Past Winners

Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winners

2023	Twenty Fifth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winners: R. Isabela Morales for “Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom” Simon P. Newman for “ Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration London”
2022	Twenty Fourth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winners: Tiya Miles for “All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake” Jennifer L. Morgan for “Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship, and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic”
2021	Twenty Third Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winners: Vincent Brown for “Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War” Marjoleine Kars for “Blood on the River: A Chronicle of Mutiny and Freedom on the Wild Coast”
2020	Twenty Second Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: Sophie White, “Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana”
2019	Twenty First Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winners: Amy Murrell Taylor, “Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps”
2018	Twentieth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winners: Erica Armstrong Dunbar, “Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge” Tiya Miles, “The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits”
2017	Nineteenth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: Manisha Sinha, The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition
2016	Eighteenth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: Jeff Forret, Slave Against Slave: Plantation Violence in the Old South
2015	Seventeenth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: Ada Ferrer, Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution Finalists: Ezra Greenspan, William Wells Brown: An African American Life Michael Guasco, Slaves and Englishmen: Human Bondage in the Early Modern Atlantic World More about the 2015 winner, finalists, and jury VIDEO
2014	Sixteenth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: Christopher Hager, Word by Word: Emancipation and the Act of Writing Finalists: Camillia Cowling, Conceiving Freedom: Women of Color, Gender, and the Abolition of Slavery in Havana and Rio de Janeiro Alan Taylor, The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772–1832 More about the 2014 winner, finalists, and jury
2013	Fifteenth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: Sydney Nathans, To Free a Family: The Journey of Mary Walker Finalists: Stephen Kantrowitz, More than Freedom: Fighting for Black Citizenship in a White Republic, 1829-1889 Brett Rushforth, Bonds of Alliance: Indigenous & Atlantic Slaveries in New France More about the 2013 winner, finalists, and jury
2012	Fourteenth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: James Sweet, Domingos Álvares, African Healing, and the Intellectual History of the Atlantic World Finalists: Robin Blackburn, The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation and Human Rights R. Blakeslee Gilpin, John Brown Still Lives: America’s Long Reckoning with Violence, Equality, and Change Carla L. Peterson, Black Gotham: A Family History of Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City More about the 2012 winner, finalists, and jury
2011	Thirteenth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: Stephanie McCurry, Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South Finalists: Nicolas Draper, The Price of Emancipation: Slave-Ownership, Compensation, and British Society at the End of Slavery Christina Snyder, Slavery in Indian Country: The Changing Face of Captivity in Early America More about the 2011 winner, finalists, and jury
2010	Twelfth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winners: Judith A. Carney and Richard Nicholas Rosomoff, In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World Siddharth Kara, Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery Finalists: Robert E. McGlone, John Brown’s War Against Slavery More about the 2010 winner, finalists, and jury
2009	Eleventh Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family Finalists: Thavolia Glymph, Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household Jacqueline Jones, Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War More about the 2009 winner, finalists, and jury
2008	Tenth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: Stephanie Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora Finalists: Anthony E. Kaye, Joining Places: Slave Neighborhoods in the Old South Kristin Mann, Slavery and the Birth of an African City: Lagos, 1760-1900 Chandra Manning, What this Cruel War Was Over: Soldiers, Slavery, and the Civil War More about the 2008 winner, finalists, and jury
2007	Ninth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: Christopher Leslie Brown, Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism Finalists: Matt D. Childs, The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle Against Atlantic Slavery Cassandra Pybus, Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and their Global Quest for Freedom More about the 2007 winner, finalists, and jury
2006	Eighth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: Rebecca J. Scott, Degrees of Freedom: Louisiana and Cuba After Slavery Finalists: Steven Deyle, Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life Richard Follett, The Sugar Masters: Planters and Slaves in Louisiana’s Cane World, 1820-1860 More about the 2006 winner, finalists, and jury
2005	Seventh Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804 Finalists: Claude A. Clegg III, The Price of Liberty: African Americans and the Making of Liberia Melvin Patrick Ely, Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War Robin Law, Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving ‘Port’ 1727-1892 Shane White and Graham White, The Sounds of Slavery: Discovering African American History through Songs, Sermons and Speech More about the 2005 winner, finalists, and jury
2004	Sixth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: Jean Fagan Yellin, Harriet Jacobs: A Life Finalists: Stephen Hahn, A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration James H. Sweet, Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770 John Wood Sweet, for Bodies Politic: Negotiating Race in the American North, 1730-1830 More about the 2004 winner, finalists, and jury
2003	Fifth Annual Frederick Douglass Book First Prize Winner: Seymour Drescher, The Mighty Experiment: Free Labor versus Slavery in British Emancipation Second Prize: James F. Brooks, Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands Honorable Mention: Leslie M. Harris, In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863 Patrick Rael, Black Identity and Black Protest in the Antebellum North More about the 2003 winners and jury
2002	The Fourth Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Robert Harms, The Diligent: A Voyage through the Worlds of the Slave Trade Second Prize ($10,000) John Stauffer, The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race Honorable Mention Michael Salman, The Embarrassment of Slavery: Controversies over Bondage and Nationalism in the American Colonial Philippines More about the 2002 winners and jury
2001	Third Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory Special Commendation for: The late Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States Government’s Relations to Slavery More about the 2001 winner and jury
2000	Second Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner: David Eltis, The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas More about the 2000 winner and jury
1999	First Prize: Ira Berlin Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery Second Prize: Philip D. Morgan Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry First Annual Frederick Douglass Book Prize Recipients: Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America Philip Morgan, Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry Finalists: Julie Roy Jeffrey, The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism: Ordinary Women in the Antislavery Movement Robert Olwell, Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740–1790 Amy Dru Stanley, From Bondage to Contract: Wage Labor, Marriage, and the Market in the Age of Slave Emancipation Shane White and Graham White, Stylin’: African-American Expressive Culture, from Its Beginnings to the Zoot Suit More about the 1999 winners, finalists, and jury