Daring to be Free

[An] absorbing and revelatory history of black resistance to the transatlantic trade … a marvel of historical analysis and research. Hazareesingh maintains that Enlightenment ideals alone did not abolish slavery, and shifts the focus away from Christian abolitionists who often derided African culture to the agency of Afro-Atlantic insurgents and conspirators. [He] emphasises the role played by women as disruptors and warrior figures in the cause of freedom – Ian Thomson * New Statesman *A sweeping history of black resistance from 1500 to 1900 … Studded with novelistic vignettes of insurrection, it doubles as a brisk history of Atlantic slavery. Hazareesingh writes with a wry lucidity, [showing how] enslaved men and women fought their bondage long before enlightened philosophes in Parisian salons decried it … [the book is] enlivened with colloquialisms [and] succeeds on the strength of its remarkable cache of evidence – Pratinav Anil * The Times *This stunning revisionist saga [is] a remarkable reorientation of the history of the modern world * Publishers Weekly *Hazareesingh rips away the screen of white saviorism to reveal a compelling history of enslaved people fiercely and collaboratively seizing freedom with their own hands – Lesley Williams * Booklist *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, Harvard UniversityA much-needed and sure-to-be-influential addition to the literature of African enslavement * Kirkus Reviews *Daring to Be Free is a sweeping, powerful history of centuries of refusal and political imagination. Hazareesingh weaves together eloquent re-interpretations of famous revolts with a multitude of lesser-known, and revelatory, examples of resistance across the Atlantic World. He opens our eyes to the communities and worlds created by the enslaved, inviting us to craft a different future built on these unfinished struggles for true freedomA truly sweeping and magnificent history of abolition and enslaved resistance … Daring to Be Free proves without doubt that the first abolitionists were enslaved and captive Africans themselves. No other synthesis of transatlantic slavery’s ultimate destruction can match this one in terms of the period and geographical locales covered or the number and quality of sources, but more importantly, in terms of the author’s determination to highlight the agency and ingenuity of the enslaved people who, bracing every obstacle, ultimately brought the system of slavery to a grinding standstillquietly devastating … Daring to Be Free is a powerful corrective to [the] white saviour myth. Drawing on previously neglected memoirs, interviews and oral traditions, its central argument is that enslaved people did not need western Enlightenment ideals to understand their predicament. Instead Hazareesingh details how resistance began in Africa itself with village militias, continued via slave ship mutinies and remained a constant threat on plantations from Barbados to Guadeloupe. * Irish Times *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 [this] bristling narrative. The geographical scope is as wide as the historical examination across four centuries, the focus extending from Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba and Brazil to the US, Mauritius and swaths of West and sub-Saharan Africa. Women, traditionally eclipsed in such histories, come to the fore as warriors, rebels and revolutionaries. [This is] a rich, powerful and groundbreaking history – Justin Marozzi * Financial Times *

Sudhir Hazareesingh was born in Mauritius. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Balliol College, Oxford. His books include The Legend of Napoleon (winner of the Prix du Memorial d’Ajaccio and the Prix de la Fondation Napoleon), In the Shadow of the General (winner of the Prix d’Histoire du Senat), How the French Think (winner of the Grand Prix du Livre d’Idees), and Black Spartacus (winner of the Wolfson History Prize and the American Library in Paris Award). In 2020, he became a Grand Commander of the Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean (G.C.S.K.), the highest honour of the Republic of Mauritius.

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