This important book sheds light on more than 1,400 brief life histories of mostly enslaved Black people, with the goal of recovering their individual lives.

Harvey Amani Whitfield unearths the stories of men, women, and children who would not otherwise have found their way into written history. The individuals mentioned come from various points of origin, including Africa, the West Indies, the Carolinas, the Chesapeake, and the northern states, showcasing the remarkable range of the Black experience in the Atlantic world. Whitfield makes it clear that these enslaved Black people had likes, dislikes, distinct personality traits, and different levels of physical, spiritual, and intellectual talent. Biographical Dictionary of Enslaved Black People in the Maritimes affirms the notion that they were all unique individuals, despite the efforts of their owners and the wider Atlantic world to dehumanize and erase them.

Harvey Amani Whitfield is a professor of Black North American History at the University of Calgary.

Harvey Whitfield's profile page

Donald Wright is an assistant professor in the Department of History and the Centre for Canadian Studies at Brock University.

Donald Wright's profile page

• Winner, Clio Prize for Atlantic History Awarded by the Canadian Historical Association

“The Biographical Dictionary of Enslaved Black People in the Maritimes has opened the door for scholars to answer the many questions Whitfield has helped illuminate. Thus, Whitfield’s crowning achievement lies not only in capturing the lives and experiences of otherwise marginalized people, especially in New Brunswick, but also in providing an entry point for generations of scholars seeking to further our understanding of slavery and the individuals who were ensnared by it.”

<em>Journal of NB Studies</em>

“Biographical Dictionary is a beautiful, sad, and poignant telling of the lives of those enslaved, created from a wide variety of sources … A treasure chest for anthropologists, sociologists, and historians who can process the raw data, this book is sure to provide work for years to come in these fields.”

<em>American Review of Canadian Studies</em>

"Whitfield’s work, the result of a deep immersion in the existing record, confronts and transcends the limitations of its disparate sources, using individual entries to collect and interpret biographical information about the lives of 1,465 people enslaved in the Maritimes in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries."

<em>H-Net Reviews</em>