*Historian David Hackett Fischer has compiled an encyclopedia documenting the experiences of enslaved people in the United States from the 17th century to the 19th century.
Fischer, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington’s Crossing, per Time, “draws heavily on writings and oral histories by enslaved and formerly enslaved persons” for his latest work titled, “African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals.”
The encyclopedia, which came out May 31, is organized by region to show the impact of slavery on local cultures today.
Fischer spoke to TIME about how his timely encyclopedia and also shared his opinion on the 1619 Project.
Read excerpts from the interview below.
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Historian David Hackett Fischer’s latest book, “African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals,” is an encyclopedia of enslaved people’s experiences in the United States from the 17th to the 19th century https://t.co/tIy3246xMc
????: Olivia B. Waxman (@OBWax)
— TIME (@TIME) June 2, 2022
Why is your book called African Founders?
It centers primarily on the contribution of people from nine parts of Africa, in particular, to the founding of this great Republic.
What was the most surprising piece of research that you found?
The most important things were the writings that the Africans produced in which they described their own purposes, who they were, where they came from, their own values, what they wanted, what their hopes were for a better world in America. And when they came, they began to build new societies in America around ideas of how a society should be run. And usually they had some idea of liberty and freedom and then gradually they began to have some idea of the participation of many people in the running of these places. At first, [America’s leaders were] mostly men, mostly men with property, but then it grew to include larger numbers of men, and then it began to include women. And then it began to include different ethnic groups. And America’s diversity increased. And all of that is what makes us free today and keeps us free.
And we have hundreds of writings of that sort by individual people from the very beginning of American history. This country that we have, this great Republic, grew from their purposes. And my book is to help people remember those founders and what they were trying to do, and also to understand that diversity is the key to our liberty and freedom.
I think the most important thing I found is how creative many of these Africans were and became even as they came in chains. And they learned ways to break their chains and help others become free.
Why is Absalom Jones on the cover of the book? Why is he significant?
He was a very serious man who became an important minister and then helped to build institutions for free Africans in his region, which was New England. And also he was interested in enlarging the idea and instinct of freedom and expanding the institutions of a free society, which is what we have today. And you will see that these were very important to the founding of African churches in America.
What’s the biggest lesson you want readers to learn?
The central idea is the importance of what Africans did to help found this free Republic and how they made it more free than it otherwise would have been. We are all in their debt. And they have also given us the obligation of making it yet more free.
The subject of your book was recently popularized by the New York Times’s “1619 Project.” How do you see your book fitting into the conversation that that feature started?
They’re centered too much on what went wrong and too little on the creativity of people who are responding to what went wrong. And I want to emphasize the creativity. I think that’s much more important than carrying on about racism in America.
It’s about the people who found ways to overcome that, and take us beyond that and to make us less racist than we had been. That’s the big story in America. The big story is not that we were racist. The big story is that we overcame that. And we still have a long way to go. And I want to celebrate that.
Read the full article here.
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