Down Freedom River

Freedom comes at a price

An historical novel of slavery and rebellion in antebellum Florida

In 1811 the busy slave mart in Fernandina provided illegal slaves for traders to smuggle into Georgia. Annette, a free woman kidnapped and sold as a slave, had no way to know her future instead lay with the Republic of Freedom, established by escaped slaves in Florida. Or the horrors and dangers she would encounter on that perilous journey to freedom.

The cockney auctioneer slipped one arm around her waist, his fingers coming to rest on the naked young woman’s stomach below the navel.

” Who’ll give a thousand dollars to put ‘is ‘and where mine is?” he called to the crowd of bidders.

The woman locked one arm around the cockney’s neck and took him to the floor, raking the free hand across his face like a claw and reaching for his throat with small sharp teeth. He howled in anguish, ducked his head and tried to butt her away. The two guards were on her in seconds, but in that time she bit him deeply on one shoulder. One eye would not see again for days, and four deep scratches marred his face.

Above the turmoil and laughter a clear voice rose, sharp and imperious. “I bid one-thousand dollars!”

Amazon

Reviews

Down Freedom River is an incredibly well-researched and dramatic account of a fascinating, if little-known, moment in early American history. If, like me, you only know the traditional narrative of slaves fleeing brutal oppression in the antebellum-era Deep South by heading “north,” you are in for a surprise. For generations many escaped slaves instead took a perilous journey “down” to freedom, seeking haven in a free and independent community of fugitive slaves that existed in Spanish Florida (a precursor to the Underground Railroad!)

Against the backdrop of a challenging love story, Joe Green’s newest novel is a haunting account of a sadly forgotten chapter of American history, of courageous interracial resistance to chattel slavery, and of the incredible events leading up to the creation and destruction (in 1816) of the real Negro Fort, traces of which still remain visible today.

Highly recommended reading for anyone interested in African-American history or Florida history.

Darcel E. Drew

Amazon review

Green has taken a break from his prolific science fiction output for this historical novel set on the Gulf of Mexico in the period around the War of 1812. Using the brains and brawn of ex-slaves David and Garcon, respectively, a “country” called Freedom has been set up in the sparsely populated region of the Apalachicola River. As their colony of runaways grows they take over an abandoned British fort on a bluff over looking he river. Renaming it Fort Negro, they can control passage through the river. But David’s former owner, Nicholas Laudonnire cautions that their future is dim if the United States is pressured to invade and return the runaways to their owners. And alas, that scoundrel Andrew Jackson, eventually figures into the story. Green has done a marvelous job pf putting his story into the geographical and political context of the time.

Bill Plott

Amazon review

A plantation owner with a conscience in the pre-Civil War South sounds like pure fiction, but good people have existed in the worst of times, and this novel brings some of them to life. Down Freedom River by Joseph Green is the first historical fiction from a prolific writer and veteran of the Golden Age of Science Fiction…. Green’s … foray into historical fiction deserves to be an instant classic.

… Most of us are unaware that in the early 1800s, escaped or manumissioned (freed) slaves created their own nation in Florida, “Negro Fort,” a thousand civilians strong. Seminole and other Native tribes sometimes cooperated with them and sometimes worked as mercenaries for the British or the Americans to do battle with them.

…my urgent recommendation that readers buy this book and tell everyone about it. It’s a heartbreaking story that needs to be heard and remembered as part of our nation’s history, and the history of a people.

Carol

Vine Voice, Amazon review