Had Durnford done no more than build a sugar plantation out of the wilderness with black slave labor, his accounts would be valuable, but he also practiced medicine, recounting his experiences in a journal and in letters to McDonogh. The Durnford volume offers singular accounts of American life and labor in the first half of the nineteenth century. Had he been white, the narrative would be of inestimable value, but because Durnford was black, free, and a medical practitioner, his life stands as a rare example of a man and a culture adjusting to peculiar social orders.

This biographical reference work looks specifically at the lives, works and careers of those individuals involved in civil engineering whose careers began before 1830.

In an exploration of the oceanic connections of the Atlantic world, Michael J. Jarvis recovers a mariner's view of early America as seen through the eyes of Bermuda's seafarers. The first social history of eighteenth-century Bermuda, this book profiles how one especially intensive maritime community capitalized on its position "in the eye of all trade." Jarvis takes readers aboard small Bermudian sloops and follows white and enslaved sailors as they shuttled cargoes between ports, raked salt, harvested timber, salvaged shipwrecks, hunted whales, captured prizes, and smuggled contraband in an expansive maritime sphere spanning Great Britain's North American and Caribbean colonies. In doing so, he shows how humble sailors and seafaring slaves operating small family-owned vessels were significant but underappreciated agents of Atlantic integration. The American Revolution starkly revealed the extent of British America's integration before 1775 as it shattered interregional links that Bermudians had helped to forge. Reliant on North America for food and customers, Bermudians faced disaster at the conflict's start. A bold act of treason enabled islanders to continue trade with their rebellious neighbors and helped them to survive and even prosper in an Atlantic world at war. Ultimately, however, the creation of the United States ended Bermuda's economic independence and doomed the island's maritime economy.

It has been 140 years since the Battle of Isandhlwana, on 22nd January 1879, when up to 20,000 Zulu Warriors, attacked Regiments of Queen Victoria's Army, killing them all. A career soldier with the Royal Engineers, Colonel Anthony William Durnford was blamed for the disaster by General Chelmsford. He became the General's scapegoat. Much has been written about him over the years, but little has been written of the events peculiar to his life. It takes family to understand their ancestor's characteristics, strengths, weaknesses, qualities, traits and behaviours. His brother wrote a memoir "A Soldier's Life and work in South Africa" 1872 - 1879, which included research to disprove the General's claims. Edward was to write an update in 1886, but didn't, as he was pressured. Anthony Durnford had two families, his ancestral one, which we share, and his military one. Both had one thing in common, to prove that he did "follow orders". His brother investigated and in, 1882 published his findings. The Royal Engineers also investigated and amassed a huge file of evidence, never before seen by the public. The Royal Engineers Evidence file, comprising over 300 pages of fact, has lain hidden from public view, in the drawers of the Royal Engineers Library since 1932. It rebukes much "confirmation bias" of currently held perceptions. This file has been fully transcribed, placed in logical context, and additional research included from the Royal Archives, the National Army Museum and archives in South Africa. "Durnford 1879" comprises 2 volumes and is an extension of Colonel Edward Durnford's research. It could perhaps be described as a Military Mystery, created as a result of Genealogical research and Military History colliding. A story which would not be told, had it been for a series of "mistakes".

For decades, scholars have conceived of the coastal city of New Orleans as a remarkable outlier, an exception to nearly every “rule” of accepted U.S. historiography. A frontier town of the circum-Caribbean, the popular image of New Orleans has remained a vestige of North America’s European colonial era rather than an Atlantic city on the southern coast of the United States. Beginning with the French founding of New Orleans in 1718 and concluding with the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, An American Color seeks to correct this vision. By tracing the impact of racial science, law, and personal reputation and identity through multiple colonial and territorial regimes, it shows how locally born mulâtres in French New Orleans became part of a self-conscious, identifiable community of Creoles of color in the United States. An American Color places this local history in the wider context of the North American continent and the Atlantic world. This book shows that New Orleans and its free population of color did not develop in a cultural, legal, or intellectual vacuum. More than just a study of race and law, this work tells a story of humanity in the Atlantic world, a story of how a people on the French colonial frontier in the mid-eighteenth century became unlikely, accepted parts of a vast political, social, and racial United States without ever leaving home.

Who are the Creoles? The answer is not clear-cut. Of European, African, or Caribbean mixed descent, they are a people of color and Francophone dialect native to south Louisiana; and though their history dates from the late 1600s, they have been sorely neglected in the literature. Creole is a project that both defines and celebrates this ethnic identity. In fifteen essays, writers intimately involved with their subject explore the vibrant yet understudied culture of the Creole people across time—their language, literature, religion, art, food, music, folklore, professions, customs, and social barriers.

For as long as there have been blacks in the Americas, there have been African-American entrepreneurs.

A comprehensive, contextual presentation of all aspects—social, political, and economic—of slavery in the United States, from the first colonization through Reconstruction. For 250 years, slavery was part of the fabric of American life. The institution had an enormous economic impact and was central to the wealth of the agrarian South. It had as great an impact on American culture, cementing racism and other attitudes that echo into the present. This encyclopedia is an ambitious examination of all the issues surrounding slavery: the origins, the justifications, the controversies, and the human drama. These volumes represent the work of 75 distinguished scholars from around the world. Ten thematic essays present a thorough examination of slavery and slave culture, including a rare treatment of slavery from the slave's point of view. Three hundred A–Z entries provide instant access to specific people, issues, and events. Today, slavery's immorality seems obvious. This encyclopedia provides the student or general reader with an in-depth explanation of how the practice evolved and was normalized, then anathematized and abolished.