Where: Perkins Library, Rare Book Room
When: Friday, April 1, 4 PM
Many
Americans are familiar with the slave revolts led by John Brown and Nat
Turner. But the story of the greatest act of slave resistance in
American history has never been told, until now.
In his New York Times best-selling book,
American Uprising: The Untold Story of America’s Largest Slave Revolt (Harper, 2011), twenty-four-year-old author
Daniel Rasmussen
recounts the heroic and horrific events that took place in New Orleans
in January 1811. Of 500 armed slaves, more than 100 were killed by
federal troops and French planters, after which news of the incident was
suppressed. Rasmussen’s extensive original research into the uprising
considers the political, economic, and cultural elements surrounding the
event and its aftermath.
Based on the author’s Harvard thesis, which won three separate awards and caught the attention of scholars across the country,
American Uprising
employs extensive original research to provide a multi-dimensional
portrait of the American South just a few years after the Louisiana
Purchase.
Reception to follow. Copies of the book will be available for sale. This event is free and open to the public.
About the Author:
Daniel Rasmussen graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from
Harvard University in 2009, winning the Kathryn Ann Huggins Prize, the
Perry Miller Prize, and the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize. For more
information,
visit his website.
Sponsored by Duke University Libraries, the
Franklin Humanities Institute, the
Department of History, and
African and African American Studies.