Word: schamas
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...book, Schama traces the path of “Black Loyalists,” slaves in Revolutionary America promised their freedom by the British in return for their military service against the incipient Continental Army of incensed patriots...
With Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution (Ecco; 475 pages), the indispensable Simon Schama (Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution) has taken a much trickier path. By choosing to tell the story of the thousands of escaped slaves who fought beside the British in the hope of securing their freedom, he effectively turns the American Revolution upside down. In Schama's book, it's the Crown that holds out the promise of liberty, the patriots who would take it away. As war approached, the British promised emancipation to any runaways who would join forces with...
...blacks," Schama reminds us, "the news that the British Were Coming was a reason for hope, celebration and action." On the eve of independence, as many as 20% of the rebellious colonies' 2.5 million people were African American. That figure rose to 40% in Virginia, the home of Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, who were slave owners all. Then again, so was Lord Dunmore, the last Royal Governor of Virginia and the man who first made the offer of freedom for military service. Schama's book, nuanced, fair-minded and beautifully written, does not pretend that the British...
...Schama's subtle history is a webwork of characters: early American abolitionists like Washington's aide-de-camp John Laurens, determined slaves like the self-named "British Freedom" and scoundrels too numerous to mention. His heroes include antislavery pamphleteer Granville Sharp, who subsidized a pivotal English court case on behalf of an American slave who escaped from his master while visiting England...
...second half of Schama's powerful book follows the former slaves in their wretched exile after the war, when thousands joined an exodus of white loyalists to Nova Scotia. Others shipped out to Africa to establish a struggling township in Sierra Leone. Although the African settlers suffered years of illness and near starvation, they were the first largely self-governing community of African Americans. If it wasn't quite "British freedom," it was still a taste of the liberty the U.S. would not offer blacks for many years to come...