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• v. 1. 1619-1852
• v. 2. 1853-1900
• v. 3. 1901-1964
• v. 4. 1965-2009.

The fourth publication in the award-winning, critically acclaimed Milestone Documents sereis, Milestone Documents in African American History explores the fundamental primary sources in African American history. This four-volume set covers 135 iconic primary documents from the 1600's to the present. Each entry offers the full text of the document in question as well as an in-depth, analytical essay that places the document in its historical context.
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Originally published in 1961, this classic work remains the most comprehensive history of the many and important roles played by African Americans during the American Revolution. With this book, Benjamin Quarles added a new dimension to the military history of the Revolution and addressed for the first time the diplomatic repercussions created by the British evacuation of African Americans at the close of the war. The compelling narrative brings the Revolution to life by portraying those tumultuous years as experienced by Americans at all levels of society. In an introduction, Gary B. Nash traces the evolution of scholarship on African Americans in the American Revolution from its early roots with William C. Nell to this groundbreaking study. Quarles's work not only reshaped our thinking about the black revolutionary experience but also invigorated the study of black history as we know it today. Thad W. Tate, in a foreword, pays tribute to the importance of this work and explains its continuing relevance.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

A comprehensive study of Civil War Afro-Virginian history. Every aspect of black life is examined: slave and free; rural and urban; homefront and battlefield; at work on plantations and in munitions factories; and as wartime Union spies and Confederate soldiers.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• PART I: INTRODUCTION Black Americans on the Eve of White Independence Black Americans and the Coming of the American Revolution African Americans in the Revolutionary War Challenging Slavery Revolutionary Legacies PART II: THE DOCUMENTS Black Americans and the Coming of the American Revolution, 1750--1775 African Americans in the Revolutionary War, 1775--1783 Challenging Slavery, 1776--1787 Revolutionary Legacies, 1785--1855 APPENDICES A Chronology of Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era Questions for Consideration Selected Bibliography.
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Woody Holton recounts the experiences of slaves who seized freedom by joining the British as well as those, slave and free, who served in Patriot military forces. Holton's introduction examines the conditions of black American life on the eve of colonial independence and the ways in which Revolutionary rhetoric about liberty provided African Americans with the language and inspiration for advancing their cause. Nearly forty documents, including personal narratives, petitions, letters, poems, advertisements, pension applications, and images, testify to the diverse goals and actions of African Americans during the Revolutionary era.Document headnotes and annotations, a chronology, questions for consideration, a selected bibliography, and index offer additional pedagogical support. In this fresh look at liberty and freedom in the Revolutionary era from the perspective of black Americans, Woody Holton recounts the experiences of slaves who seized freedom by joining the British as well as those, slave and free, who served in Patriot military forces.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

"A few weeks after the Emancipation Proclamation took effect, James Montgomery sailed into Key West Harbor looking for black men to draft into the Union army. Eager to oblige him, the military commander in town ordered every black man from fifteen to fifty to report to the courthouse, 'there to undergo a medical examination, preparatory to embarking for Hilton Head, S.C.' Montgomery swept away 126 men. Storm over Key West is a little-known story woven of many threads, but its main theme is the denial to black people of the equality central to the American ideal. After the island's slaves flocked to freedom during the summer of 1862, the white majority began a century-long campaign to deny black residents civil rights, education, literacy, respect, and the vote. Key West's harbor and two major federal forts were often referred to as 'America's Gibraltar.' This Gibraltar guarded the Florida Straits between Key West and Cuba and thus access to the Gulf of Mexico. When Union forces seized it before the war, the southernmost point of the Confederacy slipped out of Confederate hands. This led to a naval blockade based in Key West that devastated commerce in Florida and beyond"-- Provided by publisher.