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“Part graphic novel, part memoir, Wake is an imaginative tour de force that tells the story of women-led slave revolts and chronicles scholar Rebecca Hall’s efforts to uncover the truth about these warriors who, until now, have been left out of the historical record. Women warriors planned and led slave revolts on ships during the Middle Passage. They fought their enslavers throughout the Americas. And then they were erased from history. Wake tells the story of Dr. Rebecca Hall, a historian, granddaughter of slaves, and woman haunted by the legacy of slavery. The accepted history of slave revolts has always told her that enslaved women took a back seat to men in fighting for freedom. But Rebecca decided to look deeper, and her journey takes her through old court records, slave ship captains’ logs, crumbling correspondence, and even the forensic evidence from the bones of enslaved women from the ‘African burial ground’ uncovered in Manhattan. She finds women warriors everywhere. Using in-depth archival research and a measured approach to historical imagination, Rebecca constructs the likely pasts of women rebels who fought for freedom during the Middle Passage, as well as the stories of women who led slave revolts in colonial New York. We also follow Rebecca’s own story as the legacy of slavery shapes her life, both during the time as an attorney and later as a historian seeking the past that haunts her. The exploration of both a personal and national legacy, Wake is a powerful reminder that while the past is gone, we still live in its wake.” --Book jacket.