The second book by Herbert Aptheker published by International Publishers (the first was The Negro in the Civil War the year before), and one of the most influential books on the history of slavery in the U.S. Aptheker had joined the Party in September, 1939 and would become a leading Marxist historian on U.S. Black studies of his generation, though not without detractors then and since. This book, written in 1939, would find renewed meaning 30 years later for new generations of activists looking to the past for confirmation of their present conflict.
Negro Slave Revolts in the United States 1526-1860 by Herbert Aptheker. International Publishers, New York. 1939.
Contents: Introduction, I) What Was American Slavery? Living Conditions, The Question of Cruelty, Why the Revolts?, Safeguards of the Slavocrats, II) Revolts and Conspiracies, The Earliest Revolts, 1709-1730, 1739-1741, During the First American Revolution, 1791-1802, Gabriel’s Conspiracy, 1810-1816, 1821-1831, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, 1835-1840, The Pre-Civil War Decade, III) Effects of the Revolts and Conspiracies, Selected Readings, A List of Slave Plots and Revolts Within the Current Area of the United States. 72 pages.
International Publishers was formed in 1923 for the purpose of translating and disseminating international Marxist texts and headed by Alexander Trachtenberg. It quickly outgrew that mission to be the main book publisher, while Workers Library continued to be the pamphlet publisher of the Communist Party.
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