Rebels in Arms
Black Resistance and the Fight for Freedom in the Anglo-Atlantic
Title Details
Pages: 320
Illustrations: 5 b&w images
Trim size: 6.000in x 9.000in
Formats
Paperback
Pub Date: 11/01/2022
ISBN: 9-780-8203-6280-9
List Price: $34.95
Web PDF
Pub Date: 11/01/2022
ISBN: 9-780-8203-6826-9
List Price: $34.95
Web PDF
Pub Date: 11/01/2022
ISBN: 9-780-8203-6278-6
List Price: $34.95
Hardcover
Pub Date: 11/01/2022
ISBN: 9-780-8203-6279-3
List Price: $120.95
Series
Related Subjects
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Black Studies (Global)
HISTORY / United States / Colonial Period (1600-1775)
Rebels in Arms
Black Resistance and the Fight for Freedom in the Anglo-Atlantic
How enslaved people turned armed conflicts into opportunities to promote Black emancipation
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- Description
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Enslaved Black people took up arms and fought in nearly every colonial conflict in early British North America. They sometimes served as loyal soldiers to protect and promote their owners’ interests in the hope that they might be freed or be rewarded for their service. But for many Black combatants, war and armed conflict offered an opportunity to attack the chattel slave system itself and promote Black emancipation and freedom.
In six cases, starting in 1676 with Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion in Virginia and ending in 1865 with the First South Carolina Volunteer Infantry Regiment near Charleston, Rebels in Arms tells the long story of how enslaved soldiers and Maroons learned how to use military service and armed conflict to fight for their own interests. Justin Iverson details a different conflict in each chapter, illuminating the participation of Black soldiers. Using a comparative Atlantic analysis that uncovers new perspectives on major military conflicts in British North American history, he reveals how enslaved people used these conflicts to lay the groundwork for abolition in 1865. Over the nearly two-hundred-year history of these struggles, enslaved resistance in the British Atlantic world became increasingly militarized, and enslaved soldiers, Maroons, and plantation rebels together increasingly relied on military institutions and operations to achieve their goals.
—Joseph P. Reidy, author of Illusions of Emancipation: The Pursuit of Freedom and Equality in the Twilight of Slavery
—Gene Smith, author of The Slaves' Gamble: Choosing Sides in the War of 1812
—Gerald Horne, author of The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America
—Wilford Kale, The Virginia Gazette
—Jeffrey R. Kerr, The Journal of Southern History