The slave revolt on the ship Amistad in 1839 was a crucial event in the early abolitionist movement in the United States. When the vessel arrived in America, a fierce debate began about whether the Africans were free or enslaved and whether they should be allowed to return to Africa. The argument became a legal battle that eventually ended up in the US Supreme Court, with former president John Quincy Adams representing the Africans. This remarkable...

Studies the 1839 slave revolt known as the Amistad mutiny in which a group of Africans, led by Joseph Cinque, overpowered their Spanish captors in the Caribbean, and after sailing into American waters were apprehended by a naval vessel, tried before the U.S. Supreme Court, and allowed to return to Africa.

In a blind rage, King James, ex-slave and now Marlowe's comrade in arms, slaughters the crew of a slave ship and makes himself the most wanted man in Virginia. The governor gives Marlowe a choice: Hunt James down and bring him back to hang or lose everything Marlowe has built for himself and his wife, Elizabeth. Marlowe sets out in pursuit of the ex-slave turned pirate, struggling to maintain control over his crew -- rough privateers who care only...

The 1791 revolt against the French in Haiti through the eyes of the parties in the conflict: mulattos, blacks and whites. The protagonists include its tragic leader, the aristocratic Toussaint L'Ouverture who refused to declare independence from France. A tale of burning plantations, massacres and Byzantine politics.

In the three centuries following Columbus's landfall in the Americas, slavery became a critical institution across swathes of both North and South America. It saw twelve million Africans forced onto slave ships, and had seismic consequences for Africa while leading to the transformation of the Americas and to the material enrichment of the Western world. It was also largely unquestioned. Yet within a mere seventy-five years, slavery had vanished from...

A novel on an African-American hero. In 1839 Joseph Cinque, also known as Singbe, leads a rising of African slaves on a Spanish slave ship. They kill most of the crew and order the navigator to steer for Africa, but he steers in the opposite direction and they are captured by the Americans. Abolitionists take up their cause, the Supreme Court rules they are free men and Cinque returns home covered in glory. A first novel.

Riley, dead at age twelve and now a Soul Catcher, works with her teacher Bodhi to help Rebecca, the daughter of a former plantation owner who, furious about being murdered during a 1733 slave revolt, is keeping those who died with her from crossing over.