"Cry Liberty"

Hoffer (history, Univ. of Georgia; Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud—American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin) revisits the circumstances that led to 21 whites dying at the hands of enslaved blacks on September 9, 1739, along South Carolina's Stono River. Intertwining past and present, he narrates a path through a maze of unarticulated intentions and postevent glosses. Working in the mold of historian as storyteller-artist and social scientist, Hoffer interrogates sparse records, sprawling terminology, and previous interpretations and supplies a commentary on historical methods and uses of fragmentary primary sources. The result is this engaging primer on slaves' backgrounds, behaviors, and relationships in Colonial South Carolina's Lowcountry, a typical entry in this series. Hoffer lays open whites' fantasies and fears and their fashioning interpretations to reinforce their views of freedom and slavery within an ideology of white supremacy.