Rough Crossings

“The most dramatic account so far of the extraordinary expeience of slaves in and after the American Revolution. . . . Schama’s gift for plunging us into the very center of the action makes reading an exhilarating and often moving experience.”—Daily Telegraph

If you were black in America at the start of the Revolutionary War, whom would you want to win? In response to a declaration by the last governor of Virginia that any rebel-owned slave who escaped and served the King would be emancpated, tens of thousands of blacks voted with feet, escaping to fight beside the British. Originally designed to break the plantations of the American South, this military strategy instead unleashed one of the great exoduses in American history.

Told in the voices of the slaves and the white abolitionists who aided them, Simon Schama vividly details the odyssey of these escaped blacks, shedding light on an extraordinary chapter in America’s birth.

This landmark history reveals the harrowing, transatlantic odyssey that followed.

• A Forgotten Exodus: Discover why tens of thousands of slaves, promised emancipation by the Crown, risked everything to side with the British in a stunning, untold chapter of the Revolutionary War.
• The Founding Fathers’ Dilemma: Explore the startling hypocrisy of men like Washington and Jefferson, who spoke of liberty while their own enslaved people, including Henry Washington, escaped to fight for the king.
• From Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone: Follow the epic journey of these freed men and women from the battlefields of the South to the harsh settlements of Canada and, for some, a return to Africa to found a new colony of freedom.
• The Book of Negroes: Uncover the story behind the extraordinary British document that recorded the names of 3,000 former slaves, certifying their freedom and allowing them to leave America forever.