The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832
Escape from slavery in the antebellum South evokes images of secretive flight on the Underground Railroad or bizarre efforts like that of “Box Brown,” who hid in a small shipping crate sent north. Taylor, a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, teaches at the University of California, Davis. In this revealing and engrossing study, he illustrates that a great factor in the liberation of thousands of slaves was the policy and intervention of the British government and military. Taylor concentrates on the six decades between the American Revolution and the slave revolt of Nat Turner, and he focuses on the Chesapeake region of Virginia. The area is dotted with numerous rivers flowing to the bay, and here hundreds of slaves paddled out to British warships, especially during the War of 1812. British naval officers, through a combination of military practicality and, in some cases, antislavery sentiments, encouraged and facilitated their flight. This, of course, served to reinforce the slaveholders to view their slaves as “internal enemies.” This is a well-written and scrupulously researched examination of an important aspect of the struggle against American slavery. --Jay Freeman