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Rough Crossings: Britain, The Slaves, and the American Revolution.
Schama, Simon (author).
May 2006. 480p. Ecco, hardcover, $29.95 (0-06-053916-X). 326.0973.
REVIEW.
First published February 15, 2006 (Booklist).
African-American history, as well as American history, is too often geographically restricted in focus and content, lacking larger global context. Schama, a much-hailed Columbia University history professor and writer, frees us from those debilitating limitations. In the American Revolution, he exposes the complex dimensions of black interests associated with both the loyalist and patriot forces. For those of slave status, the American quest for liberty had hollow virtue without its companion of freedom. The slavery issue impacted both the revolution and our nations’ early formation far more than is commonly known. Schama takes the reader to Nova Scotia, where Britain’s promise of freedom to black loyalists conflicted with the interest of white loyalists whose sense of a loss of privilege added to more material losses they suffered during the war. Although pragmatism may have been at the root of loyalists’ promise of freedom, Britain also contained strong abolitionist forces in the personalities of Granville Sharp, Thomas and John Clarkson, as well as others. However, these three sought to facilitate their nations’ promise to African-American loyalist blacks by creation of Sierra Leone in West Africa. This important book reveals the interplay between American and British ideals and hypocritical practices in impacting the plight of black Americans’ freedom quest. — Vernon Ford
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