Marjoleine KarsReseñas

Story of a 1763 rebellion by thousands of slaves, many African-born, in the Dutch colony of Berbice, in what is now Guyana. The Dutch eventually defeated the rebellion by keeping supply lines open. Kars is sensitive to why enslaved people might have feared that rebellion would end with worse conditions, as they did in fact for almost everyone involved. She also emphasizes that the leaders often wanted to keep slaves of their own, usually based on preexisting ethnic divisions (African tribes, Indigenous peoples, and “Maroons”).

This is a decent piece of scholarship. It would likely only be interesting to those seeking to know more about colonial North Carolina history. She sets out to prove religion as the cause of the Regulator Rebellion, but fails. It turns out that corrupt politicians were to blame (hmmmmm!).

This examination of class conflict in North Carolina just before the Revolutionary War is heavy on the social history and a little light on the examination of events. This is not to mention that though the social history of the South is not my best topic, I do have the sense that the author is reaching just a little bit in how she ultimately links the Regulators to the Populists of the late 19th century. While not a bad book, this is only a "must" read if you happen to have a paper on colonial America hanging over your head. It was just not as interesting as I thought it might be.½