Strange New Land Africans in Colonial America

Engaging and accessibly written, Strange New Land explores the history of slavery and the struggle for freedom before the United States became a nation. Beginning with the colonization of North America, Peter Wood documents the transformation of slavery from a brutal form of indenturedservitude to a full-blown system of racial domination. Strange New Land focuses on how Africans survived this brutal process--and ultimately shaped the contours of American racial slavery through numerous means, including: Mastering English and making it their own Converting to Christianity and transforming the religion Holding fast to Islam or combining their spiritual beliefs with the faith of their masters Recalling skills and beliefs, dances and stories from the Old World, which provided a key element in their triumphant story of survival Listening to talk of liberty and freedom, of the rights of man and embracing it as a fundamental right--even petitioning colonial administrators and insisting on that right. Against the troubling backdrop of American slavery, Strange New Land surveys black social and cultural life, superbly illustrating how such a diverse group of people from the shores of West and Central Africa became a community in North America.

Peter H. Wood is a professor of history at Duke University. Dr. Wood is the author of Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion, which was nominated for the National Book Award. He is the coauthor of Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States and Natives and Newcomers: The Way We Lived in North Carolina Before 1770.