Blacks on the border : the Black refugees in British North America, 1815-1860 / Harvey Amani Whitfield.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whitfield, Harvey Amani, 1974- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Enslaved persons--United States--History--19th century.

Enslaved persons.

Refugees--Nova Scotia--History--19th century.

Refugees.

Freed persons--Nova Scotia--History--19th century.

Freed persons.

African Americans--Nova Scotia--Social conditions--19th century.

African Americans.

African Americans--Migrations--History--19th century.

African Americans--Nova Scotia--History--19th century.

Nova Scotia--History--1763-1867.

Nova Scotia.

Nova Scotia--Race relations--History--19th century.

United States--History--War of 1812--African Americans.

United States.

United States--History--War of 1812--Refugees.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 179 p. ) maps ;

Place of Publication:

Burlington, Vermont ; Hanover, Germany : University of Vermont Press : University Press of New England, [2006]

Summary:

Following the American Revolution, free black communities and enslaved African Americans increasingly struggled to reconcile their African heritage with their American home. This struggle resulted in tens of thousands of African Americans seeking new homes in areas as diverse as Haiti and Nova Scotia. Black refugees arrived in Nova Scotia after the War of 1812 with little in common but their desire for freedom. By 1860, they had formed families, communities, and traditions. Harvey Amani Whitfield's study reconstructs the lives and history of a sizeable but neglected group of African Americans by placing their history within the framework of free black communities in New England and Nova Scotia during the nineteenth century. It examines which aspects of American and African American culture black expatriates used or discarded in an area that forced them to negotiate the overlapping worlds of Great Britain, the United States, Afro-New England, and the African American Diaspora, while considering how former American slaves understood freedom long before the Civil War.

Contents:

American and Nova Scotian background, 1605/1815. Slavery and freedom in Nova Scotia ; Two distinct cultures of slavery

Opportunities and obstacles in Nova Scotia, 1815/1860. Settlement and struggle ; Working folks ; Community and identity.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [157]-171) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781684581443

1684581443

OCLC:

1332987656

Publisher Number:

9781584656050

9781584656067