"Breathtaking. [Rasmussen's] scholarly detective work reveals a
fascinating narrative of slavery and resistance, but it also tells us
something about history itself--about how fiction can become fact, and
how 'history' is sometimes nothing more than erasure." --Henry Louis
Gates, Jr.
"Deeply researched, vividly written, and highly original." --Eric
Foner
Historian Daniel Rasmussen reveals the long-forgotten history of
America's largest slave uprising, the New Orleans slave revolt of 1811.
No North American slave uprising--not Gabriel Prosser, not Denmark
Vesey, not Nat Turner--has rivaled the scale of this rebellion either in
terms of the number of the slaves involved or in terms of the number who
were killed. Over 100 slaves were slaughtered by federal troops and
French planters, who then sought to write the event out of history and
prevent the spread of the slaves' revolutionary philosophy. With the
Haitian Revolution a recent memory and the War of 1812 looming on the
horizon, the revolt had epic consequences for America.
In an epic, illuminating narrative, Rasmussen offers new insight into
American expansionism, the path to Civil War, and the earliest
grassroots push to overcome slavery.
