African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Freedom

Pulitzer winner Fischer (Washington’s Crossing) delivers a sprawling inquiry into “what happened when Africans and Europeans came to North America, and the growth of race slavery collided with expansive ideas of freedom and liberty and rule of law.” Examining nine “Afro-European regional cultures” that developed in early America, he profiles hundreds of people of African descent, including Massachusetts poet Phillis Wheatley; Yarrow Mamout, a Muslim master bricklayer in Maryland; Louis Congo, the royal executioner of Louisiana; and Texas cowboy Mathew “Bones” Hooks, who reputedly could “stay on any horse alive.” Fischer touches on myriad aspects of his subjects’ lives, including the religions they practiced, the languages they spoke, and the arts, crafts, and music they created. The level of detail astonishes: a discussion of America’s “maritime frontiers” touches on how the Chesapeake log canoe, a type of sailboat, evolved from the West African dugout. Distilling African “gifts” to America in the fields of language and speech, music, spirituality, and ethics, Fischer contends that the “abiding faith in living free” maintained by enslaved Africans and their descendants “has been one of the greatest African contributions to America and the world.” Enriched by Hackett’s deep empathy, scrupulous research, and lucid prose, this milestone study casts American history in a new light. (May)