African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals

African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals

by David Hackett Fischer
African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals

African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals

by David Hackett Fischer

Hardcover

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Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

From the esteemed author of Paul Revere's Ride and Champlain's Dream, African Founders is a work of extraordinary scope, a nuanced, layered exploration of history and culture, of the invention of racism, and the impacts of African cultures on the early nation.

In this sweeping, foundational work, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Hackett Fischer draws on extensive research to show how enslaved Africans and their descendants enlarged American ideas of freedom in varying ways in different regions of the early United States.

African Founders explores the little-known history of how enslaved people from different regions of Africa interacted with colonists of European origins to create new regional cultures in the colonial United States. The Africans brought with them linguistic skills, novel techniques of animal husbandry and farming, and generations-old ethical principles, among other attributes. This startling history reveals how much our country was shaped by these African influences in its early years, producing a new, distinctly American culture.

Drawing on decades of research, some of it in western Africa, Fischer recreates the diverse regional life that shaped the early American republic. He shows that there were varieties of slavery in America and varieties of new American culture, from Puritan New England to Dutch New York, Quaker Pennsylvania, cavalier Virginia, coastal Carolina, and Louisiana and Texas.

This landmark work of history will transform our understanding of America’s origins.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781982145095
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 05/31/2022
Pages: 960
Sales rank: 89,549
Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.40(h) x 2.00(d)

About the Author

David Hackett Fischer is a University Professor and Warren Professor of History emeritus at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He is the author of numerous books, including the 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner Washington’s Crossing and Champlain’s Dream. In 2015, he received the Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.

Hometown:

Wayland, Massachusetts

Date of Birth:

December 2, 1935

Place of Birth:

Baltimore, Maryland

Education:

A.B., Princeton University, 1958; Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University, 1962

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part 1 Northern Regions

Chapter 1 New England 31

Puritan Purposes, Akan Ethics, American Values

Chapter 2 Hudson Valley 105

Dutch Capitalists, Angolan Entrepreneurs, American Strivers

Chapter 3 Delaware Valley 202

Quaker Founders, Guinea Achievers, American Reformers

Part 2 Southern Regions

Chapter 4 Chesapeake Virginia and Maryland 283

English Founders, West African Strivers, Afro-American Leaders

Chapter 5 Coastal Carolina, Georgia, and Florida 386

Barbadian Planters, Gullah Geechee Cultures, American Roots

Chapter 6 Louisiana, Mississippi, and the Gulf Coast 465

French, Spanish, and Anglo Rulers; Bamana, Benin, and Congo Slaves; American Pluralism in the Mississippi Valley

Part 3 Frontier Regions

Chapter 7 Western Frontiers 599

Fulani Herders, Carolina Cattlemen, Texas Mustangers

Chapter 8 Maritime Frontiers 627

West African Boatmen, Atlantic Seamen, American Maritime Traditions

Chapter 9 Southern Frontiers 674

Angolan Soldiers, Afro-Spanish Militias, U.S. Seminole Negro Scouts

Summary and Conclusion 717

Notes 751

Acknowledgments 891

Art and Table Credits 895

Index 907

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