African Founders
How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals
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Narrated by:
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Lamarr Gulley
About this listen
In this sweeping, foundational work, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer draws on extensive research to show how enslaved Africans and their descendants enlarged American ideas of freedom in varying ways in different regions of the early United States.
African Founders explores the little-known history of how enslaved people from different regions of Africa interacted with colonists of European origins to create new regional cultures in the colonial United States. The Africans brought with them linguistic skills, novel techniques of animal husbandry and farming, and generations-old ethical principles, among other attributes. This startling history reveals how much our country was shaped by these African influences in its early years, producing a new distinctly American culture.
Drawing on decades of research, some of it in western Africa, Fischer recreates the diverse regional life that shaped the early American republic. He shows that there were varieties of slavery in America and varieties of new American culture, from Puritan New England to Dutch New York, Quaker Pennsylvania, cavalier Virginia, coastal Carolina, and Louisiana and Texas.
This landmark work of history will transform our understanding of America’s origins.
©2022 David Hackett Fischer. All rights reserved. (P)2022 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Upon its first publication, A Different Mirror was hailed by critics and academics everywhere as a dramatic new retelling of our nation's past. Beginning with the colonization of the New World, it recounts the history of America in the voice of the non-Anglo peoples of the United States---Native Americans, African Americans, Jews, Irish Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and others---groups who helped create this country's rich mosaic culture.
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All mirrors distort
- By Michael on 04-02-17
By: Ronald Takaki
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Inhuman Bondage
- The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World
- By: David Brion Davis
- Narrated by: Raymond Todd
- Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In Inhuman Bondage, David Brion Davis sums up a lifetime of insight. He looks at slavery in the American South; the rise of the Cotton Kingdom; the daily life of slaves; the destructive internal long-distance slave trade; the sexual exploitation of slaves; the emergence of an African-American culture; and much more. A definitive history by a writer deeply immersed in the subject, Inhuman Bondage links together the profits of slavery, the pain of the enslaved, and the legacy of racism.
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Very Useful Contribution
- By Biggar Thomas on 06-14-08
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Ebony and Ivy
- Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities
- By: Craig Steven Wilder
- Narrated by: Corey Allen
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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A 2006 report commissioned by Brown University revealed that institution's complex and contested involvement in slavery - setting off a controversy that leapt from the ivory tower to make headlines across the country. But Brown's troubling past was far from unique. In Ebony and Ivy, Craig Steven Wilder, a rising star in the profession of history, lays bare uncomfortable truths about race, slavery, and the American academy.
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Detailed chronicle of ed & Slavery's entwinement
- By Scott on 07-23-16
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Bound for Canaan
- The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement
- By: Fergus Bordewich
- Narrated by: Peter J. Fernandez
- Length: 19 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The Civil War brought to a climax the country's bitter division. But the beginnings of slavery's denouement can be traced to a courageous band of ordinary Americans, black and white, slave and free, who joined forces to create what would come to be known as the Underground Railroad, a movement that occupies as romantic a place in the nation's imagination as the Lewis and Clark expedition.
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The Heroic Missing Piece
- By Paul Frandano on 03-03-17
By: Fergus Bordewich
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New England Bound
- Slavery and Colonization in Early America
- By: Wendy Warren
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In a work that fundamentally recasts the history of colonial America, Wendy Warren shows how the institution of slavery was inexorably linked with the first century of English colonization of New England. While most histories of slavery in early America confine themselves to the Southern colonies and the Caribbean, New England Bound forcefully widens the historical aperture to include the entirety of English North America.
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Don't waste your time or money
- By Dis Carded on 09-03-17
By: Wendy Warren
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Toussaint Louverture
- A Revolutionary Life
- By: Philippe Girard
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Philippe Girard shows how Toussaint Louverture transformed himself from lowly freedman into revolutionary hero as the mastermind of the bloody slave revolt of 1791. By 1801, Louverture was governor of the colony where he had once been a slave. But his lifelong quest to be accepted as a member of the colonial elite ended in despair: he spent the last year of his life in a French prison cell. His example nevertheless inspired anticolonial and Black nationalist movements well into the 20th century.
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very powerful story
- By jim on 01-06-17
By: Philippe Girard
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Born in Blackness
- Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War
- By: Howard W. French
- Narrated by: James Fouhey
- Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Born in Blackness vitally reframes the story of medieval and emerging Africa, demonstrating how the economic ascendancy of Europe, the anchoring of democracy in the West, and the fulfillment of so-called Enlightenment ideals all grew out of Europe's dehumanizing engagement with the "dark" continent. In fact, French reveals, the first impetus for the Age of Discovery was not—as we are so often told, even today—Europe's yearning for ties with Asia, but rather its centuries-old desire to forge a trade in gold with legendarily rich Black societies in the heart of West Africa.
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American History World History Our History
- By Bill on 06-13-22
By: Howard W. French
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The Paradox of Jamestown
- 1585-1700
- By: Christopher Collier, James Lincoln Collier
- Narrated by: Jim Manchester
- Length: 1 hr and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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> The Paradox of Jamestown discusses the circumstances surrounding English colonization of Virginia and the evolution of slavery in that colony. Beginning with an examination of 16th- and 17th-century life in England, the authors explain many of the reasons - social, political, religious, and economic - people chose to leave the Old World for a new life in the Americas. They describe the early interactions between the settlers and the Indians, the difficulties those groups had in establishing cooperative relationships, and the many difficulties the settlers had in adjusting to life in the New World.
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poorly Accurate
- By Bertie on 12-02-20
By: Christopher Collier, and others
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The Amistad Rebellion
- An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom
- By: Marcus Rediker
- Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The slave ship Amistad set sail from Havana on July 2, 1839, on a routine delivery of human cargo. A few days into its voyage, the 53 African captives aboard would seize control and steer a new course - one that took them to freedom and ultimately into history. Though the Amistad rebellion has been celebrated in films and books, its story has largely been told through the eyes of white abolitionists, with the Supreme Court victory by the Africans as the ultimate triumph. Now, Marcus Rediker’s captivating new history turns the lens on the Africans themselves.
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This is a must read for anyone.
- By Laura on 07-24-21
By: Marcus Rediker
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American Uprising
- The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt
- By: Daniel Rasmussen
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In January 1811, five hundred slaves dressed in military uniforms and armed with guns, cane knives, and axes rose up from the plantations around New Orleans and set out to conquer the city. Ethnically diverse, politically astute, and highly organized, this self-made army challenged not only the economic system of plantation agriculture but also American expansion. Their march represented the largest act of armed resistance against slavery in the history of the United States.
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Nice try, but ...
- By Steve on 07-26-12
By: Daniel Rasmussen
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American Slavery, American Freedom
- By: Edmund S. Morgan
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 14 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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"If it is possible to understand the American paradox, the marriage of slavery and freedom, Virginia is surely the place to begin," writes Edmund S. Morgan in American Slavery, American Freedom, a study of the tragic contradiction at the core of America. Morgan finds the key to this central paradox in the people and politics of the state that was both the birthplace of the revolution and the largest slaveholding state in the country.
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Explaining the great American contradiction
- By Roger on 09-16-14
By: Edmund S. Morgan
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A fascinating overview of overlooked history
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Our History
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How to Hide an Empire
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We are familiar with maps that outline all 50 states. And we are also familiar with the idea that the United States is an "empire", exercising power around the world. But what about the actual territories - the islands, atolls, and archipelagos - this country has governed and inhabited? In How to Hide an Empire, author Daniel Immerwahr tells the fascinating story of the United States outside the United States. In crackling, fast-paced prose, he reveals forgotten episodes that cast American history in a new light.
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How to beat a straw man to death
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Before the Mayflower
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The black experience in America - starting from its origins in western Africa up to 1961 - is examined in this seminal study from a prominent African American figure. The entire historical timeline of African Americans is addressed, from the Colonial period through the civil rights upheavals of the late 1950s to 1961, the time of publication.
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Very informative, worth listening to thrice..
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American Nations
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North America was settled by people with distinct religious, political, and ethnographic characteristics, creating regional cultures that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants didn't confront or assimilate into an "American" or "Canadian" culture, but rather into one of the 11 distinct regional ones that spread over the continent each staking out mutually exclusive territory. In American Nations, Colin Woodard leads us on a journey through the history of our fractured continent....
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One of a Kind Masterpiece
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What listeners say about African Founders
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Agyaaku
- 12-09-23
Very dense and detailed book
A very long, dense and detailed book. As other books on slavery have highlighted, slavers were unique in their cruelty and brutality in their use of African bodies for profit. Under such bondage, it’s remarkable how often slaves fought for freedom and how resilient they were and succeeded in adding to the rich culture of this country.
The delivery takes getting used to, after which it becomes totally enjoyable. A monumental story telling, well researched and lucidly written.
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- tcjazz
- 05-20-24
Richness Of the history
New information I was not aware of told in an interesting and engaging narrative which was fascinating
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- Neuroscientist
- 03-06-23
Important book, flawed recording
The book covers how people from Africa influenced American history and culture. The author covers some of the horrors of slavery and many of the deep injustices, to put it mildly.
The weak point is the narration and recording. The narrator goes from excellent to jarring with his frequent accenting of random words. Without that, the narration would be really good. Also, the recording isn’t great due to obvious quality shifts in re-recording parts of the book. They are distracting.
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- Dewcodered2
- 01-09-23
it's American history
this was a really good book it covers all the different regions of slavery very good history listen
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- Lost & Found
- 07-29-22
Eye-opening companion to Albion's Seed
It's not that you must have read Fischer's earlier book, Albion's Seed, on the several English migrations to enjoy and appreciate this book, but I think it helps. As Fischer moves through the distinctive forms that slavery (and resistance to it) took in the various colonies, the interplay of cultures is as important as the particular persons, providing possibilities for action in one place that simply aren't found in another. The earlier book's rich descriptions help us understand the English side of these encounters, and to expect a similar variety on the African side.
But even without them, this book is full of stories and characters, accompanied by careful accounting for developments in custom and law, emancipation and education. We learn from what parts of the continent, and which of its peoples, the American colonies tended to receive Africans, in what numbers and under what conditions. We get a taste, and want to learn more, of how particular peoples were perceived, how they shaped not only their own life in bondage and into freedom, but how they affected those with whose position and power they had to reckon. Fischer's dispassionate portrayal of the cruelties of slavery makes all the more remarkable the impact and influence of these Africans on their new home.
A book that features speakers (not just names) from language groups both European and African demands much of the audiobook narrator. I greatly appreciated Lamarr Gulley's effort to give expression to the cultural and linguistic diversity of that world by rendering quotations in distinctive voices and accents. That, together with a voice that is both rich and clear, more than made up for a delivery whose cadence took a little getting used to.
Grateful to both author and narrator for this piece of our history.
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- Scott
- 07-23-22
Insightful history, long time coming
Such an insightful treatise on the origins, roles, and genuine influences of Africans on American culture. I was taken by how clearly their local African origins have uniquely affected each American region in special ways. I walked away with an important new appreciation for the vast influence of a culture that broke through enslavement while simultaneously affecting the entire world..
This is a good companion piece to Fischer’s equally thorough history of British influence in America, Albion’s Seed.
Sadly, this book deserved a much better audio experience. For my ears ears, the reader simply doesn’t have the right cadence and presentation for this material. I found myself actively listening beyond his presentation to enjoy the writing. Also, the audio engineering on this recording is puzzling. The quality sways over and over between a smooth, even sound, to sections of distracting, louder volume with distortion. In all a disappointing technical and talent audio effort.
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3 people found this helpful
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- KWK
- 08-05-22
Wow!
This is an expansive scholarly work offering in depth, well researched insights and perspectives. An invaluable addition to Black history literature. Narrator is great, especially when rendering direct quotes.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-23-22
African Founders - an outstanding narrative
A well researched and narrated book on the fundamental facts on the story of America. This needs to be a required reading in all primary schools in the US, and for that mater - the general public .
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- C. E. Fisher
- 11-21-22
A must read for all Americans
Most of us truly don’t have ant idea how much we’ve gained from the Africans whir cake to us via enslavement. This incredible and comprehensive book provides this much needed education and understanding. Bravo !
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- T-D. González
- 08-10-23
Horrible Narration RUINED this Most Important Historical Work
Audible has done a HORRIBLE DISSERVICE to this essential work of American History! This atrocity merits a complete re-do. The narrator’s weird intonation, poor phrasing, terrible “accents”, and mispronunciation of names and common foreign words, was so distracting that he ruined the entire experience. What a disappointment! This is such an important work, and should have been treated more respectfully (as was done with Albion’s Seed by the same author). Audible and the narrator FAILED THIS BOOK AND LISTENERS.
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3 people found this helpful