While it is well known that more Africans fought on behalf of the
British than with the successful patriots of the American Revolution,
Gerald Horne reveals in his latest work of historical recovery that
after 1776, Africans and African-Americans continued to collaborate with
Great Britain against the United States in battles big and small until
the Civil War.
Many African Americans viewed Britain, an early advocate of abolitionism
and emancipator of its own slaves, as a powerful ally in their
resistance to slavery in the Americas. This allegiance was far-reaching,
from the Caribbean to outposts in North America to Canada. In turn, the
British welcomed and actively recruited both fugitive and free African
Americans, arming them and employing them in military engagements
throughout the Atlantic World, as the British sought to maintain a
foothold in the Americas following the Revolution.
In this path-breaking book, Horne rewrites the history of slave
resistance by placing it for the first time in the context of military
and diplomatic wrangling between Britain and the United States.
Painstakingly researched and full of revelations, Negro Comrades of the
Crown is among the first book-length studies to highlight the Atlantic
origins of the Civil War, and the active role played by African
Americans within these external factors that led to it. Listen to a one
hour special with Dr. Gerald Horne on the "Sojourner Truth" radio show.
