please welcome daniel rasmussen. [applause] >> thank you for coming. it is really wonderful to be here at the gaithersburg book festival. i grew up here and it is back to -- nice to be in the area. looking at these -- this revolt, the 150th anniversary of the start of the civil war, equally as important in my mind it is also the 200th anniversary of the war world's law the slave revolt which took place in new orleans 200 years ago. much attention has been lavished on the centennial of the civil war but almost none on the slave revolt despite the fact that it was the largest act of slave resistance at american history. i hope you will enjoy hearing this story and work with me to spread the story and make sure this story is in textbooks where it belongs and we no longer forget what i would argue is a central moment in our history and a moment which has much to tell us today not only about who we are as americans and how we should think about our past. i want to start this talk by focusing on haiti which might seem like an unusual place to start a talk ab

so please join me in welcoming daniel rasmussen. [applause] >> thank you so much for that introduction and thank you all for coming. it's wonderful be here at the book festival. i'm from d.c. or grew up here so it's is no nice to be back in the area. it's fitting that we're here in 2011 talking about this revolt. as many of you might know it's the 1 other anniversary of the start of the civil war. equally as important in my mind it's the 200th anniversary of america's largest labor revolt that took place in new orleans. almost no attention has been focused upon this slave revolt, despite it the fact it was the largest resistance in american history. i hope you'll work with me to spread this story and make sure that this story enters the text books writ belongs and we no longer forget what i would argue is a central moment in american history and a moment that hat much to tell us today, not only about what set this country on the path to civil war but about who we are as americans and how we should think about our past. i want to sta