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.”
Tabela de Conteúdo
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
Sobre o autor
Alan Edward Brown is an attorney in Minneapolis and Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy