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The Book of Negroes

African Americans in Exile after the American Revolution

Edited by Graham Russell Gao Hodges and Alan Edward Brown

Pub Date: November 2, 2021

ISBN: 9780823298808

Page Count: 334

Illustrations: 8 b/w illustrations

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Price: $35.00

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Description: Since publication of The Black Loyalist Directory in 1996, the primary component, The Book of Negroes, has become one of the most-cited of American Revolutionary primary sources. This new edition salutes The Book of Negroes by using the original title of this famous accounting of Black freedom. On the surface, The Book of Negroes is a laconic, ledger-style enumeration of 3,000 self-emancipated and free Blacks who departed as part of the British evacuation of Loyalists from New York City in the summer and fall of 1783 for Nova Scotia, England, Germany, and other parts of the world. Created under orders from Sir Guy Carleton (Lord Dorchester), Commander-in-Chief of British forces in North America, to placate an angry George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army (USA), who regarded the Black Loyalists as fugitive slaves, The Book of Negroes is, as Alan Gilbert has observed, a “roll of honor.”
Reviews: This new edition of The Book of Negroes provides historians, genealogists, and history enthusiasts with an invaluable primary resource that demonstrates the extent to which self-emancipated and free African Americans valued freedom and endeavored to keep their families intact at the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War. Significantly, the passenger lists of The Book of Negroes underscores the centrality of Black women who comprised 30 percent of the 3,000 Black Loyalists who departed the United States with the British; an indication that Black women put their lives on the line for freedom and were an essential part of the early abolitionist movement.---Karen Cook Bell, Associate Professor of History, Bowie State University, and author of Running from Bondage: Enslaved Women and Their Remarkable Fight for Freedom in Revolutionary America

Graham Hodges and Alan Brown have rendered a fabulous service to historians, genealogists, artists and others who seek to learn more about a vital but nearly forgotten slice of American and Canadian history. The Book of Negroes: African Americans in Exile after the American Revolution provides a rich, detailed historical record of some 3,000 African-Americans who, as a reward for serving the British on the losing side of the American Revolutionary War, were transported by ship from New York City to Nova Scotia, Canada and other British harbours at the war’s end in 1783. Hodges and Brown bring this history to life, make it appealing and approachable for teachers and students, and help us see the drama inside the musty British naval ledger that provided the very first massive public record of Black people and their migrations in the Americas.---Lawrence Hill, author of the novel The Book of Negroes, 8/6/21

The Book of Negroes is an indispensable text in the history of the American Revolution, one that deserves to be set alongside the Declaration of Independence to consider what patriot ideals of “liberty” meant and for whom. With marvelous clarity and range, Graham Hodges recounts the history of the Black Loyalists and connects it to a host of related subjects, from abolitionism and Black nationalism to Atlantic, imperial and global history. Informative, accessible, and up-to-date, this edition should be of tremendous value to students, teachers, and researchers alike.---Maya Jasanoff, author of Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World
Table of Contents: Acknowledgments | vii

List of Illustrations | ix

Introduction | xi

A Note on the Text | xlviii

Introduction to the 2021 Edition | li

Classroom Use for The Book of Negroes | lix

Suggested Readings | lxiii

Black Loyalist Directory | 1

Book One | 3

Book Two | 143

Book Three | 193

Appendix 1: Tabular Analysis of the Black Loyalist Directory | 215

Appendix 2: The London Black Poor | 225

Selected Bibliography | 263

Index | 271

Illustrations follow page 192
Details: ISBN-13 9780823298808
Published: 2021-11-02

Trim: 6.000in x 9.000in x 0.000in
Contributors: Edited: Alan Edward Brown
Alan Edward Brown is an attorney in Minneapolis and Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy
Edited: Graham Russell Gao Hodges
Graham Gao Hodges is George Dorland Langdon Jr. Professor of History and Africana and Latin American Studies at Colgate University.