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This study adds to the small but growing literature on Black health history--the rise of hospital care and hospital services provided to Blacks from the antebellum era to the integration era, a period of some 150 years. The work examines the political, policy, legal, and philanthropic forces that helped to define the rise, development, and decline of Black hospitals in the United States. Particular discussion is given to the federal Hill-Burton Act of 1946 and the extent to which the legislation impacted Black hospital development. The roles of the Freedman's Bureau, National Medical Association, National Hospital Association, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in the development of Black hospitals is highlighted. ... Read more

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Wilma Dunaway breaks new ground by focusing on slave experiences on small plantations in the Upper South. She argues that the region was not buffered from the political, economic, and social impacts of enslavement simply because it was characterized by low black population density and small slaveholdings.Dunaway pinpoints several indicators that distinguished Mountain South enslavement from the Lower South, by drawing on a massive statistical data base derived from antebellum census manuscripts and county tax records of 215 counties in nine states, slaveholder manuscripts, and regional slave narratives. ... Read more

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A necessary book to understand Slavery, the Appalachians and American history
Dunaway's combined works are essential to understand both African American, slavery, and "Appalachian" mystifications.An aura of exceptionalism from slavery, racism, and oppression of African Americans has developed for the Mountain South.Dunaway's meticulous research and her penetrating understanding of the place of Appalachian development in world as well as American economic development pinpoints the domination of slavery over the whole region, politically, socially, and culturally. She explains that the disparities between slaveholders and non-slaveholders led slave holders in many mountain areas to have even more political and social influence in the mountains than in the cotton, rice, and sugar South.

Dunaway demolishes the myth that small scale slavery with slaves working alongside masters was better than plantation slavery and exposes the savage nature of the industrial slavery in mines, saltworks, canals, railroads, and foundries that many African Americans in the mountains suffered under.Appalachian slaves suffered worse conditions and certainly worse health and as much, if not more violence, than slaves elsewhere.Moreover, she explains how most free Blacks in mountain areas suffered under conditions little better than slavery and were constantly threatened with being thrown into effective slavery by being indentured to white masters by the courts.

At the same time Dunaway focuses on the resistence to slavery by African Americans, particularly in their development and continuation of a culture of resistance and their selection among African and American culture and their own inventions to defend themselves.

While Dunaway goes more extensively into family relations in other books, in this book she does not neglect the impact of slavery on the family and the special situations of women and children under the lash of Mountain masters.

One subject that this work explains that I have seen few others develop is the degree to which Native Americans were enslaved, especially in the colonial period and the large component of Native Americans in African American ancestry as well as the degree to which Native Americans were sold into slavery in the West Indies.

It is not just what we she covers, but the disciplined, well sourced, clearly reasoned, and thorough analysis that makes this book a necessary edition to anyone who is concerned with this aspect of history. ... Read more

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Drawing on a wide range of materials in four languages as well as on a lifetime of study of slave groups in the New World, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall explores the persistence of African ethnic identities among the enslaved over four hundred years of the Atlantic slave trade. Hall traces the linguistic, economic, and cultural ties shared by large numbers of enslaved Africans, showing that despite the fragmentation of the diaspora, many ethnic groups retained enough cohesion to communicate and to transmit elements of their shared culture. ... Read more

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Revealing Book!
This is an informative Book. I recommend it to anyone seeking to know the past in this area.

An introduction to an essential field
This book is an introduction to the expanding analysis of slave trade, slavery, and other records that give us a concrete look at what parts of Africa and which societies and cultures, the millions of slaves who were brought to the New World came from and where they went.Contrary to the earlier model that slaves were a culturally atomised group, the research by Hall and other contemporary scholars has disclosed that slaves from particular areas in Africa often went to particular places in the Americas. This was a product of trading routes, geography, political divisions, and slave marketers views that Africans from particular areas had particular skills or behavior patterns that made them attractive to particular purchasers.

Rather than an atomization of different African cultures, the Americas were populated by accumulations of Africans from particular regions who continued and adapted the culture they possessed in Africa and created new African American cultures.

Hall's book is decisive for anyone involved in the serious study of slavery either in the Americas and Africa, not only due to her content,but due to the way that she outlines the source material of records of the different slaving countries as well as the new databases of slavery records being developed on an international level.

Her book attempts to show the broad outlines and covers all of Africa and all of the Americas.As such she cannot go into a richer detail.Her work on Lousiana does this.For a more detailed look at these questions as they purtain to Africans in the current United States, Michael Gomez's _Exchanging our Country Marks_ is a necessary companion to this book.Both titles are required reading for anyone who wants to really know about African American history and identity, as well as the impact of slavery on Africa.

An important work
Anyone who has travelled extenisvely in Africa is aware of the diversity of ethnic and tribal groups.Anyone who has then travelled or perhaps recalled their previous experience in the Americas is shocked to realize then that the African diaspora in the Americans must reflect this, or at least used to reflect this diversity in some way.

This book does an amazing job in contributing to our understanding of the nature of the African diaspora in AMerica, from tribal to language to ethnic groups in the new world.We see now that slaves originated from certain ports and thus from certain groups in western Africa and eastern Africa.The Bantus from eastern Africa and Islamis ensalved peoples of western Africa.Usually the Africans who were enslaved in the interior by Arab slave raiders came from certain tribes, usually those tribes who had dared to resist or not convert to Islam, sometimes local tribal groups were employed to war against neighboring groups.In this certain tribes simply became factories for creating surplus people to be enslaved.A fasctinating story.

Seth J. Frantzman




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Warning:this book can make women sterile just from reading it
this book is amazing and saturated with great pith and insight,also the author's my brother. ... Read more

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Myths of American Slavery is not a defense of slavery but instead a sincere attempt to defeat the spread of misinterpretations and misrepresentations that continue to bedevil race relations and contaminate Americais political landscape. ... Read more

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Weak revisionist BS
Spin it as you may, and while the South was making a case that was not all together invalid - it's right to self govern, the truth of the matter and the bottom line is that the South was fighting to preserve the cruel, immoral institute of Slavery. That was the source of the conflict. Period.

Very Informative
I love this book. For so many years I've always heard and read that my ancestors should have to bear the stain of slavery and I'd always suspected that there was another side to the story.Finally somebody sets the record straight.
Mr. Kennedy writes a well researched book that tells both sides of the story.While not absolving the southern states of any blame he merely points out the part of slavery that you don't read about in your modern 8th grade history books.He also correctly shows that there was much more to the War Between The States than the good guys and the bad guys fighting over freeing slaves.Now I can argue with my Yankee relatives with much more confidence !!!!
Regards, David C. Eason
Lafayette, Louisiana

True History
For anyone that thinks that War between 1861-1865 was about slavery and thinks that lincoln was a man of high morale, ethics, and equality,this is a real eye-opener. It reveals well documented facts that disprove the myths, half-truths, and out right lies that we have ALL been taught through the public school systems, Hollywood, and the media. It should be read by people from all states....South, North, East, and West.Both liberals and conservatives should take this book in. Im sure those that that want to discredit this book are the people that do Not want to admit the truth. As others stated, this book in NO WAY defends slavery. It opens the Truth of what the Feds have hid behind for a 140 years. In this day and age, even through the brainwashing it is ludicrous that people are blind enough to think that War was over slavery.....ESPECIALLY when one starts studying the facts. People 'ignorant' to True history still do not want to believe the facts even when their 'facts' do not add up. This book is Not writtin as an uneducated opinion writing. It is a Very well researched and Highly documented work of true history. It should be used to educate people......regardless of where they live, race, or political views. It is a shame this book is Not used in schools....and until State sovereignty is returned, it probably never will. 5 STARS ALL THE WAY.A Must Read For ALL!!

Blame it all on whitey
People are either so brainwashed or so selfish that they dump the responsibility for their failures on white southerners.I thought it was fascinating when I discovered that the slave traders were juwish and that the men who sold the slaves were black.White liberation is a good thing.

Intesting
For anyone who has read anything about the war, they will tell you that slavery was not the main reason for the start of the war. Freeing the slaves did not become a major issue until Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and that was only in the rebellious states, not the border states. It was politics. Was slavery wrong. Of coarse it was. But it was how America had evolved since the signing of the Constitution. The first official documents protecting slavery was written in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. I believe that's in the North. But it was a dieing institution, even in the south. The North did not believe the southern states had the right to voluntarily leave the union, even though the states voluntarily joined the union.And the South wanted to leave over several issues. And to this day, the right for a state to succeed from the union has never been challenged in court. That was the very reason Jeff Davis was simply released from prison and never tried. The Federal government was afraid to bring the issue before a court. Don't be afraid to educate yourself, read a book. But have enough common sense to read more than one on the subject. ... Read more

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"If it is possible to understand the American paradox, the marriage of slavery and freedom, Virginia is surely the place to begin," writes Edmund S. Morgan in American Slavery, American Freedom, a study of the tragic contradiction at the core of America. Morgan finds the key to this central paradox in the people and politics of the state that was both the birthplace of the revolution and the largest slaveholding state in the country. With a new introduction. Winner of the Francis Parkman Prize and the Albert J. Beveridge Award. ... Read more

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Worth the reward.
How did the Southern conception of an American form?How is that conception intertwined with slavery?

That is what Edward Morgan attempts (and succeeds) at doing in American Slavery, American Freedom.He asks a lot of the reader, though.You will need to be patient.You will need to wade through a lot of early Virginia history that seems tangential.Don't worry.It's not.The closing chapters move very fast, but really do pull everything together.

One of the best history books out there.

Freedom in Virginia Only Developed With Slavery
Edmund Morgan departs from his usual topic of colonial New England for this painstaking, yet incisive examination of colonial Virginia. Morgan finds Virginia to be a most inhospitable place after the arrival of Europeans. It became inhospitable for the Indians because of the Europeans attitudes and actions towards them (that is, after the Indians kept them alive for the first number of years). Morgan's focus, however, is on the Europeans (almost entirely English) and their relations amongst one another and vis a vis the Crown in England.

For many years, the English struggled to survive. They either could not or would not perform the tasks necessary to feed themselves. Once tobacco emerged as a cash crop it became almost impossible to get any English Virginian to grow mere corn. The death toll of diseases and, yes, starvation, were fearsome. Despite regular and sizable infusions of new immigrants, the population of Virginia grew at a snail's pace.

Early Virginia verged on the lawless. The English elites sent to govern the colony instead took the lead in exploiting the labor of servants and small landholders. After tobacco prices dropped, the only people making money in Virginia were the members of the Royal Council who flagrantly used their places to assign government revenues to themselves.

Small landholders had very little ability to resist the council members. Large landholders had collected many of their acres without actually farming it (in violation of the law). This artificial scarcity of good land pushed the small landholders farther away from the main settlements, which exposed them top greater risk of Indian attacks. Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 was more the result of small landholders' desire to exterminate the local Indians than an attack on Governor Berkeley's administration.

The Crown began to pay a bit more attention to the plight of the small landholders, but progress in that direction remained slow - until the advent of slavery. As Morgan tells it, slavery was slow to catch on in Virginia mainly because of the frightful death rate of new servants. Slaves were simply too costly to risk. Once the survival rate improved, it made economic sense to invest in slaves (obviously the slaves took a different view of the matter, but were powerless to act on those views). Slaves brought greater prosperity to white Virginians. Small landholders were able to obtain a greater voice in the government (usually as voters and supporters not as actual candidates for office). The large landholders did not resist this power-sharing because they viewed their interests as much aligned with the small landholders. They all raised and sold tobacco, they all paid the tobacco-related fees and taxes imposed by the royal government, and they all owned slaves to grow the tobacco.

Thus, when they promoted liberty and freedom, the Virginians had little to fear that "the mob" would get carried away with leveling tendencies because there was no mob available; there was no pool of unattached roaming poor or of poor laborers. Morgan is not arguing that "a belief in republican equality had to rest on slavery, but only that in Virginia (and probably other southern colonies) it did. The most ardent republicans were Virginians, and their ardor was not unrelated to their power over the men and women they held in bondage." Virginians could espouse republican equality because they had removed the poor from the equation.

Morgan's book was intended for an academic audience. He presents evidence of life in early Virginia at a level of detail beyond the interest of most readers (the word excruciating come to mind). And he takes a good long time getting to his thesis just mentioned. A further caveat, the book is also not much about slavery, which does not enter into the book until the 80 pages or so. Nonetheless, despite these shortcomings for the typical reader, I highly recommend Morgan's book for anyone with an interest in history or the development of American political philosophy.

***

Morgan won the Francis Parkman Prize and the Albert J. Beveridge Award (both in 1976) for his academic history of colonial Virginia, American Slavery, American Freedom. The Francis Parkman Prize is awarded annually for the best nonfiction book on an American theme and is named for Francis Parkman (best known for his account of his 1846 tour along The Oregon Trail). The Beveridge Award is given annually for the best book in English on the history of the United States, Latin America, or Canada from 1492 to the present and honors U.S. Senator Albert J. Beveridge.

Best U.S. History Book I've Ever Read
Among the overexposed idealouges, you have Schweikart, on on the other hand you have Zinn. Sadly, an author like Morgan, who seems to have no agenda other than the truth, gets a little overlooked.

This book reads like a densely written novel.I couldn't put it down.

This book functions like thourough preamble to the U.S. Civil War- it gave me a level of understanding that continues to surprise me.

If you read only one book on American History, let this be the one.

Very Good, but with Some Curious Touches
Overall, this is a very good book. I particularly enjoyed the author's deft use of irony and wry humor. It was very informative to read another discussion of the inconsistency between the Virginians' proclamation of liberty and their heavy reliance on slave labor, and on how this reliance developed. Of course, the basic point is not an original one; even in his "Outline of History", H. G. Wells, in considering the questions of freedom and slavery, comments on the "splendid comedy" of the American story.

I agree with a previous reviewer that the title may mislead a prospective reader. The book does not give a comprehensive discussion of American slavery. Rather, while the author certainly disapproves of slavery, his main interest seems to be in how it tended to release the humbler class of whites from many pressures and in how it may have provided Virginia thinkers with perspectives that increased their appreciation for liberty. Also misleading, in the paperback edition, is the use on the cover of a painting of an early trial of Whitney's cotton gin, introduced in the 1790's, well after the period covered by the author, when tobacco and corn were still the principal crops.

The author does not say so explicitly, but there is the suggestion that a republican form of government ought to be antithetical to slavery. Surely Virginia and the other American colonies are not the only contrary examples. I believe I have read that in the glory days of Athens, with its democratic impulses, perhaps half of the population was slave.

Again, this is a very informative and interesting book, but more specialized than the title indicates.

Excellent
This very well written and researched book is an effort to answer a single interesting question; why were so many of the great Founders slaveholding Virginians?To address this apparent paradox, Morgan investigates the history of colonial Virginia from its founding to the mid-18th century, reconstructing the evolution of the planter caste and their attitudes.Morgan shows that despite the intentions of the founders of the Virginia colony, its economic life rapidly became centered on production of tobacco, a crop requiring intense labor and considerable land.The demands of this form of commercially oriented staple agriculture required forms of coerced labor, initially indentured servants from Britain.Morgan shows very well how these needs interacted with English attitudes towards the poor and the desire of many in the mother country to export the apparently able-bodied poor.The result, by the mid-17th century, was rather brutal and strongly oligarchic society dominated by a planter class with a get rich quick mentality.Morgan's description of the high mortality and general brutality of life in the Virginia colony in the first half of the 17th century is unsparing and vivid.Part of the brutality of the colony was the often vicious treatment of the native peoples, whose existence was a continuous source of anxiety for the European settlers.Conflicts between Europeans and Native Americans greatly exacerbated racist attitudes. From early in the colony's history, Morgan identifies another persistent theme, that of conflict with the government in England.Morgan shows well the basic economic and political conflicts between the demands of the Crown and the planter oligarchy.After the Glorious Revolution, the Crown adopted an essentially hands off approach to governing Virginia, allowing the planter oligarchy virtually complete autonomy.
In the 17th century, however, the oligarchic nature of the colony created considerable social and political problems because of planter dominance and exploitation of poorer Europeans.This led intermittantly to considerable social unrest, including Bacon's Rebellion, the largest uprising against colonial/royal authority prior to the Revolution.Morgan argues that the adoption of African chattel slavery was not only economically advantageous as European immigration fell off but also politically advantageous because it led to a declining number of poor whites.Particularly after the Glorious Revolution, the absence of a large number of poor Europeans and the particular form of electoral politics in Virginia allowed the planter class to pursue social leadership in a kind of republican format.This form of leadership and social deference was undoubtedly enhanced by the presence of so many Africa slaves, who provided a stimulus for ethnic solidarity among white Virginians.Morgan argues that these social and political realities were reinforced by the spread of the dissident Whig republican ideologies that were common in the colonies in the 18th century.
This is brilliant piece of historical analysis.Morgan shows that the revolutionary attitudes of the planter class, exemplified by individuals such as Madison, Jefferson, Washington, Henry, et al. were the result of a specific historical process in which chattel slavery played a crucial role.Paradox resolved though the conflict between the ideals of liberty enunciated by the Founders and the reality of African chattel slavery presented a subsuquent paradox whose consequences are still with us. ... Read more

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This work documents the many roles filled by Southern blacks in the last decades of slavery, the Civil War years, and the following period of Reconstruction. African Americans suffered and resisted bondage in virtually every aspect of their lives, but persevered through centuries of brutality to their present place at the center of American life. Utilizing statements made by former slaves and other sources close to them, the author takes a close look at the culture and lifestyle of this proud people in the final decades of slavery, their experiences of being in the military and fighting in the Civil War, and the active role taken by the Southern blacks during Reconstruction. ... Read more

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African American Slave Medicine offers a critical examination of how African American slaves' medical needs were addressed during the years before and surrounding the Civil War. Dr. Herbert C. Covey inventories many of the herbal, plant, and non-plant remedies used by African American folk practitioners during slavery. ... Read more

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African American Slave Medicine
The book is a classic. It tells the history of how African Americans healed themselves while living in a hostile environment (slavery). Some of these concotions are exotic but they worked irocly. I would recommend this book to anyone who is willing to learn more about natural remedies. ... Read more

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African American Childhoods seeks to fill a vacuum in the study of African American children.Rather than a comprehensive historical trestment, it is a collection of esays addressing selected resounding themes in Americain history while asking how major events, including the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Civil War, Great Depression, and modern Civil Rights Movement, impacted or chanegd the lives of African Americn Children.Recovering the voices or experiences of these children, we observe nuances in their lives based on their legal status, class standing, and social development.
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To find more information about Rowman and Littlefield titles, please visit www.rowmanlittlefield.com. ... Read more

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Distinguished scholar Betty Wood clearly explains the evolution of the transatlantic slave trade and compares the regional social and economic forces that affected the growth of slavery in early America. In addition, Wood provides a window into the reality of slavery, presenting a true picture of daily life throughout the colonies. ... Read more

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A mediocre introduction to Slavery in Colonial America
Slavery in Colonial America, 1619-1776 is about slavery.The thesis is "This book, which is intended for those coming to the subject for the first time, will examine the main themes that have emerged from this new research."The author also mentions the themes of the book when she says, "We begin by examining the ways in which racial ideologies, religious beliefs, and economic self-interest interacted in the different physical environments of the North American mainland to produce systems of slavery that were both similar and dissimilar."The author also refers to the impact of the Revolutionary War when she says, "The outcome of that war, and the political settlements of the 1780s, would help to seal the fate of African Americans for decades to come."This book is about how slavery changed the colonies in terms of economic demands influencing racial ideology (vii & xi).

This book is about slavery in colonial America with a focus on the slavery institution itself.England was influenced by Spain and Portugal for economic opportunities in the new world.Slaves were brought into the colonies for cheap labor.Slaves converted to Christianity through time and eventually gave up their ancient ritual beliefs, but their conversion to Christianity did not allow them to obtain their freedom.Wood also goes into the brutal aspects of slavery.Slave owners used branding irons on slaves' chests to identify to whom they belonged to.Slaves were also whipped when they disobeyed their master.If a slave attempted to run away and was caught, the slave owner might attach a chain with an iron ball attached to him or her, which would prevent the slave from running away.Slavery was organized in two different systems in the 1730s and 1740s; the Chesapeake area used the gang system and Carolina used the task system.The book also explains the impact of the rebellions that were always unsuccessful and became less common as years passed through colonial times.A slave might earn his or her freedom if he or she revealed a slave rebellion.Britain tried to use runaway slaves to their advantage during the American Revolution by offering them freedom in exchange for military service.The Revolutionary War ended and answered the question of whether or not slaves would obtain freedom by the slave institution remaining intact, which would later become an argument and finally be resolved in a half a century later with the result of the American Civil War.This book explores the slave institution and the inability of slaves to achieve their freedom.
This book has some credibility.The author uses a lot of primary sources in this book, such as journals and legal documents.The primary sources provide first hand accounts of the colonial era of slavery, which she lists in the Documents section.The author relies on her own interpretation from the primary sources most of the time instead of also using secondary sources to add more expertise.The author does use some secondary sources.This book lacks some credibility because the author does not use a bibliography section for the sources she used.The author also does not use endnotes, which makes information hard to check for accuracy.This book has some credibility because of the primary and secondary sources that are used.

Slavery in Colonial America, 1619-1776 is different from other books in its genre because it deals with several different topics and themes of slavery in each chapter.Slavery in Colonial America, 1619-1776 and The Time of Their Lives by James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz are similar in that they focus on a different topic in each chapter that do not necessarily follow the next chapter.Both books have a different perspective.The Time of Their Lives is from an archaeologist's perspective because it focuses on culture and Slavery in Colonial America, 1619-1776 is from a historian's perspective because it focuses on cause and effect.Wood also organizes her chapters by topics and each chapter is in chronological order instead of culture characteristic.The Deetzs' book mentions indentured servitude, which was similar to slavery because both were a form of bondage.The Time of Their Lives and Slavery in Colonial America, 1619-1776 have a similar explanation for the motive of bondage because they both emphasize it as a way for cheap labor.

This book has effective explanations.The author explains the problems she encounters in finding certain information.The author demonstrates this by saying, "The main problem in attempting to unravel the dynamics of reworking of traditional beliefs and rituals in different regions of mainland America, and forms that they eventually took, is the lack of sources.Autobiographies and other materials written by former slaves only began to appear during the second half of the eighteenth century, which means that for the entire colonial period there are only white accounts of varying degrees of objectivity."This explains the difficulties of attaining accurate primary sources because of the whites' bias towards slaves.The author is also good at explaining the effect that performing a certain action would have on both whites and slaves.She demonstrates the effect of putting rebellious slaves' heads on a pike by saying, "To slaves they provided an unmistakable example of the price they would pay for rebellion.To whites they suggested the ever-present possibility of rebellion and the need for them to be always on their guard."This book is good at explaining the availability of accurate sources and the effects of certain actions (49 & 64).

This book does have some negatives to it, which causes it to be a mediocre book.Some of her word choices are not effective enough.The author often uses the terms "whites and slaves" when she writes about the effect of putting slaves' heads on pikes.This is an ineffective way of presenting information by inferring that all whites would be affected by a slave uprising when she also mentions that effective slave uprisings were the result of slaves uprising with lower class whites.The only whites that would be reminded of the consequences are the slaveholders.The author also tries to cover a lot of information in a short amount of pages.For example, the author mentions Adam Smith's Wealth of Nation briefly without explaining the book's main argument on the economics of slavery.This book lacks important information and the author should have expanded on her ideas more (64).

Betty Wood has the credentials to write this book.She teaches history at the University of Cambridge and she is in the American history department with her area of study in continental slavery.The University of Cambridge is one of the top colleges in the United Kingdom.She has also written other books on slavery.Her notable title is The Origins of American Slavery: Freedom and Bondage in the American Colonies.Her expertise on the subject gives her the credentials to write this book.
Slavery in Colonial America, 1619-1776 is a mediocre book by an author with the proper credentials who provides an introductory to the concept of slavery.Despite the negatives of the book, this book also gives a good general summary of slavery.This book also explores the cause and effect slavery had in the colonies, and how the slavery concept became a racial issue and took years until people started questioning it as an evil.The book is also an easy read because it does not have a lot of pages.Overall this is a mediocre book that students should consider reading to have an introductory of slavery in colonial times because of the lack of information.

Good summary of slavery, but her theories are a little iffy.
The light in which slavery is commonly looked at in the United States is as a precursor to the American Civil War; however, British historian Betty Wood takes a different approach to the institution in the book Slavery in Colonial America, 1619-1776.In this text, Wood takes a look at slavery in the colonies and it's implications on the American Revolution, as opposed to the Civil War.Wood proclaims that Slavery in Colonial America is intended to be a book "for those coming to the subject for the first time"(p. vii); a beginners guide to American slavery.

The first part of the book deals with why Africans were chosen as the preferred race of slaves.Author's purpose in writing this book is to show the reader that the colonists in America decided upon African slaves as the basis for the institution based on race, rather than economy.This theory is a little shaky and outdated. It completely disregards the fact that freed blacks also owned African slaves.It is hard as an outsider to look into American society and see anything other than racial tensions, but in early colonial America race was not the most important factor; Christianity most probably trumped race.

During the second part of the book, Wood focuses on the question: "could the American Patriots who were demanding their own freedom, and resting their case for that freedom on natural rights and equality of all mankind, legitimately hold 20 percent of the colonial population in perpetual, heritable slavery?"Wood goes into detail to explain how the compromise allowing slavery was labored over in colonial America.She briefs over the American Revolution and focuses on the role of the enslaved people in the conflict, both as aid to the colonists and as aid to the British.Wood shows how the American Revolution and the continuance of slavery shaped the future of the nation.

Betty Wood hails from Great Britain and is currently a reader in American history at the University of Cambridge.She has a PhD in history and focuses on slavery, race and gender issues in colonial America.In addition to Slavery in Colonial America, Wood published Slavery in Colonial Georgia, 1730-1775 in 1984, Women's Work, Men's Work: The Informal Slave Economies of Lowcountry Georgia, 1750-1830 in 1995, The Origins of American Slavery: The English Colonies, 1607-1700 in 1997 and Gender, Race and Rank in a Revolutionary Age: The Georgia Lowcountry, 1750-1820 in 2000.She has also co-authored many textbooks dealing with the subject of American slavery and gender.

Although Betty Wood has seemed to make the subject of slavery in colonial American her life's work, there is an alarming lack of primary sources in this book.There is a brief section at the end of the book including over twenty primary source documents; however, most of her citations in the bibliographic essay are secondhand.It is doubtful that Wood has slacked in research, it is a plausible conclusion therefore that Wood has skimmed her other books and research and pulled out only the basics of colonial slavery.She did state that this book was a beginner's look at American slavery.She may have simply just found the briefest and most frugal way to tell the bare essentials and give the reader an accurate picture of American colonial slavery without overburdening them with deciphers of primary sources.

While Wood makes a blatant statement that she believes race, not economy was the primary reason of choosing Africans for American slavery, many other historians would disagree. Robert William Fogel's Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery, as well as his foregoing, notorious duet with Stanley L. Engerman, Time on the Cross, went into profound detail describing the economic benefits of slavery as an institution.While spending a very brief time on race, Without Consent or Contract demonstrates that racial problems evolved from African slavery, not that racial problems caused the enslavement of Africans.In this case, Betty Wood seems to be looking at the effect and trying to turn it into the cause.In a similarity, both Wood and Fogel agree that politics played a huge role in both the continuance and the demise of slavery.Wood spends a particular amount of time instilling in her reader that revolutionary politicians fought hard to keep slavery alive, whereas Fogel demonstrates that had in not be the veracious political fight against slavery, the institution would have continued to prosper.

With the retail price of $19.95, this book as a beginners guide seems to get the job done.One must be warned that Wood's emotional tongue could mislead people into romanticizing slavery, rather then portraying in as it truly was on the day to day level.There was a lack of depiction of slave life and an abundance of ideological theorization.However, through her work Wood is able to give a very basic description of slavery in colonial America as an institution and describe how it led up to and influence the American Revolution.

Teresa Pangle
November 2006
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This study of pre-Civil War American slave autobiography appears here in a new edition. It represents slave narratives as literary in the complete sense of the word, and also calls attention to gender in the narratives. ... Read more

Product Description
America's slave past is being analyzed as never before, yet it remains one of the most contentious issues in U.S. memory. In recent years, the culture wars over the way that slavery is remembered and taught have reached a new crescendo. From the argument about the display of the Confederate flag over the state house in Columbia, South Carolina, to the dispute over Thomas Jefferson's relationship with his slave Sally Hemings and the ongoing debates about reparations, the questions grow ever more urgent and more difficult.

Edited by noted historians James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, this collection explores current controversies and offers a bracing analysis of how people remember their past and how the lessons they draw influence American politics and culture today. Bringing together some of the nation's most respected historians, including Ira Berlin, David W. Blight, and Gary B. Nash, this is a major contribution to the unsettling but crucial debate about the significance of slavery and its meaning for racial reconciliation.

Contributors:
Ira Berlin, University of Marylan
David W. Blight, Yale University
James Oliver Horton, George Washington University
Lois E. Horton, George Mason University
Bruce Levine, University of Illinois
Edward T. Linenthal, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh
Joanne Melish, University of Kentucky
Gary B. Nash, University of California, Los Angeles
Dwight T. Pitcaithley, New Mexico State University
Marie Tyler-McGraw, Washington, D.C.
John Michael Vlach, George Washington University ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great Little Book!
This simi-autobiographical story of Walter Lenoir brings the period before, during, and after the Civil War to life.Told through journal entries laced together by the author using careful research and other primary sources this great little book helps us understand the hard decisions that were made during the Civil War.Why volunteer to fight for the Confederates cause if you profess to be against slavery?Why would one brother choose to fight for the North while another would choose the South?An interesting look into these and many other issues that illustrate the Civil War era.

Relevant History
Excellent read for local historians and civic groups venturing into making local history more inclusive and meaningful.James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton have assembled a collection of essays that are timely in attempting to present public history.The essays reveal the difficulty and controversy surrounding topics involving the Civil War, slavery and race.

A highly recommended pick for history readers everywhere
Slavery was a great blemish on the history of the land of the free. "Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of American Memory" discusses slavery, how the topic is handled by American educators and historians to this day, and how the slavery's legacy should be managed. Many expert historians lend their own opinions to the matter, leading to a highly intriguing and entertaining read for American history enthusiasts. "Slavery and Public History" is a highly recommended pick for history readers everywhere.
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