"Long before the American Revolution, thousands of Africans survived the trans-Atlantic journey and were forced to disembark at one of North America's many Atlantic ports, from English Boston to French New Orleans. What lay before them was indeed a strange new land. African men, women, and children, like everyone else who has migrated to America, encountered alien sights and sounds, unknown tastes and smells.

But unlike other arrivals, they had not come by choice and they entered a brutal and degrading system of forced labor. Strange New Land explores the dramatic history of African Americans and their struggle for freedom before the United States became a nation. Beginning with the colonization of North America, Peter Wood documents the "terrible transformation" black newcomers experienced, from harsh indentured servitude with the possibility of freedom to a full-blown system of racial domination.

Against this troubling backdrop, Strange New Land surveys black social and cultural life, illustrating how such a diverse group of people from the shores and hinterlands of West and Central Africa became a community in North America."--BOOK JACKET.