The Roots of African-American Identity: Memory and History in Free Antebellum CommunitiesSpanning the eight decades between the American Revolution and the Civil War, Bethel focuses on the lives of African Americans living in the nominally free northern and western states. Examining race and the construction of a politicized racial identity, this book explores how a group of fundamentally marginalized people crafted a uniquely New World ethnic identity which informed popular African American historical consciousness. The vision of freedom