In Hope of Liberty : Culture, Community and Protest among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860
Editorial Reviews
Midwest Book Review
The lives of men and women who fought for liberty during the times of 1700-1860 are charted in a powerful historical account which uses biographical sketches to enhance surveys of anti-slavery movements of the times. The Hortons pay particular attention to smooth interplays between biography and history: the result is an especially involving survey of racist networks and struggles.
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Book Description
Prince Hall, a black veteran of the American Revolution, was insulted and disappointed but probably not surprised when white officials refused his offer of help. He had volunteered a troop of 700 Boston area blacks to help quell a rebellion of western Massachusetts farmers led by Daniel Shays
during the economic turmoil in the uncertain period following independence. Many African Americans had fought for America's liberty and their own in the Revolution, but their place in the new nation was unresolved. As slavery was abolished in the North, free blacks gained greater opportunities, but
still faced a long struggle against limits to their freedom, against discrimination, and against southern slavery. The lives of these men and women are vividly described in In Hope of Liberty, spanning the 200 years and eight generations from the colonial slave trade to the Civil War.
In this marvelously peopled history, James and Lois Horton introduce us to a rich cast of characters. There are familiar historical figures such as Crispus Attucks, a leader of the Boston Massacre and one of the first casualties of the American Revolution; Sojourner Truth, former slave and eloquent
antislavery and women's rights activist whose own family had been broken by slavery when her son became a wedding present for her owner's daughter; and Prince Whipple, George Washington's aide, easily recognizable in the portrait of Washington crossing the Delaware River. And there are the countless
men and women who struggled to lead their daily lives with courage and dignity: Zilpha Elaw, a visionary revivalist who preached before crowds of thousands; David James Peck, the first black to graduate from an American medical school in 1848; Paul Cuffe, a successful seafaring merchant who became
an ardent supporter of the black African colonization movement; and Nancy Prince, at eighteen the effective head of a scattered household of four siblings, each boarded in different homes, who at twenty-five was formally presented to the Russian court.
In a seamless narrative weaving together all these stories and more, the Hortons describe the complex networks, both formal and informal, that made up free black society, from the black churches, which provided a sense of community and served as a training ground for black leaders and political
action, to the countless newspapers which spoke eloquently of their aspirations for blacks and played an active role in the antislavery movement, to the informal networks which allowed far-flung families to maintain contact, and which provided support and aid to needy members of the free black
community and to fugitives from the South. Finally, they describe the vital role of the black family, the cornerstone of this variegated and tightly knit community
In Hope of Liberty brilliantly illuminates the free black communities of the antebellum North as they struggled to reconcile conflicting cultural identities and to work for social change in an atmosphere of racial injustice. As the black community today still struggles with many of the same
problems, this insightful history reminds us how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go.
In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860 ,James Oliver Horton,Lois E. Horton,Oxford University Press, USA,0195124650,Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - General,Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - Histor,History - General History,History: American,Social Science,United States - Antebellum Era,American history: c 1800 to c 1900,Black studies,History / United States / General,History of specific racial & ethnic groups,History, American | African American,Slavery & emancipation,USA,c 1700 to c 1800,c 1800 to c 1900
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