This landmark work, first published in 1974, revealed a crucial hidden chapter in early American history. Half a century later, Black Majority remains more relevant and enlightening than ever. This brilliant book—deeply researched and newly updated—chronicles South Carolina’s crucial formative years. It explains how West African familiarity with rice culture determined the colony’s economy and how a captive labor force, skilled but enslaved, shaped its own distinctive language and culture. Wood underscores the involvement of Blacks in the early frontier, the rise of forced migration from Africa, and the challenges of escaping bondage. And he shows how Black resistance culminated in the Stono Rebellion of 1739—the largest slave revolt in colonial North America. That dramatic uprising proved an early turning point in southern and African American history. This revised and timely 50th-anniversary edition includes a new foreword by award-winning historian Imani Perry, for whom Black Majority was a pivotal inspiration.

Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion

A groundbreaking study of two cultures in early America.

"Easily the most thorough and the most penetrating case study yet written of the Afro-American population during the slave period. . . . Fascinating and instructive."-Jack P. Greene

"Mr. Wood has gone beyond any previous study of the history of slavery in the colonial period. . . . He has given us new perspectives not only on slavery but on human relationships in early America."-Edmund S. Morgan, author of American Slavery / American Freedom

Peter H. Wood is professor of American history at Duke University.

The admired American painter Winslow Homer rose to national attention during the Civil War. But one of his most important early images remained unknown for a century. The renowned artist is best known for depicting ships and sailors, hunters and fishermen, rural vignettes and coastal scenes. Yet he also created some of the first serious black figures in American art. Near Andersonville (1865-66) is the earliest and least known of these impressive images. Peter Wood, a leading expert on Homer's images of blacks, reveals the long-hidden story of this remarkable Civil War painting. His brisk narrative locates the picture in southwest Georgia in August 1864 and provides its military and political context. Wood underscores the agony of the Andersonville prison camp and highlights a huge but little-known cavalry foray ordered by General Sherman as he laid siege to Atlanta. Homer's image takes viewers "behind enemy lines" to consider the utter failure of "Stoneman's Raid" from the perspective of an enslaved black Southerner. By examining the interplay of symbolic elements, Wood reveals a picture pregnant with meaning. He links it to Abraham Lincoln's presidential campaign of 1864 and underscores the enduring importance of Homer's thoughtful black woman. The painter adopted a bottom-up perspective on slavery and emancipation that most scholars needed another century to discover. By integrating art and history, Wood's provocative study gives us a fresh vantage point on Homer's early career, the struggle to end slavery, and the dramatic closing years of the Civil War.

Considered a classic study of southeastern Indians, "Powhatan's Mantle" demonstrates how ethnohistory, demography, archaeology, anthropology, and cartography can be brought together in fresh and meaningful ways to illuminate life in the early South. In a series of provocative original essays, a dozen leading scholars show how diverse Native Americans interacted with newcomers from Europe and Africa during the three hundred years of dramatic change beginning in the early sixteenth century.
For this new and expanded edition, the original contributors have revisited their subjects to offer further insights based on years of additional scholarship. The book includes four new essays, on calumet ceremonialism, social diversity in French Louisiana, the gendered nature of Cherokee agriculture, and the ideology of race among Creek Indians. The result is a volume filled with detailed information and challenging, up-to-date reappraisals reflecting the latest interdisciplinary research, ranging from Indian mounds and map symbolism to diplomatic practices and social structure, written to interest fellow scholars and informed general readers.

A rich and rewarding collection that will repay many reading by students of Afro-American, social, and political history.