Description
If We Must Die examines nearly five hundred shipboard rebellions that occurred over the course of the entire slave trade, directly challenging the prevailing thesis that such resistance was infrequent or insignificant. As Eric Robert Taylor shows, though most revolts were crushed quickly, others raged on for hours, days, or weeks, and, occasionally, the Africans captured the vessel and returned themselves to freedom. In recounting these rebellions, Taylor suggests that certain factors like geographic location, the involvement of women and children, and the timing of a shipboard revolt, determined the difference between success and failure. Taylor also explores issues like aid from other ships, punishment of slave rebels, and treatment of sailors captured by the Africans. If We Must Die expands the historical view of slave resistance, revealing a continuum of rebellions that spanned the Atlantic as well as the centuries. These uprisings, Taylor argues, ultimately helped limit and end the traffic in enslaved Africans and also served as crucial predecessors to the many revolts that occurred subsequently on plantations throughout the Americas.
Author: Eric Robert Taylor
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 03/01/2009
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.90d
ISBN13: 9780807134429
ISBN10: 0807134422
BISAC Categories:
- History | Africa | General
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | African American & Black Studies
- History | United States | General
About the Author
Eric Robert Taylor, a freelance television producer who lives in Los Angeles, holds a doctorate in history from the University of California, Los Angeles.