"Easton's Treatise is essential reading for anyone studying race, slavery, reform, and African Americans in the antebellum era. Publication of the Treatise alone is a significant contribution, but even better, it is combined with a brilliant introduction rich with formerly unknown biographical detail about Easton and his family and with invaluable background that situates the man and his book in a vivid, accurate context. I plan to be among the first to adopt this book for my courses."—Peter Hinks, author of To Wake My Afflicted Brethren:

David Walker and the Problem of Antebellum Slave Resistance

"David Walker's 1829 Appeal is generally regarded as the most radical black protest statement of the nineteenth century, but intellectually, Easton was even more provocative than Walker. One can see precedents in his work both of 'Afrocentrism' and of the notion of African American 'cultural pathology' brought on by persistent white prejudice."—Bruce Dain, author of A Hideous Monster of the Mind:

The Birth of American Race Theory, 1787–1859

"Together these essays, which are often in explicit conversation with one another, offer new understandings of Venture Smith and the history of race and slavery in the Atlantic world. Moreover, the volume works to inspire its readers to join the discussion. Editor James Brewer Stewart's inclusion of a facsimile reproduction of Smith's 1798 Narrative and Maryilyn Nelson's two haunting poems, which bookend the volume, invite readers to meditate for themselves on the porous boundaries between humanity and capital that marked the lives of all enslaved people in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world, but perhaps especially that of Venture Smith."—The Journal of Southern History