First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This unique social history, focusing on a single community in eastern New jersey, addresses many long-held assumptions about slavery and emancipation outside the plantation South.

Amongst other things, this book is a devastating critique of Thomas Jefferson's Notes on the State of Virginia, in which he mused about black inferiority. Its publication in 1810, after Jefferson's opposition to its appearance, was a major event for African Americans.