Working the Diaspora: The Impact of African Labor on the Anglo-American World, 1650-1850 (Culture, Labor, History)
"The book's major scholarly contributions include a diaspora approach linking both sides of the Atlantic, an emphasis on the mental and human dimensions of slave workers, and evidence for multiple contributions of slave workers in making the American plantation."-CHOICE,“A brave and wide-ranging work that synthesizes the increasing knowledge about African and American links and expands that knowledge considerably in new and convincing ways.”-Peter H. Wood,Duke University“Historians of African Americans have known for a long time that they were brought to the Americas to labor, but until Frederick Knight’s comprehensive and fascinating account, that labor had never been fully examined. By looking at African labor and especially agricultural skills, Knight shows that a great deal of the work that African Americans did as slaves had its roots in African agricultural processes. Knight’s chapter on the production of indigo is particularly telling on this point, and shows that Africans’ skill was perhaps as important as their muscle in furthering the New World’s agricultural development. While others have explored elements of the role of Africans as skilled farmers before, Knight has brought all this and more together in a compelling and convincing re-evaluation of Africans and their descendants’ role in American life.”-John K. Thornton,author ofAfrica and Africans in the Formation of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680“Working the Diasporais a welcome contribution to the study of labor and culture under slavery. Spanning the colonial through the antebellum period, Knight argues that Africans brought much more than brute strength to their work in sugar, rice, tobacco and indigo fields. By carefully contextualizing his study of labor practices in the Americas in the African past, Knight offers a compelling argument for the crucial role of African knowledge in the building of staple crop agriculture in the Americas. In a study that is archivally deep and analytically rich, Knight significantly expands our understanding of the role of African expertise in the creation of the black Atlantic.”-Jennifer L. Morgan,author ofLaboring Women: Gender and Reproduction in New World Slavery