"I am painting a historical landscape, writes Carrie Gibson one that stretches the entire length and breadth of the Americas. The story she applies this panoramic approach to is that of the largest, longest-running and most diverse ongoing insurrection the world has ever known: the fight for freedom by enslaved Africans and their descendants in the Americas, from the 1500s to the 1800s. It is an ambitious project."
"Flitting from Baltimore to Bridgetown to Bahia, her 35 chapters are a catalogue of escapes, armed uprisings and revolution a dense tapestry as rich in stories from Spanish Cuba, Portuguese Brazil, French Martinique or Dutch Curacao as from the more familiar settings of the United States or the Anglophone Caribbean. Not that it ignores well-known events or prominent people. William Wilberforce and the campaign to end the slave trade feature, as does Abraham Lincoln and the American civil war."
A panoramic history traces sustained resistance to bondage across the Americas between the 1500s and 1800s. The account spans Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch and Anglophone colonies, cataloguing escapes, armed uprisings, revolts and maroon societies established in hills and forests. Enslaved people used martial skills carried from Africa and forged leaders from within bondage, including Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, alongside lesser-known figures such as King Claes and Breffu. Familiar abolition-era events and figures appear within a broader Atlantic context. The focus remains on how enslaved people envisioned and fought for freedom.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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