Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019

Berry gives a history of Savannah, Georgia. Savannah’s planners intended for it to resemble London. It was originally an experiment to “provide British debtors and war criminals a second chance at life in the New World” (149). Savannah had the First African Baptist Church in 1777. It is North America’s oldest Black church.

Savannah also experienced the second-deadliest battle of the Revolutionary War, the Siege of Savannah. The British gained an advantage in the fight when they added small, local groups of African Americans to help navigate their ships through the waterways. The British also used African American guides.

Today, African Americans comprise 54 percent of Savannah’s population.

Brazile writes in the first-person perspective as Richard Allen, an enslaved man who died as a Methodist bishop. He describes his two owners, Benjamin Chew and Stokley Sturgis. After hearing a preacher he feels that he can work on his moral shortcomings. He commits to a life of purity and morality.

The preacher also convinces Sturgis that he can no longer morally own slaves. Sturgis releases Allen to find work and pay him for his release. Being free is harder in some ways: “It was hard to get jobs. It was hard just to live.