Freedom Ships

Freedom Ships by Robert Carey & John Furbay. Exciting historical novel of American freed slaves sailing to Africa in 1820 to find real freedom, based on emigrant letters, diaries & official documents in Congressional & U.S. Navy archives. Spanning stormy seas, fighting hostile tribes, surviving dreaded African fevers, these black pioneers confront scheming slave traders & European empire builders to find a place for their colony, struggling to build it into Africa's first black republic. But African beliefs about medicine, spirits, war & slavery differ from those of the new settlers resulting often in a violent clash of cultures. Carrie, a teen-age girl, escapes the colony during a battle between slave-trading coastal chiefs & the colonists. In the forest, she decides to enter the girls bush school & marry an African youth destined to become a chief. Refusing the cutting ceremony of the women's Sande society, she asks the youth to rescue her. They flee for their lives, hunted by the angry Sande its powerful ally, the men's Poro. The youth disappears after Carrie is returned to the colony. She marries a colonist who becomes a wealthy merchant involved in politics. Her first child symbolizes the hybridity of the new nation.… (more)