Overview

An Amazon Best History Title of the Month A revelatory history of enslaved people's resistance and self-emancipation, across the Atlantic world and beyond. In the 1720s, the West African chief Tomba was abducted for organizing the local resistance against slave raiders and imprisoned on a British ship, where he promptly led a revolt using a smuggled hammer. In the early nineteenth century, a pregnant woman named Solitude rallied laborers and soldiers to resist Napoleon's efforts to reimpose slavery on Guadeloupe. A few decades later, Frederick Douglass fashioned his own template for self-emancipation. In Daring to Be Free, the acclaimed historian Sudhir Hazareesingh recasts the story of slavery's end by showing that the enslaved themselves were at the center of the action--their voices, their resistance, and their extraordinary fight for freedom. Throughout, Daring to Be Free portrays the struggle for liberation from the perspective of the enslaved and, wherever possible, in their own words. It highlights the power of collective action, stressing the role of maroon communities, conspiracies, insurrections, and spiritual movements, from Haiti and Brazil to Cuba, Mauritius, and the American South. These acts of resistance involved entire communities, with women often at the heart of the story as warriors, organizers, and agents of radical change. Employing written archives and oral history, Daring to Be Free shows how the struggle for freedom was shaped less by Western Enlightenment or Christian ideals than by the enslaved's own spiritual, martial, and cultural resources. Emancipation wasn't handed down by benevolent reformers--it was seized, again and again, by those who demanded freedom. This vital, eye-opening history reclaims abolition for those who fought to liberate themselves.

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9780374611071

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Reviews

""Ambitious . . . A new intellectual and political perspective on the emergence of freedom in the modern world. A generation ago, foundational works on the history of antislavery movements tended to focus on political thinkers and prominent abolitionists, figures who left ample written records behind. But over the past several decades, scholars have made headway in piecing together the ideas and actions of resistance leaders . . . Daring to Be Free synthesize[s] this growing body of scholarship to offer detailed accounts that stretch from the fifteenth century, when enslaved people from West Africa were first imported to Iberia, through the abolition of slavery in the United States, Cuba, and Brazil in the late nineteenth century."" --Laurent Dubois, The Atlantic ""Through the mining of elusive and fragmentary sources in what feels like a masterclass in literary archaeology, Daring to Be Free restores agency to the rebels and fighters who take up their position front and centre in his bristling narrative . . . dizzying in its intensity . . . One of Hazareesingh's main objectives in Daring to Be Free was to 'recover and foreground' the voices and perspectives of Black resistance. In this rich, powerful, and groundbreaking history of defiance and rebellion, he has admirably succeeded."" --Justin Marozzi, Financial Times ""A sweeping history of black resistance . . . Studded with novelistic vignettes of insurrection, [Daring to Be Free] doubles as a brisk history of Atlantic slavery . . . Hazareesingh's book succeeds on the strength of its remarkable cache of evidence. One is struck by the sheer crassness of slavery's apologists."" --Pratinav Anil, The Times (London) ""Absorbing and often revelatory . . . Daring to Be Free [is] a marvel of historical analysis and research."" --Ian Thomson, New Statesman ""A compelling history of enslaved people fiercely and collaboratively seizing freedom with their own hands . . . A bracing and necessary historical corrective."" --Booklist (starred review) ""Wide-ranging . . . A much-needed and sure-to-be-influential addition to the literature of African enslavement."" --Kirkus Reviews ""[A] stunning revisionist saga . . . [Daring to Be Free] is a remarkable reorientation of the history of the modern world."" --Publishers Weekly (starred review) ""Daring to Be Free is a sweeping history of the rebellions, escapes, and everyday acts of defiance by enslaved Africans and their descendants across the Atlantic world. From African battlefields and maroon strongholds to the Haitian Revolution and spiritual resistance, Sudhir Hazareesingh restores the voices and strategies of those who fought relentlessly for autonomy, dignity, and liberation. Drawing on rich archival and oral sources, he reframes abolition as the achievement of the enslaved themselves--a centuries-long struggle driven by courage, solidarity, and an unyielding will to be free."" --Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University ""Daring to Be Free is a powerful history of centuries of refusal and political imagination. Sudhir Hazareesingh weaves together eloquent reinterpretations of famous revolts and a multitude of lesser-known, revelatory examples of resistance across the Atlantic world. He opens our eyes to the communities and worlds of the enslaved and invites us to craft a different future built on these unfinished struggles for true freedom."" --Laurent Dubois, author of Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution ""Sudhir Hazareesingh has written a magnificent history of abolition and enslaved resistance, one that takes readers across the continent of Africa, to the islands of the Caribbean, and to the northern and southern American hemispheres. Daring to Be Free proves beyond a doubt that the first abolitionists were enslaved and captive Africans themselves. Whether before or after being forcibly transported to the Americas, Black freedom fighters used their spirituality, intellectual prowess, military tactics, and networks of kinship, and the sheer force of will they never relinquished, to resist and destroy chattel slavery. No other synthesis of transatlantic slavery's ultimate destruction can match this one in terms of the period and geographical locales covered, the number and quality of sources, or, most importantly, the author's determination to highlight the agency and ingenuity of the enslaved people."" --Marlene L. Daut, author of The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe

""Ambitious . . . A new intellectual and political perspective on the emergence of freedom in the modern world. A generation ago, foundational works on the history of antislavery movements tended to focus on political thinkers and prominent abolitionists, figures who left ample written records behind. But over the past several decades, scholars have made headway in piecing together the ideas and actions of resistance leaders . . . Daring to Be Free synthesize[s] this growing body of scholarship to offer detailed accounts that stretch from the fifteenth century, when enslaved people from West Africa were first imported to Iberia, through the abolition of slavery in the United States, Cuba, and Brazil in the late nineteenth century."" --Laurent Dubois, The Atlantic ""Impressive . . . [a] measured and nuanced account of African resistance . . .[Daring to be Free] show[s] how enslaved people exerted pressure against slaveholders, militias and the political leaders who sought to perpetuate systems of forced labor."" --Amanda Brickell Bellows, The Wall Street Journal ""Through the mining of elusive and fragmentary sources in what feels like a masterclass in literary archaeology, Daring to Be Free restores agency to the rebels and fighters who take up their position front and centre in his bristling narrative . . . dizzying in its intensity . . . One of Hazareesingh's main objectives in Daring to Be Free was to 'recover and foreground' the voices and perspectives of Black resistance. In this rich, powerful, and groundbreaking history of defiance and rebellion, he has admirably succeeded."" --Justin Marozzi, Financial Times ""A sweeping history of black resistance . . . Studded with novelistic vignettes of insurrection, [Daring to Be Free] doubles as a brisk history of Atlantic slavery . . . Hazareesingh's book succeeds on the strength of its remarkable cache of evidence. One is struck by the sheer crassness of slavery's apologists."" --Pratinav Anil, The Times (London) ""Absorbing and often revelatory . . . Daring to Be Free [is] a marvel of historical analysis and research."" --Ian Thomson, New Statesman ""A compelling history of enslaved people fiercely and collaboratively seizing freedom with their own hands . . . A bracing and necessary historical corrective."" --Booklist (starred review) ""Wide-ranging . . . A much-needed and sure-to-be-influential addition to the literature of African enslavement."" --Kirkus Reviews ""[A] stunning revisionist saga . . . [Daring to Be Free] is a remarkable reorientation of the history of the modern world."" --Publishers Weekly (starred review) ""Daring to Be Free is a sweeping history of the rebellions, escapes, and everyday acts of defiance by enslaved Africans and their descendants across the Atlantic world. From African battlefields and maroon strongholds to the Haitian Revolution and spiritual resistance, Sudhir Hazareesingh restores the voices and strategies of those who fought relentlessly for autonomy, dignity, and liberation. Drawing on rich archival and oral sources, he reframes abolition as the achievement of the enslaved themselves--a centuries-long struggle driven by courage, solidarity, and an unyielding will to be free."" --Henry Louis Gates Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard University ""Daring to Be Free is a powerful history of centuries of refusal and political imagination. Sudhir Hazareesingh weaves together eloquent reinterpretations of famous revolts and a multitude of lesser-known, revelatory examples of resistance across the Atlantic world. He opens our eyes to the communities and worlds of the enslaved and invites us to craft a different future built on these unfinished struggles for true freedom."" --Laurent Dubois, author of Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution ""Sudhir Hazareesingh has written a magnificent history of abolition and enslaved resistance, one that takes readers across the continent of Africa, to the islands of the Caribbean, and to the northern and southern American hemispheres. Daring to Be Free proves beyond a doubt that the first abolitionists were enslaved and captive Africans themselves. Whether before or after being forcibly transported to the Americas, Black freedom fighters used their spirituality, intellectual prowess, military tactics, and networks of kinship, and the sheer force of will they never relinquished, to resist and destroy chattel slavery. No other synthesis of transatlantic slavery's ultimate destruction can match this one in terms of the period and geographical locales covered, the number and quality of sources, or, most importantly, the author's determination to highlight the agency and ingenuity of the enslaved people."" --Marlene L. Daut, author of The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe

Author Information

Sudhir Hazareesingh was born in Mauritius. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and has been a fellow and tutor in politics at Balliol College, Oxford, since 1990. His books include The Legend of Napoleon, In the Shadow of the General, How the French Think, and Black Spartacus (winner of the Wolfson History Prize and the American Library in Paris Book Award). In 2020, he became a Grand Commander of the Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean, the highest honor of the Republic of Mauritius.

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