Freedom and resistance : a social history of black loyalists in the Bahamas /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Curry, Christopher, 1971- author.
Imprint:Gainesville, FL : University Press of Florida, 2017.
Description:x, 256 pages ; 25 cm
Language:English
Subject:
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11017467
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9780813054476
0813054478
Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
Summary:Christopher Curry recovers a social history of black loyalists in the Bahamas that highlights intra- and inter-racial dynamics and examines their impact on evolving Bahamian society. This volume also examines the racial discord that erupted between black and white loyalists as, respectively, one group sought greater legal freedoms while the other sought greater economic benefits. With this work, Curry adds a new chapter to the global dimensions of the freedom struggle that emanated from the American Revolution.
Description
Summary:<p>After the American Revolution, enslaved and free blacks who had been loyal to the British cause arrived in the Bahamas, drawn by British promises of liberty and land. Freedom and Resistance shows how Black Loyalists struggled to find freedom, clashing with white loyalists who tried either to bind them to illegal indentured contracts or to enslave them.</p> <p>Despite these challenges, Black Loyalists made significant contributions to Bahamian society. They advanced ideas of civil liberty through political activism and armed resistance, built churches and schools that became the foundations of self-reliant black communities, and participated in the emerging market economy.</p> <p>Christopher Curry highlights the complex ways in which Black Loyalists transplanted and re-inscribed traditions from colonial America into new host societies and in doing so dynamically refashioned their identities and institutions. By comparing the experiences of these Bahamians to those of other Black Loyalist communities in Jamaica and Nova Scotia, he adds a new global dimension to the freedom struggle that spread from the American Revolution.</p> A volume in the series Contested Boundaries, edited by Gene Allen Smith
Physical Description:x, 256 pages ; 25 cm
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:9780813054476
0813054478