Marjoleine Kars, "Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast" (New Press, 2020)

New Books in African American Studies · Dec 29, 2020 · 44m

In Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast (New Press, 2020), historian Marjoleine Kars tells the story of a massive eighteenth-century slave rebellion in the Dutch colony of Berbice (in present-day Guyana). Drawing on some nine hundred pages of interrogation transcripts and letters that provide rare first person accounts from enslaved African-born rebels, Kars chronicles how nearly 5,000 of the total enslaved population held onto Berbice for over a year holding onto 135 plantations. Sorting through the competing political visions of the various African-born…