Internet Resources
- 7 Black Heroes of the American RevolutionDuring the American Revolution, thousands of Black Americans jumped into the war, on both sides of the conflict.
- African Americans and the War for IndependenceAfrican Americans served with distinction for the American cause from the opening engagements at Lexington and Concord to the climactic siege of Yorktown eight years later.
- Black Soldiers in the Revolutionary WarInformation on black soldiers during the Revolutionary War from the United States Army.
- Give Me Liberty: African Americans in the Revolutionary WarGeorge Washington and his fellow patriots fought the American Revolution for liberty and equality. But these principles did not yet apply to thousands of enslaved people of African descent.
- African Americans in the Revolutionary WarBy 1770 one-fifth of the population of the thirteen colonies was of African ancestry, and almost 95 percent of the African descendants were slaves. Beginning with the Boston Massacre in 1770 and lasting for the duration of the war, African Americans played a major role in the American struggle for independence.
Streaming Media
- For Love of Liberty! For Love of Liberty, the Story of America's Black PatriotsThis program is part one of For Love of Liberty: The Story of America’s Black Patriots (University Edition).
- Will the Negro Fight? For Love of Liberty, the Story of America's Black Patriots (University Edition)This program is part two of For Love of Liberty: The Story of America’s Black Patriots.
- Supplemental Material: For Love of Liberty, the Story of America's Black PatriotsThis program—part six of For Love of Liberty: The Story of America’s Black Patriots (University Edition)—consists of more than two hours of raw footage and photographs that offer additional insights into the experiences of black military personnel during America’s wars.
Perspectives
Strange New Land
Engaging and accessibly written, Strange New Land explores the history of slavery and the struggle for freedom before the United States became a nation. Beginning with the colonization of North America, Peter Wood documents the transformation of slavery from a brutal form of indenturedservitude to a full-blown system of racial domination. Strange New Land focuses on how Africans survived this brutal process--and ultimately shaped the contours of American racial slavery through numerous means, including:Mastering English and making it their ownConverting to Christianity and transforming the religionHolding fast to Islam or combining their spiritual beliefs with the faith of their mastersRecalling skills and beliefs, dances and stories from the Old World, which provided a key element in their triumphant story of survivalListening to talk of liberty and freedom, of the rights of man and embracing it as a fundamental right--even petitioning colonial administrators and insisting on that right.Against the troubling backdrop of American slavery, Strange New Land surveys black social and cultural life, superbly illustrating how such a diverse group of people from the shores of West and Central Africa became a community in North America.
The Slave's Cause
A groundbreaking history of abolition that recovers the largely forgotten role of African Americans in the long march toward emancipation from the American Revolution through the Civil War Received historical wisdom casts abolitionists as bourgeois, mostly white reformers burdened by racial paternalism and economic conservatism. Manisha Sinha overturns this image, broadening her scope beyond the antebellum period usually associated with abolitionism and recasting it as a radical social movement in which men and women, black and white, free and enslaved found common ground in causes ranging from feminism and utopian socialism to anti-imperialism and efforts to defend the rights of labor. Drawing on extensive archival research, including newly discovered letters and pamphlets, Sinha documents the influence of the Haitian Revolution and the centrality of slave resistance in shaping the ideology and tactics of abolition. This book is a comprehensive new history of the abolition movement in a transnational context. It illustrates how the abolitionist vision ultimately linked the slave's cause to the struggle to redefine American democracy and human rights across the globe.]]>
The Politics of War: Race, Class, and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia
War often unites a society behind a common cause, but the notion of diverse populations all rallying together to fight on the same side disguises the complex social forces that come into play in the midst of perceived unity. Michael A. McDonnell uses the Revolution in Virginia to examine the political and social struggles of a revolutionary society at war with itself as much as with Great Britain. McDonnell documents the numerous contests within Virginia over mobilizing for war--struggles between ordinary Virginians and patriot leaders, between the lower and middle classes, and between blacks and whites. From these conflicts emerged a republican polity rife with racial and class tensions. Looking at the Revolution in Virginia from the bottom up, The Politics of War demonstrates how contests over waging war in turn shaped society and the emerging new political settlement. With its insights into the mobilization of popular support, the exposure of social rifts, and the inversion of power relations, McDonnell's analysis is relevant to any society at war.