Black Majority: Race, Rice, and Rebellion in South Carolina, 1670-1740

This landmark work, first published in 1974, revealed a crucial hidden chapter in early American history. Half a century later, Black Majority remains more relevant and enlightening than ever. This brilliant book-deeply researched and newly updated-chronicles South Carolina's crucial formative years. It explains how West African familiarity with rice culture determined the colony's economy and how a captive labor force, skilled but enslaved, shaped its own distinctive language and culture. Wood underscores the involvement of Blacks in the early frontier, the rise of forced migration from Africa, and the challenges of escaping bondage. And he shows how Black resistance culminated in the Stono Rebellion of 1739-the largest slave revolt in colonial North America. That dramatic uprising proved an early turning point in southern and African American history.

This revised and timely 50th-anniversary edition includes a new foreword by award-winning historian Imani Perry, for whom Black Majority was a pivotal inspiration.