Title Many thousands gone : the first two centuries of slavery in North America / Ira Berlin

Published Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998

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Description 1 online resource (x, 497 pages) : illustrations, maps Contents 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 -- Tobacco revolution in the Chesapeake -- Rice revolution in the lowcountry -- Growth and the transformation of black life in the North --Stagnation and transformation in the lower Mississippi Valley -- Slow death of slavery in the North -- Union of African-American society in the upper South -- Fragmentation in the lower South -- Slavery and freedom in the lower Mississippi Valley Summary Today most Americans, black and white, identify slavery with cotton, the deep South, and the African-American church. But at the beginning of the nineteenth century, after almost two hundred years of African-American life in mainland North America, few slaves grew cotton, lived in the deep South, or embraced Christianity. Many Thousands Gone traces the evolution of black society from the first arrivals in the early seventeenth century through 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 our nation. Laboring 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 in circumstances not of their own making. In a panoramic view that stretches from the North to the Chesapeake Bay and Carolina lowcountry to the Mississippi Valley, Many Thousands Gone reveals the diverse forms that slavery and freedom assumed before cotton was king. We witness 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 labor was the sole engine of their society and whose physical and linguistic isolation sustained African traditions on American soil Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 379-485) and index Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL Print version record digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL Frederick Douglass Book Prize, 1999 Subject Slavery -- United States -- History -- 17th century Slavery -- United States -- History -- 18th century African Americans -- Social conditions -- 17th century African Americans -- Social conditions -- 18th century SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Slavery. HISTORY -- United States -- General. African Americans -- Social conditions Slavery Slavernij. Historia da america -- politica e sociedade (escravidao) Negros (em geral) United States Genre/Form History Form Electronic book LC no. 98019336 ISBN 0674810929 9780674810921 9780674020825 0674020820

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