The Myxophyceae of North Carolina,

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For the avid cyclist, this series offers a diverse array of moderate to serious tours through scenic terrain all over the United States. With challenging treks for the veteran and pleasant excursions for the Sunday cyclist, the Best Bike Rides series has something for everyone.

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When Americans look at slavery, they conjure up images of tired black bodies picking cotton from sunup to sundown under Southern skies. That image is partly true, but, as the noted history professor Ira Berlin details, the lives of slaves in America's racist system were complex and diverse. "Viewing slavery through the perspective of what slaves did most of the time," Berlin writes, "provides a means to draw some fundamental distinctions and find some essential commonalities among the various experiences of North America."

Berlin reveals the color-caste codes of the Afro-Creoles of the Chesapeake, the survival of African culture in the South Carolina-Georgia-Florida coastal area, and the intermingling of Africans with French and Spanish in the Mississippi Delta area. He weaves a woeful and wondrous tale of the mores, occupations, conflicts, wars, and rebellions that made up the ongoing relationships between masters and slaves. Many Thousands Gone is an excellent companion to Philip D. Morgan's Slave Counterpoint, revealing the influence the "peculiar institution" of slavery had on those of African and European descent alike. --Eugene Holley Jr.

Book Description

Today most Americans, black and white, identify slavery with cotton, the deep South, and the African-American church. But at the beginning of the nineteenth century, after almost two hundred years of African-American life in mainland North America, few slaves grew cotton, lived in the deep South, or embraced Christianity. Many Thousands Gone traces the evolution of black society from the first arrivals in the early seventeenth century through the Revolution. In telling their story, Ira Berlin, a leading historian of southern and African-American life, reintegrates slaves into the history of the American working class and into the tapestry of our nation.

Laboring as field hands on tobacco and rice plantations, as skilled artisans in port cities, or soldiers along the frontier, generation after generation of African Americans struggled to create a world of their own in circumstances not of their own making. In a panoramic view that stretches from the North to the Chesapeake Bay and Carolina lowcountry to the Mississippi Valley, Many Thousands Gone reveals the diverse forms that slavery and freedom assumed before cotton was king. We witness the transformation that occurred as the first generations of creole slaves--who worked alongside their owners, free blacks, and indentured whites--gave way to the plantation generations, whose back-breaking labor was the sole engine of their society and whose physical and linguistic isolation sustained African traditions on American soil.

As the nature of the slaves' labor changed with place and time, so did the relationship between slave and master, and between slave and society. In this fresh and vivid interpretation, Berlin demonstrates that the meaning of slavery and of race itself was continually renegotiated and redefined, as the nation lurched toward political and economic independence and grappled with the Enlightenment ideals that had inspired its birth.

Customer Reviews:

A must read.......2007-06-06

A must read for students, but also a good read for the general history enthusiast.

Important Synthesis of Early Enslavement.......2007-01-28

Ira Berlin in "Many Thousands Gone" has made a very important contribution to the growing literature attempting to understand both the big picture and the daily details of slavery. As his subtitle suggests, his work focuses on the first two centuries of slavery in North America.

Berlin's primary (and well-documented) thesis is that slave culture was not one monolithic culture, but several different cultures depending upon the era and the area of North American enslavement. Additionally, Berlin highlights that slavery was racist and classist, an interpretation which does not minimize the evils of racism, but also exposes the evils of classism.

Though in other works by the same author, readers find first-hand accounts of the horrors of slavery in the words of the enslaved, such documentation is less evident in this work. An increase in such documentation would have strengthened the already excellent "Many Thousand Gone." Still, the overall message and "feel" of "Many Thousands Gone" does accurately and powerfully depict the agony and inhumanity of African American slavery.

Berlin engages the important issue of the slave's choice of or refusal to choose the master's religion. Including a small sampling of the slave narratives (the majority of which evidence acceptance of Christianity) and the myriad slave conversion accounts, would have provided added depth to this fine book. Converting slaves, by their own accounts, did not see themselves as converting to their masters' religion. Instead, they saw themselves rejecting their masters' hypocritical distortion of Christianity and receiving Christ and Christianity, cleansed of lies and replete with the message of eternal freedom spirituality and internal freedom in Christ.

For the broad panorama of early enslavement, look no further than "Many Thousands Gone."

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, Soul Physicians, and Spiritual Friends.

Many Thousands Gone-na get mis-educated by Ira Berlin.......2007-01-04

From my reading of Ira Berlin's work, one thing is apparent: Ira Berlin is a closet KKK member (maybe leader). Throughout his writing he minimizes the evils of slavery and emphasizes what few freedoms slaves enjoyed. He describes his academic style as more "nuanced" than the style of previous works on slavery in America. What he means by this is that he goes into minute detail about how at different times and in different places, slavery was more or less oppressive. All of that is obvious to anyone, because it occurs in every oppressive structure throughout history, but Berlin's tight focus on this detail makes one almost forget how horrid the institution was at all times, everywhere it was practiced.

Rather than write about the true history of slavery from the slave's perspective - the history of resistance and struggle to the death, Berlin describes slavery as being "negotiated" between slave and master, as if they were haggling over the price of a bagel. He consistently uses toned-down language to obscure the reality of what slavery was. He says that we cannot understand someone just by knowing that they were a slave - we cannot lump all slaves together. But what greater information can we know about someone than that their entire life revolves around the struggle to free him or herself of the whip of their master? Does it truly help us to nuance that understanding by knowing that at times, some lucky slaves were allowed to go to church, or to take breaks from work, or to get only 20 lashes instead of 50?

Unfortunately for history students, Berlin has become widely respected among many historians, which just goes to show how deeply racist America continues to be.

Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America.......2006-11-05

Brought for college class. Arrived in excellent condition. Purchased new book at great price. Better then campus store prices.

American Slavery Was Local.......2005-03-18

The myth of slavery derives from the powerful images of the miniseries Roots; the notion that black people were simply swept out of their African lives, degraded and sometimes killed on the harsh way to America and then put to work on a cotton plantation without power of any sort.

Ira Berlin, in this beautifully written and thoroughly researched history of the first two hundred years of American slavery, "Many Thousands Gone", blows apart that myth. He says that slavery had great variety, based on geographic, economic and generational factors. The first generation of slaves in America were creoles, born of white and African American parents. They frequently lived along the sea and interacted with people of all walks of life, were traders and often spoke multiple languages. These slaves frequently stayed with their families, knew and utilized the courts to petition for freedom, they worked with their slave-owners to grow crops and to negotiate payment for their eventual freedom. This changed with subsequent generations who were plucked from central Africa and did not have the same experience with the white world. While slaves in these subsequent generations lost the power to negotiate the terms of their slavery with their slaveholders, they were able to grab autonomy in other ways. They grew and sold goods in cities, they purchased their freedom, though often at a high price. They escaped and formed maroon armed communities.

A few other factors also played a significant role in determining the virulence of slavery, specifically geography and economics. Some crops like cotton and tobacco were well suited to the plantation systems and in areas where those crops grew well, the slave system was particularly harsh. History was another factor. In the form of the American Revolution it disrupted the plantation system, because the plantation owners, who were often patriots with strong beliefs in the rights of man, also owned slaves and defended their right to do so. The loyalists took advantage of this dilemma and often had the plantation slaves fighting on the loyalist side in exchange for the promise of becoming free men. Sometimes they even delivered on that promise.

My only criticism is that I wanted more of a narrative that would bring together the various aspects of slavery. I was left with the feeling that American slavery was really Mississippi slavery or South Carolina slavery or New York slavery. The legacy of slavery appears to be monolithic even if the experience of slavery was not.

Many Thousand Gone: African Americans from Slavery to Freedom

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Opression
Many Thousand Gone
Afriacn Amercain Slavery
*#*MaNy ThOuSaNd GoNe*#*
Many Thousand Gone

Many Thousand Gone: African Americans from Slavery to Freedom
Virginia Hamilton
Manufacturer: Knopf Books for Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0679879366
Release Date: 2002-01-02

Book Description

Unavailable for several years, Virginia Hamilton’s award-winning companion to The People Could Fly traces the history of slavery in America in the voices and stories of those who lived it. Leo and Diane Dillon’s brilliant black-and-white illustrations echo the stories’ subtlety and power, making this book as stunning to look at as it is to read.

“There is probably no better way to convey the meaning of the institution of slavery as it existed in the United States to young readers than by using, as a text to share and discuss, Many Thousand Gone.”
—The New York Times Book Review

Customer Reviews:

Opression.......2005-04-01

The purpose of the book Many Thousand Gone by Virginia Hamilton is to teach others about the many struggles slaves went through and how some people were kind hearted enough to help.

Virginia intended this book for many audiences. She wanted everyone to know about the slavery times.

This book has many stories from the beginning to when slaves were brought over from Africa, to Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, and when the Union enlisted black troops.

I would recommend this book to anyone because it is very informative, interesting, and thorough in its descriptions in what slaves went through.
Bethany H

Many Thousand Gone.......2005-03-25

I would definently reccomend this book to anyone, especially someone who is interested in learing about slavery like myself! The purpose of this book is to tell where and when slavery began. This book in my opinion is mainly for people who are interested in history; mainly slavery.
Renay G

Afriacn Amercain Slavery.......2005-03-24

I would recommend this book because it gives you a bunch of information on African American Slavery. For you people that are interested in Slavery then I would recomend you to go and check out this book. You learn when and where the events of American Slavery took place. In the book it gives you a bunch of people and they tell you there opions and what they think about the slavery, and they also have paople that have had an experience or family in the slavery.
Jolynn.N.

*#*MaNy ThOuSaNd GoNe*#*.......2005-03-21

Audience: anyone who is interested in slaves/slavery

Purpose: to inform you about different slaves

Summary: This is an informative bool about slaves.It starts in 1619 and goes through 1863 talking about slaves and what happened to them. (note: in chronological order)It gives several stories about different slaves. It tells what happened to them, if they died, if they escaped/captured, if they have families. It also tells a little about war and other historic events.

Ashley M.

Many Thousand Gone.......2000-04-11

An excellent collection of stories of early African Americans, Many Thousand Gone begins with the first slaves arriving in the United States in 1619 and goes through the close of the Civil War and the end of slavery. Each chapter relates an easy to read account of people who represent the events surrounding slavery, particularly during the 1800s. Accounts of escapes along the Underground Railroad are included as well as the stories of individuals who played a significant part of black history. These include Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Soujourner Truth, and many others. All in all, this book was a joy to read and very informative.

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Many Thousand Gone: African Americans from Slavery to Freedom
Virginia Hamilton
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Product Description

Children's history of African-American Slavery.

Many thousand gone;: The ex-slaves' account of their bondage and freedom, (A Midland book)

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Many thousand gone;: The ex-slaves' account of their bondage and freedom, (A Midland book)
Charles Harold Nichols
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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Many Thousand Gone an American Fable
Ronald L. Fair
Manufacturer: Chatham Bookseller
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0911860428

Many Thousands Gone the First Two Centur

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Many Thousands Gone the First Two Centur
Ira Berlin
Manufacturer: BELKNAP PRESS OF HARVARD UNIV
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000WDPLUO

Many Thousand Gone: African Americans from Slavery to Freedom.(Children's Review)(Brief Article): An article from: The Horn Book Magazine

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Many Thousand Gone: African Americans from Slavery to Freedom.(Children's Review)(Brief Article): An article from: The Horn Book Magazine
Hanna B. Zeiger
Manufacturer: Horn Book, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Horn Book Magazine, published by Horn Book, Inc. on September 1, 1993. The length of the article is 322 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Many Thousand Gone: African Americans from Slavery to Freedom.(Children's Review)(Brief Article)
Author: Hanna B. Zeiger
Publication: The Horn Book Magazine (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 1, 1993
Publisher: Horn Book, Inc.
Volume: v69 Issue: n5 Page: p621(1)

Article Type: Book Review, Children's Review, Brief Article

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Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America.: An article from: Journal of Southern History

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Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America.: An article from: Journal of Southern History
Jon Sensbach
Manufacturer: Southern Historical Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008HXJ0S
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Southern History, published by Southern Historical Association on May 1, 2001. The length of the article is 1236 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America.
Author: Jon Sensbach
Publication: Journal of Southern History (Refereed)
Date: May 1, 2001
Publisher: Southern Historical Association
Volume: 67 Issue: 2 Page: 428

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Many Thousand Gone African Americans Fro

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Many Thousand Gone African Americans Fro
Virginia Hamilton
Manufacturer: SCHOLASTIC INC. @
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Many thousand gone: Springfield's lost black history

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Many thousand gone: Springfield's lost black history
Katherine Lederer
Manufacturer: s.n.]
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Book Description

Simple step-by-step instructions make it fun and easy to draw amazing pictures of your favorite sea creatures. Make great posters for your room and gifts for your friends and family. Everyone can be an artist, so grab a pencil and get started!

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Renaissance Quarterly, published by Renaissance Society of America on March 22, 1995. The length of the article is 812 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Humanity and Divinity in Renaissance and Reformation: Essays in Honor of Charles Trinkaus.
Author: Craig Kallendorf
Publication: Renaissance Quarterly (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 1995
Publisher: Renaissance Society of America
Volume: v48 Issue: n1 Page: p179(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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Customer Reviews:

Good Example of the Hell Prison inflicts on families.......2002-12-29

Lourdes is the wife of a Chicago Street Gang member who is serving a lengthy prison term for murder. She makes no apologies for him, and has great insight to how she ended up married to him.

The heart of the book is her description of the pain she and her family experienced after he was convicted. The long trips to prison, the attempt to maintain a long distance relationship, the prison's unannounced, arbitrary transfers of her husband thousands of miles away. Through it all, both Lourdes and her husband determined not to give in to the madness, but to work to reform this arbitrary prison system--he from the inside, her by organizing other family members.

This choice caused both some pain. But it seems to allowed both to survive an extremely difficult situation with their personal dignity intact. An inspiring book.

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