Born in Blackness: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War

by Howard W. French

I hiked a verdant peak in northern Haiti. There, Henri Christophe, that country’s early Black leader, built the formidable Citadelle Laferrière, the largest fortress in the Western Hemisphere, arming it with 365 cannons to defend the country’s hard-won independence from France. Other hints came when I wandered into the mountains and rain forests of Jamaica and Suriname, respectively, and was thrilled to be able to make myself understood speaking bits of Twi, the lingua franca of Ghana learned while courting my wife, as I spoke with the descendants of proud runaway slave communities known as maroons.