Books like American Negro slave revolts by Herbert Aptheker

David Robertson’s biography of Denmark Vesey, a freed black leader who planned the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history, explores the revolt’s planning, execution, and lasting impact on African American political life.

From Slavery to Freedom chronicles the rise of slavery, the blending of European and African cultures in the New World, and the development of a distinct Black culture and resistance in the United States.

Daniel Rasmussen wrote this material as part of a senior project at Harvard where he discovered written accounts of the violent uprising of five-hundred slaves near New Orleans in 1811. The result is unbalanced. By compiling written contemporary reports and oral traditions, he compiled a narrative of the events that, not surprisingly, starts with the assumption that all Louisiana whites were and continue to be wicked and all United States government actions prior to 1865 were imperialistic and illegal. Slavery, of course, was wrong and needed correction. But Rasmussen's coverage of the events promised in the book title comprise only a relatively small portion of the work. The rest, especially the conclusion, is a standard litany of socialistic themes and rationalizations. Interestingly, he claims in his acknowledgements that a friend helped him 'tone down my polemical tendencies.' Needed more toning down. Reviewed by J.David Knepper