Daring to be Free: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World

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Sudhir Hazareesingh

Daring to be Free

Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World

Sudhir Hazareesingh

$69.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Allen Lane
06 January 2026

History; Social & cultural history; Colonialism & imperialism; National liberation & independence, post-colonialism; Slavery & abolition of slavery; Revolutions, uprisings, rebellions

A revelatory history of enslaved people's resistance to Atlantic slavery.

The ending of the slave trade and abolition of slavery by European powers during the 19th century is generally told as the work of enlightened liberals fighting against entrenched slaving interests in Africa, the Caribbean, and European capitals. Sudhir Hazareesingh here turns this narrative on its head, showing how the enslaved resisted their oppressors from the earliest years of the Atlantic slave trade in the 16th century until the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865, and how this opposition was the driving force for change.

Daring To Be Free portrays the struggle for liberation from the perspective of the enslaved, wherever possible in their own words. It shines a light on the lives of revolutionaries like Toussaint Louverture, Jose Antonio Aponte, Nat Turner, and the pregnant rebel Solitude; freed writers of narrative accounts like Frederick Douglass and Ottobah Cugoano; and the countless maroons, insurgents and conspirators whose acts of defiance destabilised the slave order in the colonies and galvanized the movement for abolition in France, Britain, and the United States. Hazareesingh gives particular emphasis to the powerful roles of women as campaigners, disruptors and warriors.

Drawing on written archives and oral history, as well as a rich body of secondary sources, the book traces the networks of cooperation that connected runaway settlements, covert rebellions and organized uprisings from Haiti, Jamaica, Brazil and Cuba to Mauritius and the United States. It shows us how the struggle for liberty was shaped not only by western Enlightenment ideals but by the spiritual, martial, and religious influences from the lives of the enslaved in Africa before the Middle Passage - and by the inspiring example of Haiti, the first successful anticolonial revolution and the first independent black state, which echoed down the 19th century.

Daring To Be Free reshapes our understanding of Atlantic slavery by portraying how enslaved lives were defined not by their dehumanisation at the hands of colonialists and slavers but by their own resilience, solidarity, and commitment to freedom. It also examines the afterlife of the slave trade in contemporary discussions about the legacy of slavery and possibilities for redress, reparations, and memorial in our own time.

By: Sudhir Hazareesingh
Imprint: Allen Lane
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 242mm, Width: 162mm, Spine: 41mm
Weight: 728g
ISBN: 9780241606506
ISBN 10: 0241606500
Pages: 464
Publication Date: 06 January 2026
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Sudhir Hazareesingh was born in Mauritius. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Balliol College, Oxford. His books include The Legend of Napoleon (winner of the Prix du Memorial d'Ajaccio and the Prix de la Fondation Napoleon), In the Shadow of the General (winner of the Prix d'Histoire du Senat), How the French Think (winner of the Grand Prix du Livre d'Idees), and Black Spartacus (winner of the Wolfson History Prize and the American Library in Paris Award). In 2020, he became a Grand Commander of the Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean (G.C.S.K.), the highest honour of the Republic of Mauritius.

Reviews for Daring to be Free: Rebellion and Resistance of the Enslaved in the Atlantic World

Daring to be Free is a sweeping history of the rebellions, escapes, and everyday acts of defiance by enslaved Africans and their descendants across the Atlantic world. From African battlefields and maroon strongholds to the Haitian Revolution and spiritual resistance, Sudhir Hazareesingh restores the voices and strategies of those who fought relentlessly for autonomy, dignity, and liberation. Drawing on rich archival and oral sources, he reframes abolition as the achievement of the enslaved themselves — a centuries-long struggle driven by courage, solidarity, and an unyielding will to be free -- Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University