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In Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution, British historian Simon Schama has written a book that serves as a bracing literary Tylenol guaranteed to lower Founding Fathers fever.
The author of Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution and the multi-volume A History of Britain, Schama has a sharp tongue and a discerning nose for hypocrisy. In his new book, he uses these weapons to deliver a body blow to some of our most cherished national illusions -- or delusions -- about the American Revolution and its leaders, who are viewed today as infallible gods, not mere mortals.
Schama achieves this by exploring an often-overlooked population caught in the war between Britain and her rebellious American colonies: slaves.
According to Schama, 20% of the 2.5 million colonists were of African descent. (This figure includes free blacks as well.) The historian explains how -- through political and military machinations -- subservience to the British crown meant liberty for the slaves. And how a victory by the colonists meant continuing bondage.
Others have noted the irony of slave owners braying for freedom from the British. What makes Rough Crossings so powerful and interesting, however, is the way Schama focuses specifically on the slaves and their fate. Motivated by the specter of defeat rather than moral outrage, the British offered freedom to the slaves of rebellious colonists. Tens of thousands of slaves crossed to the British side, Schama writes, serving as soldiers and spies. They chose King George III, not George Washington.
Moreover, in colonies like Virginia, which had large slave populations, the British inadvertently united the colonists by offering freedom and even arms to the slaves if they left their masters. Fears of slave uprisings and a determination to keep their human chattel, not a thirst for liberty, really motivated many Southerners to fight the British, Schama writes.
Rough Crossings details the history of these slaves who cast their lot with the British crown. Some of these black loyalists were abandoned by the British as England's defeat loomed. Others joined white loyalists in Canada. But there were tensions and mistreatment in Nova Scotia, where many of the ex-slaves were settled. Schama evokes the difficult terrain and unforgiving weather.
Concurrently, Schama presents the history of the British anti-slavery movement. Having established slavery in the New World including the Caribbean, Britain began to produce men who had grave doubts about the morality of owning other human beings.
These two worlds -- the black loyalists in inhospitable Nova Scotia and British abolitionists in London -- came together in the idealistic if ill-fated 1791 founding of a settlement in Africa by ex-slaves in what is now Sierra Leone.
The birth pains of this black community are fascinating and little known. Schama captures the remarkable drama of these 18th-century Africans, whose lives included such pain and tragedy.
For those looking for something more acerbic than yet another hagiography about the Founding Fathers, Schama offers an impressive and challenging alternative.
Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution
By Simon Schama
Ecco, 478 pp., $29.95
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