BLReed
Sergeant Major
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HISTORY: "The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832" by Alan Taylor (W.W. Norton)
Taylor is proof that even the best historians can be caught by surprise.
He recalled Monday how he came upon documents telling of escaped slaves who helped the British during the War of 1812 and were an important reason the British were able to capture Washington, D.C. "This is a story I had known nothing about and I was supposed to be a specialist," said Taylor, 58, now a two-time Pulitzer winner.
Taylor will soon join the faculty of the University of Virginia, a sort of literary homecoming for the historian. "The Internal Enemy" tells of how the white Virginia plantation community simultaneously advocated for independence from the British and feared rebellion by the slaves.
A native of Portland, Maine, Taylor won the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes for his 1996 book "William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic," which chronicles the settling of Cooperstown, N.Y. and two of the community's most famous residents: Founder William Cooper, and his son, "The Last of the Mohicans" novelist James Fenimore Cooper.
Synopsis:
Escape from slavery in the antebellum South evokes images of secretive flight on the Underground Railroad or bizarre efforts like that of “Box Brown,” who hid in a small shipping crate sent north. Taylor, a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, teaches at the University of California, Davis. In this revealing and engrossing study, he illustrates that a great factor in the liberation of thousands of slaves was the policy and intervention of the British government and military. Taylor concentrates on the six decades between the American Revolution and the slave revolt of Nat Turner, and he focuses on the Chesapeake region of Virginia. The area is dotted with numerous rivers flowing to the bay, and here hundreds of slaves paddled out to British warships, especially during the War of 1812. British naval officers, through a combination of military practicality and, in some cases, antislavery sentiments, encouraged and facilitated their flight. This, of course, served to reinforce the slaveholders to view their slaves as “internal enemies.” This is a well-written and scrupulously researched examination of an important aspect of the struggle against American slavery.
Taylor is proof that even the best historians can be caught by surprise.
He recalled Monday how he came upon documents telling of escaped slaves who helped the British during the War of 1812 and were an important reason the British were able to capture Washington, D.C. "This is a story I had known nothing about and I was supposed to be a specialist," said Taylor, 58, now a two-time Pulitzer winner.
Taylor will soon join the faculty of the University of Virginia, a sort of literary homecoming for the historian. "The Internal Enemy" tells of how the white Virginia plantation community simultaneously advocated for independence from the British and feared rebellion by the slaves.
A native of Portland, Maine, Taylor won the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes for his 1996 book "William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic," which chronicles the settling of Cooperstown, N.Y. and two of the community's most famous residents: Founder William Cooper, and his son, "The Last of the Mohicans" novelist James Fenimore Cooper.
Synopsis:
Escape from slavery in the antebellum South evokes images of secretive flight on the Underground Railroad or bizarre efforts like that of “Box Brown,” who hid in a small shipping crate sent north. Taylor, a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, teaches at the University of California, Davis. In this revealing and engrossing study, he illustrates that a great factor in the liberation of thousands of slaves was the policy and intervention of the British government and military. Taylor concentrates on the six decades between the American Revolution and the slave revolt of Nat Turner, and he focuses on the Chesapeake region of Virginia. The area is dotted with numerous rivers flowing to the bay, and here hundreds of slaves paddled out to British warships, especially during the War of 1812. British naval officers, through a combination of military practicality and, in some cases, antislavery sentiments, encouraged and facilitated their flight. This, of course, served to reinforce the slaveholders to view their slaves as “internal enemies.” This is a well-written and scrupulously researched examination of an important aspect of the struggle against American slavery.
