Description: Tyrannicide uses a captivating story of the escape of thirty-four slaves from a British privateer to unpack the experiences of slavery and slave law in South Carolina and Massachusetts during the Revolutionary Era, highlighting differences and foreshadowing the Civil War.
Brief description: EMILY BLANCK is an associate professor of history at Rowan University.
Review Quotes: Sixty years before the Amistad case forced a nation to confront the vast gulf between its pretensions to liberty and the harsh reality of human bondage, a now-forgotten affair strained the tenuous bonds that held the young republic together. When the brig Tyrannicide captured thirty-four Carolina slaves who had escaped to a British privateer, the ensuing case raised troubling issues of what freedom meant in the postcolonial world. Emily Blanck deftly combines high drama with exhaustive research in this rich and important study.--Douglas R. Egerton "author of Death or Liberty: African Americans and Revolutionary America?"