"[Makes] a very important contribution to the study of early American slavery by showing . . . what it is possible to learn from relatively little in the way of conventional sources."--Journal of Southern History
"A marvelously thorough work. . . . It will stand for many years as a monument to its field."--Mississippi Quarterly
"Kay and Cary have made an important contribution to our understanding of American slavery. They remind us that both the South's peculiar institution and its system of race relations were more dynamic than is often assumed."--Southern Cultures
"Readers interested in colonial slavery need to become familiar with this book. Its main value is in forcing us to rethink what we believe about acculturation and the nature of slave society in early America."--Journal of American History
"Interesting, insightful, and necessary for a full understanding of slavery in colonial North Carolina as well as more broadly in the British-American empire."--North Carolina Historical Review
"Michael Kay and Lorin Cary make it possible for us to understand how much of pre-Revolutionary North Carolina functioned, and how an enduring segment of its population (African in origin) made its way in a new world. The scope of research, the reach of learning, and the wisdom of interpretation in this book are enormous."--William S. Price Jr., North Carolina Division of Archives and History