From slavery to freedom describes the rise of slavery, the interaction of European and African cultures in the New World, and the emergence of a distinct culture and way of life among slaves and free Blacks. The authors examine the role of Blacks in the nation's wars, the rise of an articulate, restless free Black community by the end of the eighteenth century, and the growing resistance to slavery among an expanding segment of the Black population....

Presents the biography of Sally Thomas, an African-American slave who determined to see her three sons free, and traces the Thomas-Rapier family through three antebellum generations from about 1808 to 1865.