacuation to Nova Scotia, and finally their exodus to Freetown, where they struggled for another decade for not only freedom and dignity, but the right to worship as they choose, make an honest living, and govern themselves.

The heritage of the North American Indian tribes has always been passed down through storytelling as well as rituals of dance and song. Few written histories today can recount the past as well as the tribal elders who once served as the historical, philosophical, and cultural educators of the entire community. Mary Louise Clifford's When the Great Canoes Came recreates this lost practice for young readers as the setting for telling the history of the Virginian Indians following their first contact with European explorers at Jamestown. The storyteller is Cockacoeske, the seventeenth leader of the Pamunkey Indians. A successor of the famed chief Powhatan, she was a strong force in maintaining peace between the natives of North America and the incoming colonists from Europe. Her stories present the history of the region through a fictitious meeting between herself and the younger members of her tribe. Focusing most of its attention on Jamestown, the book is one of the first histories of the settlement from a non-European perspective. It will give children a sense of history that is lacking in most contemporary texts. From the struggles against colonization to the personal triumphs for peace, When the Great Canoes Came is exciting, nail-biting, and enlightening. Suitable as a supplementary text for American history classes or simply for the enjoyment of a good story, Cockacoeske's adventurous tales will capture the imaginations of children.