As the United States gained independence, a full fifth of the country's population was African American. The experiences of these men and women have been largely ignored in the accounts of the colonies' glorious quest for freedom. In this compact volume, Gary B. Nash reorients our understanding of early America, and reveals the perilous choices of the founding fathers that shaped the nation's future. Nash tells of revolutionary fervor arousing a struggle for freedom that spiraled into the largest slave rebellion in American history, as blacks fled servitude to fight for the British, who promised freedom in exchange for military service. The Revolutionary Army never matched the British offer, and most histories of the period have ignored this remarkable story. The conventional wisdom says that abolition was impossible in the fragile new republic. Nash, however, argues that an unusual convergence of factors immediately after the war created a unique opportunity to dismantle slavery. The founding fathers' failure to commit to freedom led to the waning of abolitionism just as it had reached its peak. In the opening decades of the nineteenth century, as Nash demonstrates, their decision enabled the ideology of white supremacy to take root, and with it the beginnings of an irreparable national fissure. The moral failure of the Revolution was paid for in the 1860s with the lives of the 600,000 Americans killed in the Civil War. The Forgotten Fifth is a powerful story of the nation's multiple, and painful, paths to freedom. Adult/High School–This well-written, compact book by a master historian presents the appalling story of the denial of political and human rights for black Americans after they had fought during the Revolutionary War. More infuriating, this rejection came despite the era's grand rhetoric, all men are created equal. In three chapters, readers learn of the heroism and tenacity of black patriots, and also of blacks who fought for the British; the near success of efforts to abolish slavery following the war; and the sad story of the first decades of the 19th century, when blacks in the North and South were deprived of civil liberties. In the process, Thomas Jefferson's hypocrisy in racial matters is delineated. Readers are also shown that, going back many generations, commercial interests of many politicians have trumped ideals. Nash supplies accessible accounts of important American black leaders too often left out of textbooks, such as businessman and pamphleteer James Forten, surveyor Benjamin Banneker, poet Phillis Wheatley, and others. A must-buy. –Alan Gropman, National Defense University, Washington, DC Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. “In this wonderfully detailed narrative, Gary Nash tells the dramatic and engaging story of African American people and the issues of race and slavery at a critical moment in American history. Marshaling compelling evidence, he illuminates the post-Revolutionary debates over slavery and abolition. Had the founders' actions matched their ideals of freedom, we might well have avoided a Civil War. An important book that offers profound insights into the foundations of the history of all Americans.” ― James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, co-authors of Slavery and the Making of America “Gary Nash is one of America's most distinguished historians and he has done as much as anyone to bring 'The Forgotten Fifth' to life. With this incisive and engaging book, he compels Americans to learn more about a remarkable generation of black founders--men and women who helped shape the meaning of liberty and justice for all as surely as their better known counterparts, Jefferson, Washington and Madison. A fine book.” ― Richard S. Newman, author of The Transformation of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic “Gary Nash has long inspired all those still laboring to bring a missing portion of American history to light. In The Forgotten Fifth, Nash sketches a complex and gripping tale of a road not taken toward true equality at the time of our nation's founding. This veteran historian has placed squarely on the table the largest missing piece in the puzzle of our extraordinary revolution. Now the soul-searching debate about what this complex story means for all Americans can begin.” ― Peter Wood, Duke University “Nash's reminder that African-Americans made up a fifth of the population during the Revolutionary era exemplifies the purpose of this lively, accessible 'corrective to historical amnesia,' comprising three discrete chapters based on lectures he delivered at Harvard in 2004. The wide-ranging first chapter, 'The Black Americans' Revolution,' illustrates how the War for Independence whetted slaves' thirst for freedom. Nash chronicles slave defection to the British (for whom many more blacks fought than for the Americans) and sketches vivid portraits of individuals who sued for