American Inheritance: Liberty and Slavery in the Birth of a Nation, 1765–1795

National Archives Museum
Online

Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Edward Larson discusses liberty and slavery in a deeply researched account, from the first anti-British protests in the 1760s to the Revolutionary War, the Constitutional Convention, and through George Washington’s Presidency. Larson delivers a comprehensive account of Black participation in the founding, from protesters and soldiers to commentators, including Phillis Wheatley, Benjamin Banneker, Harry Washington, Ona Judge, and Daniel Payne, a Black man formerly enslaved by George Washington who watched from a departing British ship in the New York harbor as Washington and his forces were welcomed to the city as liberators.