By the time of the Civil War, Thomas L. Webber shows, American slaves had created for themselves a new and separate culture, combining elements of their African past and their experiences under slavery in the South. How they were able to educate themselves and their children is the story of this book, told in many cases in the words of the slaves themselves. In the following pages, Simmons combines a narrative introduction to early American history with the findings of recent scholarship. As general synthesis is bound to reflect recent scholarship as well as the interests of the author, some of the areas of early American life which seemed to Simmons of particular importance but which are only now being systematically treated are only briefly mentioned. Early American law and legal institutions; crime and punishment; treatment of the poor; and aspects of family life, of wealth distribution, and of social structure may be referred to. Simmons notes that this book was begun and written without any bicentennial expectations, and that it is published in 1976 as the result of chance, not of design.
