Ocean State Libraries

Six months after the formation of the NYPD, its most reluctant and talented officer, Timothy Wilde, thinks himself well versed in his city's dark practices -- until he learns of the gruesome underworld of lies and corruption ruled by the "blackbirders," who snatch free Northerners of color from their homes, masquerade them as slaves, and sell them South to toil as plantation property. The abolitionist Timothy is horrified by these traders in human...

Detailed study of the American government's inability to deal with flagrant violations of federal laws forbidding the use of American citizens, vessels, and port facilities in the international slave trade which flourished in the 1840s and 1850s.

Recounts the history of slavery and the slave trade in the United States discussing their causes, the slave experience, the Civil War, and Reconstruction and its aftermath.