Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America

by Peter H. Wood

Overview

Engaging and accessibly written, Strange New Land explores the history of slavery and the struggle for freedom before the United States became a nation. Beginning with the colonization of North America, Peter Wood documents the transformation of slavery from a brutal form of indentured servitude to a full-blown system of racial domination. Strange New Land focuses on how Africans survived this brutal process—and ultimately shaped the contours of American racial slavery through numerous means, including:
- Mastering English and making it their own
- Converting to Christianity and transforming the religion
- Holding fast to Islam or combining their spiritual beliefs with the faith of their masters
- Recalling skills and beliefs, dances and stories from the Old World, which provided a key element in their triumphant story of survival
- Listening to talk of liberty and freedom, of the rights of man and embracing it as a fundamental right—even petitioning colonial administrators and insisting on that right.

Against the troubling backdrop of American slavery, Strange New Land surveys black social and cultural life, superbly illustrating how such a diverse group of people from the shores of West and Central Africa became a community in North America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195158236
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/02/2003
Pages:	112
Product dimensions:	5.56(w) x 8.28(h) x 0.41(d)

About the Author

Peter H. Wood is a professor of history at Duke University. Dr. Wood is the author of Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion, which was nominated for the National Book Award. He is the coauthor of Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States and Natives and Newcomers: The Way We Lived in North Carolina Before 1770.

Editorial Reviews

"Wood offers a splendid synthesis of recent research for a lay reader's edification and, despite often horrific events, pleasure; the scholarly foundation upon which the book rests is hidden under its simple, straight-forward and graceful style. This is an amazing 'little' book, a really masterful distillation." —Publishers Weekly

"While his selection of facts and figures is illuminating throughout, what makes the work a particular pleasure are Wood's inspired discussions; he ably links facts and puts them into larger contexts for readers. An obscure chapter in American history, rendered vividly."—Kirkus Reviews

"Charts the arrival of blacks to this country between 1617-1776, exploring the earliest Africans in this country and their attempts to retain and rebuild a new culture in a strange land."—Children's Bookwatch

From the Publisher

Long before there was a United States, Africans were present in what would become American history. In very condensed form, Duke University historian Wood follows Africans, from those who traveled with the early Spanish explorers to those who fought in the early years of the American Revolution. He illuminates how differences among the colonies, between North and South America, and among European powers affected the Africans' experience, including their differing relations with the Native American population and the diversity of the Africans themselves. With deft strokes, Wood provides a political milieu and a broad international context, such as the effects of the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the Paris Treaty of 1762. As succinctly, he provides a vivid sense of African daily life-the acquisition of new languages, hairstyling, food, music, religion-and the effect that had on America. There are no new revelations on the order of Wood's Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion, but Wood here offers a splendid synthesis of recent research for a lay reader's edification and , despite often horrific events, pleasure; the scholarly foundation upon which the book rests is hidden under its simple, straightforward and graceful style. This is an amazing "little" book, a really masterful distillation. (May) Forecast: Wood is coauthor of the textbook Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States, and one could recommend this as a fine book for young adult readers-except that might discourage intelligent and learned adults from picking it up. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly