Product Description

In the late 1990s, most Americans, black and white, identify slavery with cotton, the deep South, and the African-American church. But at the beginning of the 19th century, after almost 200 years of African-American life in mainland North America, few slaves grew cotton, lived in the deep South, or embraced Christianity. This text traces the evolution of black society from the first arrivals in the early-17th century through to the Revolution. In telling their story, Ira Berlin, a leading historian of southern and African-American life, reintegrates slaves into the history of the American working class and into the tapestry of the nation. Labouring as field hands on tobacco and rice plantations, as skilled artisans in port cities, or soldiers along the frontier, generation after generation of African-Americans struggled to create a world of their own making. In a panoramic view that stretches from the North to the Chesapeake Bay and Carolina lowcountry, to the Mississippi Valley, this text reveals the diverse forms that slavery and freedom assumed before cotton was king. The reader witnesses the transformation that occurred as the first generations of creole slaves - who worked alongside their owners, free blacks, and indentured whites - gave way to the plantation generations, whose back-breaking labour was the sole engine of their society, and whose physical and linguistic isolation sustained African traditions on American soil.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #536293 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

From the Publisher
Harvard University Press: www.hup.harvard.edu

Table of Contents: MANY THOUSANDS GONE

Prologue: Making Slavery, Making Race

Societies with Slaves: The Charter Generations
Emergence of Atlantic Creoles in the Chesapeake
Expansion of Creole Society in the North Divergent Paths in the Lowcountry
Devolution in the Lower Mississippi Valley

Slave Societies: The Plantation Generations
The Tobacco Revolution in the Chesapeake
The Rice Revolution in the Lowcountry
Growth and the Transformation of Black Life in the North
Stagnation and Transformation in the Lower Mississippi Valley

Slave and Free: The Revolutionary Generations
The Slow Death of Slavery in the North
The Union of African-American Society in the Upper South
Fragmentation in the Lower South
Slavery and Freedom in the Lower Mississippi Valley

Epilogue: Making Race, Making Slavery

Tables

Abbreviations

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Customer Reviews

Perhaps the finest book on American slavery ever written.
The academic world has been waiting for this book for the last eighteen years. Berlin, already one of the dean's of slavery studies in America, has written a masterful study of the entire evolution of American slavery from it's very beginings to it's terrible highpoint, during the Ante-Bellum period in the South. The Genius of Berlin, however, is to understand this development in a way in which both the location of a slave and the time in which he or she lived affected his or her life. People who have studied slavery for too long have described it as a static experience, one that never elvolved, changed, or got better or worse. With his wonderful book, Berlin has ended all this and brought us into a new era of slavery studies. Many Thousands Gone is a fine book to take us into the next century as we continue to try to understand America.

UNDERSTANDING SLAVERY IN THE USA
If you want historical facts and interesting accounts of what really happened to slaves in the USA...this is definitely the book for you! This is a factual account of the rise of the use of slaves in the USA and the eventual freedom of those from slavery. The Codes governing the treatment of slaves is explained in great detail. A good factual book for anyone interested in the history of slavery! An excellent source of information for those studying at degree level.
If you enjoy this book you might also like to read "Black Masters" by Michael Johnson and James Roak.