New Year News from Dr. Gerald Horne

My history teacher from college, a great guy by the name of Dr. Gerald Horne, has something brewing. This message has from January has been sitting in my Inbox:

------Original Message------ From: Abdul Alkalimat Sender: H-NET Discussion List for African American Studies Subject: Re: Maroons in the United States: Sent: Jan 10, 2011 1:12 PM

On The "Negro Fort", which was a citadel of resistance to the U.S. in northern Florida before destruction in 1816--while flying the Union Jack, see e.g.:

James Covington, "The Negro Fort," 'Gulf Coast Historical Review', 5(1990): 78-91; Nathaniel Millett, "Defining Greedom in the Atlantic Borderlands of the Revolutioanry Southeast," 'Early American Studies', 5(Number 2, 2007): 367-394.

The work of Jane Landers and Canter Brown also provide useful background.

The Africans may have been better armed than any comparable force--before or since--wielding four twenty-four pound cannons, four six-pound cannons, one field piece and one three-and-one-half inch brass howitzer, not to mention 2500 muskets, 500 carbines, 500 swords, 300 quarter casks of rifle powder and 162 barrels of cannon powder. See Stephen R. Poe, "Archaeological Excavations of Fort Gadsen, Florida," 'News in Anthropology', 8(1963): 1-35.

For more context on this resistance, see my soon- to-be-published, 'Negro Comrades of the Crown: African-Americans & the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation', NYU Press.

This resistance followed in the wake of the largest insurrection of the enslaved in U.S. history, for during the War of 1812, thousands fled to British lines with many returning in redcoats to wreak havoc--including the torching of Washington, DC in August 1814. Then in the following decades Africans and indigenes merged to wage war in Florida on the U.S.

To be sure, this story does not easily fit the dominant narrative of the U.S.--which suggests the narrative needs to be revised; i.e. the citizenship rights now enjoyed by those now referred to as "African-American" is due to their struggle--in league with allies, be they indigenes, London, Moscow, Tokyo, Havana, Ottawa, Mexico City, Accra and Dar es Salaam, to cite a few from a lengthy list.

Surely, our citizenship was not necessasrily contemplated by those who now define hagiography--the so-called 'Founding Fathers'. Strikigly, though academic departments in the U.S. are replete with critics of virtually every revolution--but notably the Russian and Cuban (Pat Robertson charged that Haiti's travails are attributable to a pact with the devil that led to the ouster of the French)--few critique 1776, though it led directly to a worsening of the status of a considerable percentage of the population.

I welcome research tips on a current project: 'The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slavery and the Origins of the U.S,' which--inter alia--examines the reaction in the 13 colonies to 'Somersett's Case' in London in June 1772 which seemed to prefigure abolition within the Empire--and the slaveholders in No. America revolted and created a slaveholders' republic. Specifically, I would appreciate references to primary sources on slavery in the colonies in the prelude to 1772 and the prelude to 1776.

Perhaps this project will shed light on the nagging persistence of retrograde politics in the U.S., since--contrary to chronology-1776 may fit more naturally with the revolt against decolonization in Rhodesia in 1965 than France in 1789 or Haiti, 1791-1804.

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