Reviews

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"groundbreaking" - Herald News "Rivers posted over hundreds of plantation records, newspapers, census data, wills, interviews with ex-slaves and slave owners' letters and diaries. The resulting synthesis is a heroic work, refreshingly free of theoretical dogma, that fairly explains how black men and women lived, labored and loved under the fierce weight of bondage in antebellum Florida." - Herald News
--Herald News

"Rivers does an admirable job at offering generalizations without losing sight of variation and particularity. Slavery in Florida is at its strongest, however, when Rivers addresses how Florida's history and geography produced conditions unlike those elsewhere in the American South." "We now have a more thorough understanding of the experiences and history with which Florida's freedpeople confronted emancipation." - Journal of Southern History
--Journal of Southern History

"Rivers's deeply researched and gracefully written book is the most comprehensive history of the "peculiar institution" in Florida available. Rivers's work is a model state study and deserves wide readership. For all college and university collections." -Choice
--Choice

"A fascinating account of a variant experience of an institution too often viewed from a single perspective."--Booklist
--Booklist

"A much needed work, one with permanent value and significance. A work totally void of stereotypes, one that honestly and carefully gives meaning to a human experience of profound significance to blacks and whites. At last Florida has a work on slavery that compares favorably with that of any other Southern state, and, equally important, it will stand for many years as the standard work on the subject." -Tallahassee Democrat
--Tallahassee Democrat

"a fascinating account of the emergence of the AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church in Florida." - Journal of American History
--Journal of American History

"This book is superb. It will be a valuable research tool for teachers, students, journalists and others. Slavery in Florida should be placed in every school and public library around the state." -The Stuart News
--Stuart News

"Rivers enlivens this monograph with anecdotes and has a deft way with them that allows readers to turn evidence to their own analytical purposes. This book deserves an audience among scholars who teach slavery and anyone interested in Florida history." - Civil War History
--Civil War History

"A thoughtful, balanced examination of slavery in Florida. A heroic work, refreshingly free of theoretical dogma, that fairly explains how black men and woman lived, labored and loved under the fierce weight of bondage in antebellum Florida. "- Rick Brunson, Orlando Sentinel
--Advocate- Baton Rouge, LA

"Is a heroic work, refreshingly free of theoretical dogma, that fairly explains how black men and women lived, labored and loved under the fierce weight of bondage in antebellum Florida." -Orlando Sentinel
--Orlando Sentinel

"A well researched and much needed addition to the history of the state and the history of the institution of slavery. Slavery in Florida is a necessary read for anyone attempting to understand the history and development of the state."- Southern Historian
--Southern Historian

"This book is a significant contribution to the literature on antebellum slavery and fills a major gap in published Florida history." - Forum
--Forum

"A thoroughly researched and balanced account of the slave experience in Florida. It is certainly a worthwhile addition to the list of state level studies of the peculiar institution." - The Journal of American History
--Journal of American History

"He has admirably given a voice to Florida's enslaved men and women and put Florida slavery on the map of the history of the 'Old South.' Readable social history that is sure to appeal to local historians as well as to historians of the Deep South, where there are many ready comparisons within the slave experience to be made. Instructors could make good use of may of the chapters in their undergraduate classes. Rivers has produces a valuable study that. Along with Jane Landers' Black Society in Spanish Florida(1999) effectively fills a large gap in the existing historiography of slavery." Georgia Historical Quarterly
--Georgia Historical Quarterly

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