Strange New Land by Peter H. Wood

Peter Wood is a recently retired professor from Duke University. I met him at the beginning of this year. He was nice and surprisingly easy to talk to. I told him a little bit about 50 Books Project (in blatant disregard for the first rule of 50 Books Project). The next day he gave me a copy of this book as well as a copy of his newest book.

Wood makes some intriguing assertions about colonial America. Here are a few of them:
- Blacks were significantly present in the Americas mere years after Columbus's expedition.
- Originally slavery in America was not based on race.
- Specific state laws were passed in order to make race the controlling factor in slavery.

My favorite chapter was 'Building a Culture', in which Wood shows the ways that blacks, although oppressed, created a unique culture of their own, which had a dramatic impact on overall American society. Some of the vulgate languages that developed in these slave cultures made a lasting mark on American English. Wood also details the effects that blacks had on music and religion (namely Protestant Christianity) during the colonial period of our nation's history. I thought this sentence was amusing, "Europeans, startled by the extent of African drumming and fearful that this skill sometimes provided a secret means of communication, outlawed the use of drums by slaves in various colonies."

It is difficult to write interesting works of history. Often works such as this are informative, but require slogging through less than stellar writing to get the information. Wood's book does not suffer from this all too common problem. Wood has a way of teasing out interesting stories in the history that he writes, and he has a good writing style. For being an academic work of history, this book was fairly easy to read.

Frontiers of Freedom by Nikki M. Taylor

The full title of this book is Frontiers of Freedom: Cincinnati's Black Community, 1802-1868. Any history book worth its salt will have a colon in its title...true. This book was written by a professor at the University of Cincinnati, which I currently attend. It may sound a little dry, and I'll admit that if you don't have some interest in Cincinnati, you may not find it that interesting. However, knowledge of or a connection to Cincinnati is not necessarily a prerequisite for enjoying this book.

During the time that the book covers, Cincinnati was a fairly unique place due to its location. The Northwest Ordinance prohibited slavery East of the Mississippi River and North of the Ohio River. This meant that the Ohio River was the only barrier between freedom and slavery for many African Americans. Because of its location, Cincinnati had an unusually active Underground Railroad.

Dr. Taylor's goal is to construct the history of Cincinnati's black community, paying special attention to the transition from small, disparate groups to a cohesive community that acted in its own interest.

I found the descriptions of Cincinnati's various race riots particularly interesting. The aggression of Cincinnati's white residents was usually at the heart of these incidents. Angry about the ever-increasing black population, job scarcity, or other social issues, whites would retaliate against the black community. This was the case in 1841. After hours of violence, white residents dragged a canon from the docks to a black neighborhood six blocks to the North. They filled it with scrap metal and began firing it at black residences and businesses.

Taylor does of good job off peppering the pages of her book with stories of fugitive slaves, stevedores, black school teachers, and successful black entrepreneurs. These stories help breathe a little life into this academic work.