The dramatic story of the United States' destruction of a free and independent community of fugitive slaves in Spanish Florida
In the aftermath of the War of 1812, Major General Andrew Jackson ordered a joint United States army-navy expedition into Spanish Florida to destroy a free and independent community of fugitive slaves. The result was the Battle of Negro Fort, a brutal conflict among hundreds of American troops, Indian warriors, and black rebels that culminated in the death or re-enslavement of nearly all of the fort's inhabitants. By eliminating this refuge for fugitive slaves, the United States government closed an escape valve that African Americans had utilized for generations. At the same time, it intensified the subjugation of southern Native Americans, including the Creeks, Choctaws, and Seminoles. Still, the battle was significant for another reason as well.
During its existence, Negro Fort was a powerful symbol of black freedom that subverted the racist foundations of an expanding American slave society. Its destruction reinforced the nation's growing commitment to slavery, while illuminating the extent to which ambivalence over the institution had disappeared since the nation's founding. Indeed, four decades after declaring that all men were created equal, the United States destroyed a fugitive slave community in a foreign territory for the first and only time in its history, which accelerated America's transformation into a white republic. The Battle of Negro Fort places the violent expansion of slavery where it belongs, at the center of the history of the early American republic.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"Negro Fort ... served as a source of inspiration to runaways and enslaved people in the states bordering Florida. Clavin tells the story of this fugitive slave outpost at the hands of the combined US Army and Navy force led by Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson. A must-read for those interested in early American republic history." - STARRED Library Journal "Matthew Clavin's [work] offers an important discussion of an event that many know too little about. It is well-written, rich in primary sources, and adds substantially to our knowledge of early U.S. history and the role of pro-slavery forces in creating a 'white man's republic.'" - Beverly C. Tomek, Author of Colonization and Its Discontents "Matthew Clavin has uncovered a history of slavery and freedom that is revealing and, at times, haunting. The book is clearly and beautifully written, allowing scholars and casual readers to access and experience a narrative of struggle, of people escaping bondage and establishing a free community, only to have liberty cruelly extinguished. Clavin marshals an impressive array of American and European correspondence, diaries, and newspapers to offer a transnational perspective of slavery and the US government's commitment to preserve it. This brilliantly created volume presents a new story of freedom seekers in North America and advances pathways for fresh research." (Ronald Angelo Johnson, author of Diplomacy in Black and White: John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and Their Atlantic World Alliance) "In this riveting account, Clavin delves deep into the bloody battle and its often-surprising aftermath." (Richard Price, author of Maroon Societies, Travels with Tooy, and Saamaka Dreaming) "A fascinating account of the largest maroon community in the history of the present-day United States. This is an important story and Matthew Clavin does an excellent job of discussing the Negro Fort's formation, its cataclysmic destruction, and its subsequent role in the abolitionist struggle against slavery." (Gad Heuman, Professor Emeritus, University of Warwick) "Clavin's clearly written book illuminates several themes in early national US history by placing the rise and violent destruction of the Negro Fort in its full context, including its political aftermath. It also tells a remarkable tale of a vigorous interracial coalition that fought against that expansion." (Matthew Mason, Professor of History, Brigham Young University) "Clavin vividly chronicles the development of the fort and the surrounding community and explains why this largely forgotten historical episode has such great importance." (Choice) "Clavin's work is a welcome addition to existing literature on the rise of the Slave Power. Scholars interested in military history, maroon communities, Indian-American relations, and especially the rise of proslavery foreign policy during the early republic will find his work a quick and useful read." (H-Net) "Perhaps Clavin's greatest contribution, besides retelling an important event from American history that has been largely lost to memory, is to show how important the actions of the residents of Negro Fort were to the course of the conflicts on America's southern border in the 1810s and after." (Journal of Southern History) "The Battle of Negro Fort is a welcome addition to the history of the Native South, slavery during the antebellum era, Indian expulsion, and Black Indian history. Similar to the work of Nathaniel Millett (who discusses this same event), as well as the works of Walter Johnson, Adam Rothman, and Claudio Saunt, which highlight the connections between the expansion of slavery in the Deep South and Native land dispossession, Clavin's monograph demonstrates that enslaved people of African descent and American Indians resisted white nation-state building and expansion, consequently shaping the political, economic, and social policies of the new nation that set the stage for conflicts and divisions that continue to affect the relations of African Americans and Native people with the federal government in the present." (American Indian Culture and Research Journal) "Given the way that Clavin's book touches upon so many essential themes, it would make for excellent supplemental reading in undergraduate classes on the history of antebellum America and of slavery and freedom in North America." (New Mexico Historical Review)
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978-1-4798-7981-6 (9781479879816)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
Matthew J. Clavin is Professor of History at the University of Houston and the author of The Battle of Negro Fort: The Rise and Fall of a Fugitive Slave Community, Aiming for Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontiers, and Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War: The Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution.
