Prince Estabrook

True story of a slave named Prince Estabrook who fought for his freedom (and ours) on the first day of the American Revolution.

Celebrating the lesser known but significant lives and contributions of our nation’s early African American leaders, this multicultural complement to most children’s books on the American Revolution covers a wide spectrum of subjects, including military, art, religion, and science. Weaving the histories of dozens of men and women—soldiers, sailors, ministers, poets, merchants, doctors, and other community leaders—to properly recognize them among the founders of the United States of America, this text gives a better sense of what these individuals accomplished and the times in which they lived. Activities include celebrating Constitution Day, cooking colonial foods, publishing a newspaper, petitioning their government, and more. This valuable resource also includes a time line of significant events, a list of historic sites to visit or explore online, and Web resources for further study.

Describes the significant part played by blacks and Native Americans at the beginning of the American Revolution.

Explores how politicians, screenwriters, activists, biographers, jurists, museum professionals, and reenactors portray the American Revolution. The American Revolution is all around us. It is pictured as big as billboards and as small as postage stamps, evoked in political campaigns and car advertising campaigns, relived in museums and revised in computer games. As the nation’s founding moment, the American Revolution serves as a source of powerful founding myths, and remains the most accessible and most contested event in US history: more than any other, it stands as a proxy for how Americans perceive the nation’s aspirations. Americans’ increased fascination with the Revolution over the past two decades represents more than interest in the past. It’s also a site to work out the present, and the future. What are we using the Revolution to debate? In Fighting over the Founders, Andrew M. Schocket explores how politicians, screenwriters, activists, biographers, jurists, museum professionals, and reenactors portray the American Revolution. Identifying competing “essentialist” and “organicist” interpretations of the American Revolution, Schocket shows how today’s memories of the American Revolution reveal Americans' conflicted ideas about class, about race, and about gender—as well as the nature of history itself. Fighting over the Founders plumbs our views of the past and the present, and illuminates our ideas of what United States means to its citizens in the new millennium.

A quiet colonial town forever changed by the shot heard 'round the world on April 19, 1775, Lexington evolved from its famous roots and adapted to the ever-changing culture of the nation it helped create. Over the centuries, an influx of immigrants and new ideas helped shape the town from farming community to booming rail suburb and into today's diverse city that treasures its rich heritage while striving toward a dynamic future.

Evidence of the early history of African Americans in New England is found in the many old cemeteries and burial grounds in the region, often in hidden or largely forgotten locations. This unique work covers the burial sites of African Americans--both enslaved and free--in each of the New England states, and uncovers how they came to their final resting places. The lives of well known early African Americans are discussed, including Venture Smith and Elizabeth Freeman, as well as the lives of many ordinary individuals--military veterans, business men and women, common laborers and children. The author's examination of burial sites and grave markers reveals clues that help document the lives of black New Englanders from the 1640s to the early 1900s.

America’s First Soldiers unfolds with the critical events and people that lead Massachusetts to initiate the American Revolutionary War. These first soldiers were the catalyst for the skirmish at Lexington Green, the battle of the Old North Bridge, and the life and death struggle along a 16-mile road, passing through six Massachusetts towns in a violent, running battle of fire and maneuver. Dig in on the deadly struggle for a Boston hilltop, Breed’s Hill, known as Bunker Hill. For the British Army, it was the deadliest battle of the American Revolutionary War. This battle, more than any other event, created the moment Massachusetts and the other colonies realized the American Revolution had begun. Meet a young Boston bookseller who believed he could bomb the mighty British army out of Boston. He became Washington’s Yankee, standing with him from Boston to victory at Yorktown. He was the man General Washington personally chose to succeed him as the Continental Army’s commanding general. America’s First Soldiers is the account of extraordinary men whose defeat of the British was so thorough, that during the eight-year struggle of the American Revolutionary War the British never again fought in Massachusetts. Part 1 of this book chronicles America’s First Soldiers. Part 2 visits some of the well-preserved and fascinating sites in Massachusetts as a 21st-century historical tourist. This book uncovers the hidden story of the men from Massachusetts—America’s First Soldiers.