Kelley Library

African founders, how enslaved people expanded American ideals, David Hackett Fischer

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

contains biographical information

mapsportraitsillustrations

index present

non fiction

African founders

bibliography

David Hackett Fischer

how enslaved people expanded American ideals

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., --Amazon

Northern regions, New England -- Puritan purposes, Akan ethics, American values -- Hudson Valley -- Dutch capitalists, Angolan entrepreneurs, American strivers -- Delaware Valley -- Quaker founders, Guinea achievers, American reformers -- Southern regions, Chesapeake, Virginia and Maryland -- English founders, West African strivers, Afro-American leaders -- Coastal Carolina, Georgia, and Florida -- Barbadian planters, Gullah Geechee cultures, American roots -- Louisiana, Mississippi, and the Gulf Coast -- French, Spanish & Anglo rulers; Bamana, Benin & Congo slaves; American Pluralism in the Mississsippi Valley -- Frontier regions, Western frontiers -- Fulani herders, Carolina cattlemen, Texas mustangers -- Maritime frontiers -- West African boatmen, Atlantic seamen, American maritime traditions -- Southern frontiers -- Angolan soldiers, Afro-Spanish militias, U.S. Seminole-Negro scouts

How enslaved people expanded American ideals