Customer Reviews

Neither Slave nor Free: The Freedman of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World (The Johns Hopkins Symposia in Comparative History)

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I am currently writing a book, and as a part of that process I wanted to find information about African Americans who either were not affected by slavery (i.e. free) or those who had been free since about the 1700's or the 1800's. I was also looking for something that deals (realistically) with the relationship between Sephardic Jews in the Americas and African Americans. This book helped me on both fronts (even though some of the information I was looking for is only in small amounts in this book).

This is not a novel per say so for me it was not something I read from front to back, but it has served as a good reference book. Because it deals with South America for the most part there is more information on the topic of free African Americans from those sources that had less reason to hide or not discuss the issues of free West Africans in the Americas. Much of the book is based on either statistical data and other accounts, this is due to the fact that there isn't a gerth of information on Free African Americans. This book also discusses why that is the case since the outside definition between free and enslaved West Africans in the Americas is often blurry.

I would recommend this book for anyone who is looking for additional references for the bigger picture of the African experience in America.