Black and White Manhattan

Thelma Wills Foote is Associate Professor of History and African-American Studies at the University of California, Irvine.

"In this sober, thoughtful, profoundly researched book, Thelma Foote shows that Black people were fundamental to early New York. Under Dutch founders, English conquerors, and American Revolutionaries, slavery, racial thinking, and slaves' resistance were part of the main New York story. Much of that story is ugly, but it is an American tale that needs telling and Foote has told it very well."--Edward Countryman, Southern Methodist University"Challenging the 'apartheid narrative' of New York City's early history, Thelma Foote illuminates such topics as the legal position of blacks in Dutch Manhattan; 18th-century patterns of slave labor and social exchange; African American burial rituals; and the so-called Negro Plot of 1741."--Patricia U. Bonomi, author of Under the Cope of Heaven: Religion, Society, and Politics in Colonial America"For urban historians, especially those who specialize in the history of New York City, this is required reading....Foote's analysis of racial formation will force historians and urban scholars to rethink their understanding of NYC's history."--CHOICE