>> on behalf of harvard bookstore i am pleased about the need to this afternoon's friday forum. here to discuss the book liberties' exiles. before we get started at just want to take a moment to mention a few of our upcoming of the talks. upcoming events include james

carroll discussing his new book, jerusalem jerusalem, how the ancient cities ignited our modern world. and on april 4th for american tempest, how the boston tea party sparked a revolution. upcoming ticketed events include james couric, sayre bile, billy collins, and a governor to fall back. you'll find our complete calendar of events online. after the vessel start this afternoon we will have talked to a far tougher question. you can find copies of "liberty's exiles" at the registers. please know that when you buy a book from harvard bookstore you are supporting a local, independent institution he genuinely cares about books. this author series would not be possible without the support. we are pleased to have c-span book tv here taping today's events. and asking questions, please

know that you will be recorded and wait a moment for the microphone to come over to you finally, not as a great time to make sure you have silenced her cellphone. this afternoon on behalf of harvard bookstore i am pleased to an traduced by an here to discuss "liberty's exiles," american loyalists in the revolutionary world. an award winning historian who brings us a in a largely untold story in this newest work. the story of 60,000 men and women who remained loyal to the british empire at the conclusion of the american revolution. these loyalists decided to leave their homes and become refugees elsewhere in the british empire and all over the world. the boston globe calls "liberty's exiles" a masterful account and historian joseph j. ellis notes losers seldom get to write the history, but the american loyalists have at last

count in their historian. the story is told with uncommon style and grace. an associate professor of history at harvard university. her first book what -- was awarded the 2005 dug cooper price and was a book of the year selection in the economist, guardian, and the sunday times. very pleased to bring her to a harvard book store this afternoon. please join me in a book coming maya jasanoff. [applause] >> thank you all for coming, and let me think harvard bookstore for hosting me. i've been coming to this bookstore since my undergraduate days a long time ago, and i feel like as my reading tastes have matured, harvard bookstore has always been here to film. let me begin at the beginning with this book. there were two sides on the american revolution, but only one was on display.

early the afternoon of november 205th 1783, general george washburn and rode on a gray horse into new york city to read by his side, the governor of new york flight by an escort of aren't gods. in remarks followed close behind , long lines of civilians trailed after them, some on horseback, others on foot burned black and white. hundreds clammed -- grand into the streets. since 1776 the seven wonders newark had been occupied by the british army. today the british for going. a cannon shot sounded the departure of the last british troops. they marched to the docks and rode out into the transports waiting in the harbor. the british occupation of the united states is officially over. george washington triumphal entrance into new york city was the closest thing that the

banners of the american revolution ever had to a victory parade. for one week patriot celebrated the evacuation but fees and bonfires, elimination's, and the largest fireworks display ever seen in america. generations of new yorkers commemorated november 25th as evacuation day, an anniversary that of the folded into the more enduring november celebration of national togetherness, that is giving day. what if you had not wanted the british to leave? mixed in among a happy new york crowd there were other less cheerful faces. colonists who had sided with british, the departure spelled lawrie. during the war tens of thousands of loyalists had moved for safety into new york and of the british held cities. the british withdrawal raised urgent questions about their future. what kind of treatment could they expect?

jailed, attacked, retain their property or hold on to their jobs? confronting real doubts of their lives, liberty, and potential for happiness in the united states, 60,000 loyalists decided to take their chances and follow the british elsewhere into the british empire. it took 16,000 black slaves with them bringing the total exodus to 75,000 people or about one in 40 members of the american population. it travel to canada, sell for britain, a journey to the bahamas. some of the venture still further to africa and india. wherever they went this way into exile was a trip into the unknown. in america the refugees left behind friends and relatives, careers and land, houses and native streets. for them america seemed less an asylum to the persecuted as the patriots had tested it and the potential persecutor. was the british empire that would be their asylum offering

planned, an urgency relief, and financial incentives to help from start over. evacuation day did not walk in and. it was a fresh beginning. it carried him into a dynamic, if uncertain new world. now, i just read you the first couple of pages of "liberty's exiles." in this book what i try to do is lay out and explain what happens to the loyalist next up is usually our stories and the conflict in 1783. as i try to show for this population the repetitions went on, and it unfolded in distant places. i tried to a distil the experiences of the 60,000 civilian a fiji's into a kind of meaningful overview of what this all meant. this after and i am going to be even more closely reductionist in my remarks because after sketching out the big picture i will focus on the experience of just one of these 60,000 people.

let me explain a little bit about the big picture. stereotypes still often suggests the loyalists were shared a eat profile. white, wealthy, anglican, and plus centric members of the colonial population. in truth pluralism ranged right across the spectrum, social, geographic, ethnic, and religious. notably not all loyalists or even white. about 20,000 black slaves during the revolution responded to promises extended by british governors to offer them freedom if they agreed to come and join the redcoats. again, about 20,000 patriot owned slaves joined the british making it the largest mass emancipation in american history and tell the era of the civil war. by the same token many american indian nations are also drawn into this conflict. for them they had often been

harassed for generations by land hungry colonists. some had been allied with britain over the course of previous wars against france. many native americans also joined the work on the british side, notably the mohawks and the north and the creeks in the south. pluralism is cutting read across the population of early america. there is an element that i think is worth correcting. loyalists are often referred to as tories. the british conservative party. the implication is that loyalists were conservative. the future, the innovation was to become republican. many prominent loyalists were actually performers in their own way, and they advanced schemes for imperial reform. that is worth paying attention to and actually anticipate much with it developments later in

the british empire. and so for most of the people who were caught on the front lines of this conflict, which they called the civil war, not a revolution, this was not so much a war of ideals as it was often a war of ordeals, were in which violence came to the front door as they had windows smashed, livestock poisoned, property seized by the state. the violence of the war, at least as much as ideology, actually ends up being very important in telling tens of -- tens of thousands of loyalists to take shelter and then to decide to leave the colonies. so what happened to the next? where did they go? well, fewer than 15 percent of these refugees went back to britain. it wasn't back for most of them because for all that american colonists had often been raised

that big a burden this home, very few of them had actually ever been there. when they went to britain they found themselves in a quite alien place very different from surroundings that they had known here in the colonies. the vast majority relocated to eastern canada, particularly nova scotia which received something like 30,000 of these refugees doubling the population overnight leading to the creation of a separate province of new brunswick to accommodate these new arrivals. a very transformative impact air canada. another 10,000 verso of these loyalists moved south, particularly those who have lived in georgia, south carolina, north carolina and they travel to jamaica and the bahamas. they brought with them the vast majority of those exported slaves, 15,000 slaves to travel along with the whites and black loyalists.

some of the loyalists, it should be noted, even ranged further afield. the most surprising aspect of this migration happened in 1791 wind of hundred of the black loyalists, freed slaves, moved from their initial place of refuge in canada across the ocean to west africa under the sponsorship of british abel a sense wanted to found a free black colony on the coast of west africa and the black loyalists with a pioneer settlers of what became freetown in sierra leone. they were a bit more. >> reporter: and other black loyalists who ended up among the convicts on the first fleet bound for australia and others in india. sons of one of the most infamous.

i like to think there is lineage and the other side of the world. the point is that within a few years of the end of the revolution the map of the vilest diaspore, actually a map of it a few pages into this book, the map looks a lot like that of the british empire as a whole. this points to one of the key features that i wanted to signal about the significance of looking at this nice aura. it really helps make sense of a seeming paradox. the american revolution was the greatest single the speed -- defeat for the british empire until the era of will or to. the greatest loss of territory, it plunged the empire into enormous step. a humiliating and a defeat as they saw their own closest colonists breakaway. yet, within just a dictator so

burdened bounce back to a striking extent, and it was to be the british empire that was the leading world power for the integrity of the 19th century. how do we explain the paradox of britain coming out of a devastating defeat and yet in very short order going on to rule the world? well, we usually think about the international significance of the american revolution in terms of the spirit of 1776, the values that help mobilize of the people to express their own desire for liberty. in fact, i contend, it is by looking at the revolution's impact on the enduring british empire that we can see an equally significant international consequence of this war. in the wake of the american revolution we see the british empire becoming a great loser. they regroup, consolidate, and retool. three key ways which i think we

can aptly labeled the spirit of 1783. you won't hear that necessarily proclaimed in the streets of tripoli. nevertheless, i think it is worth highlighting the significance and making this empire of the global engine on or about a century. so there are three key features. one is territorial expansion. the fact that the map of the loyalists as boren looks like the map of the british empire is not an accident because a lot of these become pioneer settlers in different parts of the empire, such as sierra leone. the very first scheme to colonized australia is put forward by an american loyalists. another feature of this spirit of 1783 is a kind of clarified cent of imperial purpose. imperial moral purpose. this is the parent in a variety of dimensions regarding

loyalists. for example, the british government offers these refugees are range of charitable measures to help them get started. they give them free passes to other british demands, land grants where they can establish themselves a new. they give them basic food rations, things like clothes and shoes and nails and the whole rash of things that really resemble the kinds of things that modern international aid agencies give out to refugees today. this moral purpose is also apparent in things like upholding the commitment to freedom to the black loyalists, which is heavily contested by american patriots who don't like the area of their former property selling off. the british really stick to that. finally, the british also end up establishing a government commission which gives of loyalists compensation for the property that they have lost in america, and this is at the time of very novel expansion of contemporary ideas of state welfare which barely resembled

its current form. in all these ways you see this commitment to the empire as a humanitarian entity. yet there is the final element of this because at the same time that they are being expansive and sort of humanitarian the british also realize that the defeat in america means that they have to change their governing style in certain ways. in particular they realize that what has gone wrong in america is that the colonists had been given too much liberty. it has been too easy for them to protest. in the aftermath of the american revolution the tend to see the british authorities being a bit more tight handed, more authoritarian, centralized, hierarchical. this ends up coming as something of a shock to the loyalist refugees who had come out of the colonies where things are a little easier and going into the post revolutionary empire to find themselves at odds with the new style. so one of the things i was most surprised by is to find that in

places as far afield as saint john new brunswick, nassau, and the bahamas, even freetown sierra leone uc loyalists rebelling against british authority asking for things like representation and lower taxes, claims that are rather familiar to us from revolutionary history. now, to give you a flavor of all of this, those are kind of the big arguments. but it is also very much a narrative history, history of individual histories. one of the things i was concerned to do is to cover the experience of these people who are neglected refugee population in our historical understanding. and so what i want to do with the rest of my time is read to you portions of the book but to explain the story of the first refugee who threw me into this project. george of loyalist called elizabeth johnston. she wrote a memoir which i came

across early in my research. at that point the memoir was here. i was not living here. i made of photocopying and carried it around when i moved from one place to another. only then to discover that will books put it up on line in short order. that was extremely convenient. so johnston wrote a memoir which got me into this project mr. reeves in and out of the book in various ways. they have a bit of the flavor of a book in her life. her father was a well of -- are sorry, he was a planter in georgia, reasonably well established. and the war began he was accosted by local patriots who wanted him to sign on to a local patriot association.

he refused to do so. a game came to his door and he was able to run away on seeing them approach. his 12-year-old daughter was just left there. she ended up getting packed off into the countryside to stay with relatives and ultimately with family friends in savannah. the war went on, years and on. her father was fighting with the british in different parts of the north. after three years apart they were finally reunited again when the british retook savannah. the two of them rematched, and she also at that time met her future husband, a fellow brother officer of her father. her father was not happy about this match. her future husband was described as one of the dashing fashionable of occupied british new york. he was a sort of a gambler and effort and very charming. he had been a medical student before the war, but was happy to forsakes his books for the gaming table to be in any case,

the two of them get married, and so it is with elizabeth johnstons married life unfolding against the backdrop of british defeat in america. and as the british are pulling out of different locations in the colonies elizabeth justin and her husband william who is still in british forces move with them from one city to another. the jump into different parts of the book let me tell you a little bit about this first set of migration. they are in charleston and it is being evacuated. sorry, and savannah. they join the fleet to join to charleston. the elizabeth and william together. an unusual choice for elizabeth to get to charleston rather than st. augustine where her in-law said on. she was then seven months pregnant and passed up the offer from a patriot friend to stay in savannah under his protection

until she was fit for moving. the johnstons had already been apart from much of their short married life, and elizabeth wanted no more. she suffered the loneliness of raising their firstborn son, a handsome and st. fellow with a large proportion of his father's passion a temper i'll and limb was away at war. she had acquired another reason to wish william close at hand. william have followed into its old habit of campbell, vice so destructive and ruinous that it tends to write the growing family. he did not reveal the alarming extent of his losses to his wife but wrote to her father imploring liechtenstein to support the family in their need. what was worse, his behavior opened a rift with his own father and sisters. you know not how wretched you have made me and it is cool to distress a father who so wish and care is to see his children

happy. not a man to be alienated likely. so when british power collapsed around her in savannah elizabeth johnson followed her impulse and spells. my husband would not like the separation, and i positively refuse to remain. not once did she mention the issues of principle involved in leaving her home. nor more strikingly did she not the obvious and but as for her extended family's departure. every single one of his close nail relations had been prescribed. but then her on telling johnson did not leave for reasons of political sentiment, but for emotional ones. the johnstons arrived in charleston to find a city in the throes of pre evacuation man. british officials cope with shortages of food, rahm, ships,

and cash, rising disorder, and falling morale and more than 10,000 civilians clamoring for relief and reassurance. while they were in this occupied city ticketing evacuate to the ground them elizabeth johnston gave birth to the couple's first daughter. a rancher in the anting city everything is in motion and turns topsy-turvy. one is buying everything he can to complete his stock of goods and the second is searching for a passive -- some other keresan. the third is called from house to house to collect debts. the johnsons have no property. they also faced fresh choices. williams regiment was due to ship out to new york city along with most of the charleston garrison. farma way and likely facing imminent evacuation, new york made the license of a

destination. this time they decided that she would have for st. augustine and stay with williams relatives until he could join them there. in early december 1782 elizabeth johnson stepped into a small boat with her toddler son, anthem daughter, and a black bears riding out into the harbor. it was like cruising into a jigsaw puzzle. the bug her lamb to the curved wooden walls of the city afloat. the outlines of figures scurrying along decks and rigging, can this -- canvas sails. loyalists, brewed, supplies, furniture, a livestock coming even bells of the church. more than 1200 by loyalists and 2600 blacks joined a convoy bound for jamaica. another crop of 200 black loyalists soldiers scattered to sell for st. lucia.

a few hundred individuals including various commit officials find a convoy for britain. finally, on the afternoon of december trough the soldiers began assembling the board transports for new york. two days later the americans formally reoccupied charleston of the justice weighed out to sea. he with the garrison to new york city and she did join the rapidly falling -- crawling loyalist community. now, many of the seven refugees thought that this would be the perfect place to rebuild. a lot like georgia and south carolina. it had land and territory available. they were promised it as an asylum. the problem, however, was that the british were going to hand florida over the span in the peace treaty. when they first went the loyalists did not know that it was going to be a horrifying thing. after three tedious weeks elizabeth johnson traveled down

the georgia coast to st. augustine, boxed up on shipboard, always in motion. at last they turned into the st. augustine and let. they felt they stomach dropping fed. fortunately they managed to clear the obstruction, which is more than can be said for another convoy wrecked against the shore and running many refugees carefully exporter property. half a dozen set to five ships keeled askew. first aggressions of this flat and foreign place are not good. she found her and lost much dissatisfied with their situation, rumbling over future prospects. antar had been fixed. the weather seemed constantly wet or cloudy. and as she put her husband, she repented sincerely of not going with you for what it's like when separated. but a touch of sun and time to settle and soon awakens johnston to the times of curiosities of the spot.

she would have recognized dozens of familiar faces from savannah. she could see that much in the compressed shells of the houses. the balustrades of the former irene barracks and the colorful presence of mediterranean islanders who had been recruited a decade earlier as laborers for a settlement farther south. the prominence with breed -- breeze slapping against her skirt. what a pleasure it was after the supply shortages to feast on fish, fresh from the sea. i was never in better health and indeed the verse of flashy as during my residence there. best of all, william got leave for a brief visit from new york, and they can plan their future face-to-face. could it be that loyalists would achieve an east florida but two decades of imaginative british colonization efforts had not

picking profitable plantations of subtropical swamps, flourishing towns from struggling outpost. these were the hopes of many people. in the event, april 1783, news of the peace treaty hit east florida loyalists like american. article five which neuter the possibility of receiving compensation from the state paled for them next article five of britain's peace with spain and france by which britain agreed to cede eastern west florida to spain with no strings attached. it seemed like a reasonable arrangement to british diplomats who were more committed to keeping that stretches to the valuable gibraltar from the economically disappointing florida. the treaty yanked the ground from beneath the refugees' feet. they had already undergone the ordeal of leaving their homes and address and accepted the challenge of starting over in an underdeveloped land. now even this hard-won asylum was denied them.

but unless loyalists were prepared to swear allegiance to the king of spain and practice catholicism they had 18 months to gather up positions and go. the war never occasioned half the distress which this piece has done to the unfortunate loyalists. no other provision may have been just recommending them to the clemency of congress which is, in fact, casting them off altogether. and so they become one of these many thousands of refugees in florida who now have to move. they cast about figuring out where to go next, exploring the possibilities of jamaica, the bahamas, different sorts of regions. finally the majority of the florida loyalists in that going to the bombings, but they have another option, reasonably well off, a lot of slaves. elizabeth johnston's father is able to sell off these slaves and use the proceeds to move on

to britain. britain, you will detect a theme. the loyalists were not happy in places that they ended up going. britain was no exception. the johnstons and up settling in edinburgh because william johnston is a medical student and at that time attenborough had the best medical school. they go there. he finishes his medical training. they find it that the opportunities for employment are not so great. already a lot of professionals in britain, and they don't necessarily need colonial upstarts to fill in the ranks. they move on again and go under the patronage of of work time supporter of williams to jamaica. it the last part of the store that out to you about in a little more depth is there experience in jamaica which at the time was the richest colony in the british empire and it seemed a very alluring place for the refugees.

if you take your breath away from the sparkling surface of the water your gaze swept sharply up to the mountains climbing to the clouds. over the ripple slopes fell of blanket textured in forms of the tropics. ferns and for millions, muscular trees draped in epiphytes, careening stands a bamboo and sinewy palms. he turned passed the upper lip of the harbor you floated over the broken stones of the old capital of port royal. port royal replacement. circles around the mast. the sun cut the water into diamonds. no wonder loyalists were captivated. such hills, mountains, and verdure. everything's a bright and gay. it is delightful. an 18th-century estate compared

the bay of kingston to the bay of naples. the submerged run support rural like a phantom pompeii under the seat. others let the grandeur and sublimity simply overcome them knocking language from their lips. whatever else loyalist refugees new they could see that it was not the 13 colonies in the locker. now, jamaica was a very wealthy place. it had these wonderful sugar plantations that generated enormous amounts of wealth. on the other hand, the very thing that made it rich also made it rather challenging as an environment for white refugees. one of the features of it being a tropical island is that it was riddled with disease. another is that made it so wealthy is that it had these big plantations that were worked by gigantic numbers of slaves. the ratio is something like eight to one, ten to one.

the whites were a tiny minority that lived in constant terror that there would be slave uprisings five that era. white women were particularly rare because for the most part the whites who actually live there or professionals involved in the plantation business. elizabeth johnson finds herself in this environment it seems to be pole of promise and turned out to be a very alienating sort of lonely place. and justin is busy working here attempting to cure all of these diseases which are all over. elizabeth feels fairly isolated. i will read you a little bit about their life. if johnson is treating all lot of black patients. he continued to treat white

patients. a pan american yellow fever epidemic proved a bonanza to his practice when his merchant plants in kingston called on him to attend the six sailors on income and six. yellow fever produces internal bleeding and jaundice. when bama turns black and gritty it is almost over. the victim is usually dead within days. dr. johnston chose a technique of bloodletting. as he goes from one patient to another with a mercury solution is treatment may have harmed as much as it helped. sometimes there were 17 or more funerals a day. the family house and halfway treats just outside, of lives to make a blundered of young children to worry about three elusive london 1787, payton and 1789, and then john j. farley.

jos and congratulated herself that none of the family contracted yellow fever, but resistance to island diseases would not last. by the end of 1793 the youngest daughter was dead of scarlet fever at age two. you could not avoid death, but you could try to come to terms with it. as if to replace the lost child and named their newest and the born in 1794 jan barley as of. with for the johnsons were not taking any chances. because of williams' cost exposure he a range to have the baby girl inoculated. although the procedure had become widespread there was always some risk that rather and then developing antibodies to a patient might contract a fatal case of smallpox instead. parents anxiously monitored the incision make sure the infection did not spread.

the second farley was not so lucky. a very sad spectacle, once for being quite black, she died in my arms. her angelic blue eyes never open again. william carey the small body from melissa the slapped, and she collapsed on the floor. she had lost two children already. this perryman touched elizabeth johnson warm creek to -- deeply than any other. perhaps it had something to do with the sense that she could have stopped it. but to be there in that trend suffocating place but nothing familiar around her having no female only black servants, it seemed too much to bear. much exhausted it she fell into a serious depression. not long after the baby's death a patron family offered to adopt

the johnson's daughter, eliza, and take their to britain. we could not make a par minds to part with her. they wrestled with the dilemma that faced generation of parents in an inhospitable imperial compost. better to keep the children close, exposed to tropical dangers or send them thousands of miles away home to distant burden? bit of this discovery to make it to be a false refuge. the williams had succeeded were carving out a professional career. the hostility of this alien environment wrote down his family physically and psychologically. in 1796 a debilitated elizabeth johnston admitted defeat returning to attenborough as a duty to health and morals while william who had to stay at the

practice remained in jamaica. forty years later the grief still well up inside her when she remembered the morning of that sad day when i heard that the book was come to take us on board. i hardly think i was in my senses. screams distressed my husband to such a degree that he would have been glad if i give up killing. he begged me to let him go on board, but all i could say was, it's too late. as the figures on the docks dwindled and tumblers and docks and the ruins shimmered away beneath the ship and the green blue mountains receded into great out winds she drew strength from a fresh source to be in her darkest hours of morning and isolation johnston had been saved. she saw the arms of an unfamiliar got stretched out to embrace her, a loving and sensible presence. the old anglican pieties she had been trying to console herself

with seemed merely called morality. she found solace in the preaching of the dissenters which has been the means of awakening many of port-salut. her own path to conversion through personal people in distress seemed to crystallize the larger process of recovery across an anglo american world. she lost some much, but this discovery she could carry with her always. it was just as well for elizabeth johnson his memoir is saturated in this religious language that she did have this experience because things would go on in a similar way. lots of migrations, losses, separation. and so it was finally after back and forth across the atlantic between this couple were death of children, that finally in 18 of 630 years after the declaration of independence elizabeth johnson finally moves to nova scotia, the number one

retreat for loyalists refugees. she arrived there within six months. her husband died in jamaica. she stayed on in nova scotia and ended up having her family and around here a final word. by a generation after a war many of them had found resting places by the time johnston rehearsed the events of her life she was 73 years old. her side was stemmed by cataracts and commemorate twisted around old, is like a tree growing around barbwire but all that movement and separation in so many deaths. she had come of age during a civil war and spent decades of her adult life coping with this location and bereavement. there was no anger in the recollection, nor any nostalgic longing for her lost home. if anything, she sounded rather self satisfied because she had

read it herself in a new home. little did i think i and my family would ultimately settle in nova scotia. i'll see achieved stability and social comfort never before known, her surviving children became prominent members of nova scotia as professional and political elite. in some cases they achieved positions of higher status than they could have ever possibly enjoyed had they remained in the united states. after all trials and migrations they had a right and evolved from american loyalists into british and not american patriots. to follow johnstons narrative, these losers were winners in the end. i'll leave it at that and happily take questions. [inaudible conversations] >> beyond the united empire loyalist i was wondering if you

get a sense that there was strong south identification as the loyalists in the other areas spread. >> beyond the united empire loyalists the answer would be no. i think that the reason for that is that the loyalists are at the beginning subjects of the british empire and ap and also subjects of the british empire. so i see the absence of this kind of nostalgia, a lost cause sort of thinking as a reflection of the fact that they are successfully absorbed into our refurbished british empire. johnston is one example in canada. uc versions of it elsewhere. >> i read the first 100 pages. anxious to get to the end. i was struck by the number of black loyalists.

it seems the full third of the group. when they went to these other places did the fact that they were suddenly free blacks have any affect on the pace of abolition in any of these parts of the british empire? >> it did. of the loyalists who left, the same ratio as the colony's, abolitionism was the sentiment that was attempted in the run-up to the american revolution in britain where slavery was effectively illegal from 1772 onward. the revolution gives it a push forward because of the influence of slave honors no longer being part of the empire and partly because there is this noon lunch black population that has been freed. britain's see this increasingly as a contrast. one of these moral complot -- contrasts. they are different from americans who are enshrining

black slavery. yes, the american revolution is seen as a galvanizing factor in accelerating the abolitionist cause in the british empire. the 17 eighties is the time of enormous populous abolitionism. it should be said despite the british to this day being very celebratory of this tradition, and there is a lot of reference paid to those early abolitionists. the slave trade was not abolished for a generation, but there is no doubt that the idea that there would be free blacks and that freedom would be upheld by britain was really gaining ground in those years. >> i am curious but one particular person, you mention textbook. it is beyond. namely the son of benjamin franklin. william, i think. and the question in the sense of writing history, to what extent

is the political loyalty to britain, they have the side of was this, the fact that they rarely saw her. i wonder if this is a clerical conflict. to what extent in this case and the write-in, how much do we know? and i think that he probably knew. still responding, what is the most track. >> yes. well, i'd think that first one is the case that to him and refers to, benjamin franklin, our great founding father. his own son was a well-known my list, the governor of new jersey who ended up being imprisoned and ultimately became a leader of the loyalist community and

occupied new york and a better and discerned refugee in britain. now, the rift between them was a deeply felt one. william was benjamin's only son, only child. not only child, only son. they basically ceased communication because of this. this became particularly significant at the time of the peace negotiations at the end of the war in which benjamin franklin was one of the key u.s. and initiators. over the course of many months the five peace negotiators are meeting in paris hashing out terms of the independence of the united states. lots and lots of sticking points, but their resolve all of them until they get to one last one in the fall of 1782. and the sticking point concerns whether the u.s. is going to be made responsible for giving compensation to loyalists his property has been confiscated during the war.

most of the other american negotiators are okay, but benjamin franklin will not give in on this point. he says, if you grant compensation i'm not going to sign the treaty. we have to keep fighting the war. and it anticipates his later act of property related. the two rarely ever meet again. at think these family divides do matter, and i do think what i think about most is that getting into the personalities and into the individual experience is important for explaining how history has operated. >> he said that this is the

first book about the loyalist exile, refugee what to you feel should be the second book? not necessarily by you, but somebody else. someone else picks up from where you left off, what would you like to see the next book on this topic tonight. >> that is a great question. i think -- well, one thing that needs to be written up in a better form is what happens to loyalists to don't leave. there is a lot of dissertations on this, some recent, some of monographs, but i would like to see more about the reintegration of loyalists and how that might change a picture of the creation of union in the early republic. that would be the american history. also a kind of international history which would be a natural next step. i don't and i'll do it, but have more inclined. the american revolution hasn't

been seen at the age of revolution. france and 80 him of lot of upheaval in latin america. and in all of this the revolutionary and napoleonic wars, there is an enormous amount of political switch imbedding in movements and refugees from haiti and france and all of the world. i would love to see some sort of book that is able to, you know, apply similar sorts of approaches to looking at the mixed loyalties of figures, and these other revolutionary movements. a really interesting history to be written about the shape of the united states in connection with some of these schemes. an interesting comparative history to be done. >> time for one or two more questions.

thank you so much. please find the book available for purchase. >> this event took place at the harvard book store in cambridge, massachusetts. >> tell us why you chose football as a way to share the story of racial tension. >> first of all, thanks to you and c-span for taking the time to talk to me today. this book has been out a few years, but one of the important components of it is that i interviewed the first black player who played on the all white albany high-school and albany georgia football team in 19 in the mid-60s. this kid is a player and another

black player decide to get to the football camp which was in the middle of the woods, along the creek. bad things could happen. the first night, one of the black players did not make it and went home. the one who survived is greedy caldwell. it's important to understand how football in the deep south helped further integration. the forward of this book is written by a university football coach. that is with appeal to him. i interviewed greedy caldwell, a few other blacks who came after him and other whites who had to make adjustments and white coaches who supported brady and black players that followed him. one of the themes and the other teams of the book, but one of the beans is that high-school sports, specifically football in the deep south did help further integration.

>> and you played a little bit later than when grady caldwell did. what was the mood like on the team connected people talk about integration? other black players? >> and that is a great question. i played in 1972. by that point our team was probably 65, 60 percent white and the rest black. it was not discussed that just a few years earlier that was an all white football team and the color barrier had been broken in terms of that particular school. it was not discussed by the players. the interviews, i think, in this book helps the reader understand that being a white player and being a black player who got in that football camp, and it was a hell of a camp, but amid early 70's, just wanted to be a part of that income and race did not matter. >> hubbard of the camp was.

how much do you think the social challenges played into the physical challenges that they had to go through? >> the social challenges for blacks? we will, no question about it. grady caldwell, as a matter of fact, a gritty will be in town speaking as one of the first black to graduate. grady told me about the intimidation, the name-calling, the threats from my players to read what players admitted it. a record them in the book. as i said a moment ago, ernest jenkins was another black. two blacks were on that team. artist did not make it. so there was a tremendous amount of pressure and intimidation to run them off. >> what was the mood of around the city of albany at that time? did they see the integration of this one high-school football team helping the city of albany and the state of georgia move forward during integration? >> there is no question that people who saw that with the same people that marched with

dr. martin luther king. people involved. later larry wilson, larry west, his family, these were guys who played in that time his family's and mothers understood that if we should integrate that football team and not have went fans on one side and black on the other in this big stadium and you could integrate the team, you could further integrate the community. >> allow the pushed back or attention from the community when replayed on this first football game? >> pushed back from his own white teammates. i've recorded their interviews in this book. they later regretted that and later in the same season first realized that the brady was a fellow of strong character and went on to recognize that. there was early push and

resistance. harold dean cook made a point. he would go sit by greedy. all of the other white players would not accept an early on. the coach did that. the other thing he did at night when he felt like there could be problems, he had grady sleep by him. there were things that went on and people that step forward to help great. >> tell us a little bit about the title. >> well, i got the title doing research for the book. i interviewed players and relied on my own memory. we would get up before daylight. the practice is a day. no water. hazing, water moccasins. i was going through all the stories at the albany "herald." this camp was built in the mid

30's. it did not close until the early 80's. there was one story that came out of the '62 and '63. of course this is the deep south. football is it. it is can. one story is written by a local sports writer. he is talking about the upcoming season. albany high had a great football teams. a lot of excitement, and he is talking about this camp. he uses that phrase, made or broken. he said the coach will take the kids out of camp and they are either to be made of broken. that was set. >> and what other bugs are you working on? >> well, i have written two previous books. one, a bit about the first two. one is about a sharecropper. born 1916 and became a mill worker. that cannot a year or so ago. mel daddy. the life and times of roy davis. then i wrote a book called my mother's dream, a story about a

dream that my mother has about watch my father played baseball. my dad organized baseball team in the late 50's. the story is about there, love, but more than a sports book, in terms of that particular book, i have begun working on a book. but because of what happened to him brady who is a central figure in this book fell into the pit of produce and addiction. i interviewed him in prison as a matter of fact, for this book. but then there are other teams that emerge, redemption and his family stuck with him. now he is a minister in griffin, georgia. i had just begun work. >> thank you so much for your time. >> is there an offer or booked you would like to see featured? send us an e-mail. treat us at twitter.

here is a look at a few of the upcoming book fairs and festivals from around the country. bring you coverage of the virginia festival of the book, several events this week. the entire festival will air on book tv next weekend. is it booked tv for a complete schedule. the 20th albuquerque and antiquarian book will take place. rare books, maps, and prints will be available for viewing and purchase. there will also be a silent auction of library surplus items. also on the first and second of april, the empire state but festival. this new war -- new york library has to the event will honor several writers. on april 9th book tv will be live from the ninth annual annapolis boat festival in annapolis maryland providing coverage of several nonfiction . is there a book festival happening near yu