Complicated Lives

Free Blacks in Virginia, 1619-1865

De: Sherri L. Burr

Narrado por: Sherri Burr

Would the United States have developed differently if Virginia had not passed a law in 1670 proclaiming all subsequently arriving Africans as servants for life, or slaves? What if the state had not stripped all free blacks and Indians of voting rights in 1723 or outlawed interracial sex for 337 years?

Complicated Lives upends the pervasive belief that all Africans landing on the shores of Virginia, beginning in late August 1619, became slaves. In reality, many of these kidnapped victims received the status of indentured servants. Indeed, hundreds of thousands of free African Americans in the South and North owned property, created businesses, and engaged in public service.

Complicated Lives further explores the lives of free blacks through the lens of the author’s ancestors and other free blacks who lived this history, including those who served in the integrated troops commanded by George Washington during the Revolutionary War.

©2019 Sherri Burr (P)2020 Sherri Burr

Very interesting

By following the history of free Black people in the Americas, Sherri Burr presents, an interesting and unique telling the story of American history. It is sad that that this history is one of continuing restrictions and worsening lives on black peoples, both enslaved and free.