communities was corn as well as vegetables like squash, peas. and, yeah, so that's concern. >> growing rice requires a kind of hydraulic system of canals and gates, and it's probably not something maroons would have been in a position to construct, you know? >> and there are these, you know, small plots. that's one of the things also. the maroon communities that had gardens as they call them, you know, fields were small, were, you know, were rather small. so that's, again, you know, when you are talking about rice, it has to be more expansive. >> okay. and the final question, sir. >> i haven't read your work, but i'm looking forward to it. i have a question.

in relationship to the maroons, being that looking at louisiana i just want to focus on that. being that louisiana before the louisiana purchase it was practically a french entity, and being that also france and haiti, a lot of, you know, transfer between slaves from haiti and louisiana through the french connection. and also being that in 1793 which led to the first refugee crisis this america when a -- in america when the last remnant of the french planters fled and came to louisiana and being that also like we said that there are a lot of interconnection between the two, and we know in haiti that there's a large population of maroons. so being there would you think that also is something that could have led to the spread of the maroons? >> i'm not sure at all because

ma a ons in -- maroons in louisiana or anywhere else didn't need any encouragement or anything from anybody, you know? [laughter] so i don't think that, you know, haiti would have had an influence on that particular phenomenon. >> thank you. >> okay. well, let us all thank sylviane diouf for -- prison. [applause] and we can reconvene out in the alcove where the book will be available. so see you there. [inaudible conversations] >> you're watching booktv. for more information, visit the author's web site.

>> next, from booktv's recent trip to fort myers, florida, take a behind-the-scenes look at the southwest florida reading festival with festival coordinator margie byers. >> now in its 15th year, the southwest florida reading festival is an annual reading event sponsored by the lee county library system in fort myers, florida. the festival draws an average of 18,000 visitors from around the country for readings, lectures and book signings from dozens of genre-spanning authors. >> you know, getting the authors used to be a big challenge, but now we've got a great reputation. we recruit folks that have their books out that are on tour that year. and we've reached the level where we do entice and bring in the best-selling authors. and so we never, we don't always get who we ask for. we get who's available, who's on tour. basically, it boils down to the

calendar. we've got a great reputation. we try to treat our authors really well so that they'll spread the word, and they donate their time. we cover their expenses. so that helps us. but, you know, the bottom line is they're there to meet their fans and sell their books, so we try to facilitate that as best we can. we started as a local and regional author festival, but we've grown, and we still know that those people are very important to us, and so that's where the marketplace comes in. our marketplace is full of a lot of the local and regional authors, so you can find their books as well. but like i said, we go after the best-selling authorings. this year -- authors. this year we had one of oprah's book club authors. it's been that way in the past. we take who we can get, and we're always happy to have whoever ends up. it literally takes three days to set up, and it takes two hours

at the end for us to be, for the place to be vacant. the only thing left are the tents, you know? it's amazing. after the festival everybody thinks it's just done. you have to hank folks. we -- thank folks. we survey authors, our marketplace, our volunteers, our staff, because every year we try to improve. come the end of may is when bea, bookexpo america. the largest trade show in north america for publishers and books and authors, and our committee, they've already booked their flights. they're already planning who they're going to see, and their day is like every 10 or 15 minutes, and there's four of them that go. and they fill it because they want to talk to every author and every publisher that's on their list of top tier authors. so, you know, we start in may. and then we go after the sponsors and, you know, just keeps going. you know, the reading festival

is 100% funded by grants, donations and sponsorships. there is no tax dollars that go to fund this reading festival. so it's totally self-supporting. so it's my job to raise about $100,000 every year on average. you know, we generate the $100,000, it's spent right back in the community. this year we had a record number of authors. we had about 44 flights into and out of fort myers, specifically just within those authors, and then we do market throughout the state. and, you know, we've had people fly in because of the draw of the author. so, you know, in terms of bottom line, we generate i can't tell you how much we generate, but there is a lot of tourism developed through the reading value. some folks might wonder why the library does this, is it a core service of the library system, and truly bringing literacy to the community and bringing our services to the community is

core to us. there are three goals for the reading festival, number one being to increase the awareness of the things that the library does. so we draw people into what we call our e-library at the reading festival and explain to them about our great services like streaming video and free and legal music and e-books and all of our data they can download. and that's really important because as the library system evolves and changes and new services come onboard all the time, we need to keep people aware of that so that they're using these services. that's number one, library services. number two is increased literacy because studies have shown communities who embrace literacy are healthier, they know more about nutrition, they know more about fitness because they read, because they're concerned about their children, you know, there's less crime, there's -- the whole community benefits from literacy. and so that's another reason. and thirdly, we really like to bring the community together. we feel like we're going to the people when we do the reading

festival as opposed to the people coming to the library. >> for more information on booktv's recent visit to fort myers, florida, and the many other cities visited by our local content vehicles, go to c-span.org/localcontent. >> john demos, professor emeritus of history at yale university, is next on booktv. he recounts the creation of a school by a group of protestant ministers in the 19th century whose goal was to evangelize and educate students throughout the world, namely native americans and pacific islanders and then send them back to their respective communities as missionaries. this is about an hour and a half. >> well, thank you very much. i really appreciate the chance to talk to you tonight about this new book of mine.

it's actually published only a week ago, and to me, this feels a little like a kind of kickoff of what's going on, actually, a number of talks that i'll be doing here and there. this is the first one, a chance to try out on all of you what i might hope to be doing later on as well, but i'll find out what works and what doesn't work when i talk here tonight. let me just say that my plan for this presentation has two or three different parking lots. i'll -- parts. i'll start by saying just a little bit about how i got on to this project in the first place and something, too, about the process working with it over a good number of years. then i will move to what, in effect, is a kind of thumbnail, a 15 or 20-minute maybe thumbnail of the story that lies at t