Many Thousands Gone

The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America

Ira Berlin

  • Recipient of the 1999 Bancroft Prize from Columbia University
  • 1999 Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award Honorable Mention, Sponsored by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America
  • Winner of the 1999 Elliott Rudwick Prize of the Organization of American Historians
  • Winner of the 1999 Frederick Douglass Prize for the Best Book on Slavery Sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale University
  • Winner, Association of American Publishers 1998 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Annual Award in the Category of History
  • Finalist, 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
  • Co-Winner of the Southern Historical Association's Frank L. and Harriet C. Owsley Award for 1999
  • 1998 Los Angeles Times Book Prize

Prologue: Making Slavery, Making Race

Societies with Slaves: The Charter Generations

Emergence of Atlantic Creoles in the Chesapeake

Expansion of Creole Society in the North

Divergent Paths in the Lowcountry

Devolution in the Lower Mississippi Valley

Slave Societies: The Plantation Generations

The Tobacco Revolution in the Chesapeake

The Rice Revolution in the Lowcountry

Growth and the Transformation of Black Life in the North

Stagnation and Transformation in the Lower Mississippi Valley

Slave and Free: The Revolutionary Generations

The Slow Death of Slavery in the North

The Union of African-American Society in the Upper South

Fragmentation in the Lower South

Slavery and Freedom in the Lower Mississippi Valley

Epilogue: Making Race, Making Slavery

Tables

Abbreviations

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

  • Cover: Many Thousands Gone
  • A photo of the author

Ira Berlin is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park.