Reviewing the Slaves Gamble

This article compares two peer reviews by Sean Kelley and James G. Cusick concerning ‘the slave’s gamble: choosing sides in the war of 1812’ by Gene Allen Smith. Sean Kelley analyzes slave’s gamble on the basis that the war had a revolutionary impact on slavery measures regarding the call for freedom for the people of color3. On the other, hand James Cusick argues the gamble based on intriguing regional faceting that hindered the request for a unification of the parties involved in the war3. Originality and Topicality and Objectives Gene Alley composed the original work of The Slaves Gamble. S and the world3. Thus, they had two options one was to join the American military in the promise of freedom whereas the other was to surrender to the British and Spain to be free4.

Henceforth, throughout the extract, he explains the results arising from the events between 1812 to 1815 about the war and slavery measures. In contrast, James investigates the gamble amongst enslaved Americans by reviewing regional and populations’ segmentation from the original Gene Smiths the Slaves’ Gamble among other various books and journals. For instance, he uses ‘the Weight of Vengeance’ by Troy Bickham to illustrate the locations of occurrence of the war. Complementarily, the war at Florida presented a variety of opportunities and challenges to the slaves. For instance, his illustrates that Spain Florida who were initially the base of slave trade since the seventeenth century by then offered citizen rights and freedom to the slaves and escapees as well as absorbing them into the rebel militia units.

Among other events that led to escape and the right to freedom was through patriotic war led by Lord Dunmore who offered freedom to slave with the aim of suppressing the countryside and simultaneously gain workforce. Most of such operations were successful while most faced by challenges like defeats on Baltimore and Washington and often they faced charges of rebellion. Similarly, the British also intercepted some of the slaves and granted them freedom if they served the crown under a black military unit popularly referred to as colonial Marine3. Further, the extract illustrates how the British campaigns to lure slaves focused on Cumberland Island in Georgia and the Apalachicola River, as the main exchange point for the evacuees into the British camps.

Nevertheless, James points that Smith captures best the war of 1812 as the origin of the struggle of people of color. Thus, he implies that the war is the cause of 5000 escapees to Britain, Bermuda, Trinidad, Belize, and Canada. He further says that the evacuees remained unappreciated for their contribution in the war, though initiated the call for freedom that happened almost 20 years later 5. Considerably, both reviews note that conflicting partners were aware of the slave participation in a military operation by both the United States, the British, and Spanish neighbors. Conclusively, Sean Kelley explains that the 1812 war was exceptional because of the stout and extensive recruitment of African American combatants also referred to as the militia units. That was the basis of the original Slaves’ Gamble by Gene Smith thus the most evident comment was that blacks were leading players of the war, waged with promises of freedom.