Matthew J. Clavin is Professor of History at the University of Houston and the author of The Battle of Negro Fort: The Rise and Fall of a Fugitive Slave Community, Aiming for Pensacola: Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontiers, and Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War: The Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution.
"Negro Fort ... served as a source of inspiration to runaways and
enslaved people in the states bordering Florida. Clavin tells the
story of this fugitive slave outpost at the hands of the combined
US Army and Navy force led by Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson. A must-read
for those interested in early American republic history."
*STARRED Library Journal*
"Matthew Clavin’s [work] offers an important discussion of an event
that many know too little about. It is well-written, rich in
primary sources, and adds substantially to our knowledge of early
U.S. history and the role of pro-slavery forces in creating a
'white man’s republic.'"
*Beverly C. Tomek, Author of Colonization and Its Discontents*
"Matthew Clavin has uncovered a history of slavery and freedom that
is revealing and, at times, haunting. The book is clearly and
beautifully written, allowing scholars and casual readers to access
and experience a narrative of struggle, of people escaping bondage
and establishing a free community, only to have liberty cruelly
extinguished. Clavin marshals an impressive array of American and
European correspondence, diaries, and newspapers to offer a
transnational perspective of slavery and the US government’s
commitment to preserve it. This brilliantly created volume presents
a new story of freedom seekers in North America and advances
pathways for fresh research."
*Ronald Angelo Johnson, author of Diplomacy in Black and White:
John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and Their Atlantic World
Alliance*
"In this riveting account, Clavin delves deep into the bloody
battle and its often-surprising aftermath."
*Richard Price, author of Maroon Societies, Travels with Tooy, and
Saamaka Dreaming*
"A fascinating account of the largest maroon community in the
history of the present-day United States. This is an important
story and Matthew Clavin does an excellent job of discussing the
Negro Fort's formation, its cataclysmic destruction, and its
subsequent role in the abolitionist struggle against slavery."
*Gad Heuman, Professor Emeritus, University of Warwick*
"Clavin’s clearly written book illuminates several themes in early
national US history by placing the rise and violent destruction of
the Negro Fort in its full context, including its political
aftermath. It also tells a remarkable tale of a vigorous
interracial coalition that fought against that expansion."
*Matthew Mason, Professor of History, Brigham Young University*
"Clavin vividly chronicles the development of the fort and the
surrounding community and explains why this largely forgotten
historical episode has such great importance."
*Choice*
"Clavin’s work is a welcome addition to existing literature on the
rise of the Slave Power. Scholars interested in military history,
maroon communities, Indian-American relations, and especially the
rise of proslavery foreign policy during the early republic will
find his work a quick and useful read."
*H-Net*
"Perhaps Clavin’s greatest contribution, besides retelling an
important event from American history that has been largely lost to
memory, is to show how important the actions of the residents of
Negro Fort were to the course of the conflicts on America’s
southern border in the 1810s and after."
*Journal of Southern History*
"The Battle of Negro Fort is a welcome addition to the history of
the Native South, slavery during the antebellum era, Indian
expulsion, and Black Indian history. Similar to the work of
Nathaniel Millett (who discusses this same event), as well as the
works of Walter Johnson, Adam Rothman, and Claudio Saunt, which
highlight the connections between the expansion of slavery in the
Deep South and Native land dispossession, Clavin’s monograph
demonstrates that enslaved people of African descent and American
Indians resisted white nation-state building and expansion,
consequently shaping the political, economic, and social policies
of the new nation that set the stage for conflicts and divisions
that continue to affect the relations of African Americans and
Native people with the federal government in the present."
*American Indian Culture and Research Journal*
"Given the way that Clavin’s book touches upon so many essential
themes, it would make for excellent supplemental reading in
undergraduate classes on the history of antebellum America and of
slavery and freedom in North America."
*New Mexico Historical Review*
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