Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Winner of the Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner of the Elsa Goveia Book Prize Winner of the James A. Rawley Prize in the History of Race Relations Winner of the P. Sterling Stuckey Book Prize Winner of the Harriet Tubman Prize Winner of the Phillis Wheatley Book Award Finalist for the Cundill Prize “Brilliant…groundbreaking…Brown’s profound analysis and revolutionary vision of the Age of Slave War―from the too-often overlooked Tacky’s Revolt to the better-known Haitian Revolution―gives us an original view of the birth of modern freedom in the New World.” ―Cornel West “Not only a story of the insurrection, but ‘a martial geography of Atlantic slavery,’ vividly demonstrating how warfare shaped every aspect of bondage…Forty years after Tacky’s defeat, new arrivals from Africa were still hearing about the daring rebels who upended the island.” ― Harper’s “A sobering read for contemporary audiences in countries engaged in forever wars…It is also a useful reminder that the distinction between victory and defeat, when it comes to insurgencies, is often fleeting: Tacky may have lost his battle, but the enslaved did eventually win the war.” ― New Yorker In the second half of the eighteenth century, as European imperial conflicts extended their domain, warring African factions fed their captives to the transatlantic slave trade while masters struggled to keep their restive slaves under the yoke. In this contentious atmosphere, a movement of enslaved West Africans in Jamaica organized to throw off that yoke by violence. Their uprising―which became known as Tacky’s Revolt―featured a style of fighting increasingly familiar today: scattered militias opposing great powers, with fighters hard to distinguish from noncombatants. Even after it was put down, the insurgency rumbled throughout the British Empire at a time when slavery seemed the dependable bedrock of its dominion. That certitude would never be the same, nor would the views of black lives, which came to inspire both more fear and more sympathy than before. Tracing the roots, routes, and reverberations of this event, Tacky’s Revolt expands our understanding of the relationship between European, African, and American history as it speaks to our understanding of wars of terror today. “Brilliant…groundbreaking…Brown’s profound analysis and revolutionary vision of the Age of Slave War―from the too-often overlooked Tacky’s Revolt to the better-known Haitian Revolution―gives us an original view of the birth of modern freedom in the New World.” ― Cornel West “Brown’s brilliant analysis reveals how slave rebellions across the Americas depended upon experienced combatants captured in African conflicts and then sold to Europeans, refuting the canard that slave traders gathered their victims randomly. While tracing the relationships between African warfare and uprisings in the Americas, Brown offers beautifully written portraits of those who survived the crushing forces of colonial imperialism and fought for freedom. Above all else, this astute and comprehensive book is about agency .” ― Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “A sobering read for contemporary audiences in countries engaged in forever wars, reminding us how easily and arbitrarily the edges of empire, and its evils, can fade from or focus our vision. It is also a useful reminder that the distinction between victory and defeat, when it comes to insurgencies, is often fleeting: Tacky may have lost his battle, but the enslaved did eventually win the war.” ― Casey Cep , New Yorker “Brown derives not only a story of the insurrection, but ‘a martial geography of Atlantic slavery,’ vividly demonstrating how warfare shaped every aspect of bondage…Forty years after Tacky’s defeat, new arrivals from Africa were still hearing about the daring rebels who upended the island.” ― Julian Lucas , Harper’s “Outstanding…Brown has produced one of the best treatments of slavery ever written.” ― Steve Hahn , Boston Review “A powerful account of the slave rebellion that took place in Jamaica in 1760 situates it in the context of an era of conflict and argues that slavery was itself a ‘state of war.’” ― The Guardian “A phenomenally insightful and compelling book on both the brutality of British colonialism and the desire for freedom.” ― Brad Evans , Los Angeles Review of Books “Virtuosic…A revelation, and a true heir to The Black Jacobins and The Common Wind …Through prodigious and imaginative work with the archives, or, rather, with their absences―namely, of the voices of the enslaved―Brown shows that, although slavers tried to unmoor the enslaved from their homes and communities, language and culture, and sense of self, the connections between various African communities and the diaspora endured despite the violence of the plantation regime.” ― Laleh Khalili , New Statesman “[A] revealing history…Readers interested in the era will find much of value in this exhaustive po