Negro Comrades of the Crown: African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation

Gerald Horne

Published by New York University Press 2012

Negro Comrades of the Crown

African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation

Gerald Horne

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814773499.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

While it is well known that more Africans fought on behalf of the British than with the successful patriots of the American Revolution, Gerald Horne reveals in his latest work of historical recovery that after 1776, Africans and African-Americans continued to collaborate with Great Britain against the United States in battles big and small until the Civil War.

Many African Americans viewed Britain, an early advocate of abolitionism and emancipator of its own slaves, as a powerful ally in their resistance to slavery in the Americas. This allegiance was far-reaching, from the Caribbean to outposts in North America to Canada. In turn, the British welcomed and actively recruited both fugitive and free African Americans, arming them and employing them in military engagements throughout the Atlantic World, as the British sought to maintain a foothold in the Americas following the Revolution.

In this path-breaking book, Horne rewrites the history of slave resistance by placing it for the first time in the context of military and diplomatic wrangling between Britain and the United States. Painstakingly researched and full of revelations, Negro Comrades of the Crown is among the first book-length studies to highlight the Atlantic origins of the Civil War, and the active role played by African Americans within these external factors that led to it.

Listen to a one hour special with Dr. Gerald Horne on the "Sojourner Truth" radio show.

Author / Editor information

Horne Gerald :

Gerald Horne is Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, and has published three dozen books including, The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the USA and Race War! White Supremacy and the Japanese Attack on the British Empire.

Reviews

Hornes work provides readers with a new framework to imagine diplomatic relationships between world powers in the nineteenth century, something especially important as historians begin to blend racial, cultural, and social history with diplomatic history in an effort to globalize American history... Hornes meticulously researched monograph will provoke thought and discussion on the relationship between the peculiar institution and diplomacy in this important and growing field of study.

Although not the easiest read, Horne's book is a valuable contribution on a subject of profound interest and significance.

Gerald Hornes Negro Comrades of the Crown is a major addition to this scholarship, principally because of its authors vast erudition. Horne is a remarkable researcher and goes deeper than anyone before into the minutiae of AngloAmerican diplomatic relations on this vexed topic.

Gerald Horne's book is a tribute to the international struggle of Africans for human dignity. It also reveals the unstated fears and unearths the historical justification in the souls of white folksrecognizing the institutional silence that this book aims to pierce.

Ishmael Reed,John D. MacArthur Fellow:
"Now that the old feudal order is experiencing a resurgence with the assistance of wealth, a corporate media and official historians, Gerald Horne, one of our most original historians, reminds us of the alliance of Africans, Europeans and Native Americans that fought against its antecedent anachronism. In this brilliant, stunning book, Horne shows us how the issue of slavery still intrudes upon our national discussions.

J.R. Wendland:
Highly recommended.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction: Negroes—“British in Their Hearts?” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. “Huzzah for Bermuda!” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
2. “Base Fools!” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	29
3. Can U.S. Negroes Commit Treason? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
4. The Enslaved Torments the Slaveholder Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	54
5. “A Powerful Negro Army” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	66
6. The British, Africans, and Indigenes versus the U.S. Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	78
7. Revolutionary Implications Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	90
8. Abolition of Private Property? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
9. Africans Flee from “Republicanism” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	120
10. London Sanctions Murder of U.S. Slaveholders? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
11. Britain to Forge a Haiti in Texas? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	148
12. Declare War on Britain to Avert Civil War in the U.S.? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	164
13. Canada Invades—or Civil War in the U.S.? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
14. A Paradise for U.S. Negroes in the British West Indies? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	345
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	361

Language: English
Publisher: New York University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;

eBook

Published: February 1, 2012
ISBN: 9780814790502