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The African American Odyssey of John Kizell: a South Carolina slave returns to fight the Slave Trade in his African Homeland, by Kevin G. Lowther. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2011. xx + 299 pp. ISBN 978- 1-57003-960-7. $39.95.
The story of the Black American loyalists settled in Nova Scotia and then in Sierra Leone was retold for 21st century readers by Simon Schama in his highly readable and influential Rough Crossings (BBC Books, 2005),( reviewed in ARD 100, 2006, pp.52-54). John Kizell had a bit part in that account, with four index entries. In Christopher Fyfe's magisterial History of Sierra Leone (1962), he rated five. Not much is known about Kizell, but what there is, is intriguing. Sold into slavery as a young teenager, he survived the Middle Passage and managed to improve himself in domestic slavery in Charleston, becoming literate and Christian. He escaped to the British forces and probably saw action at the battle of Kings Mountain. Evacuated to...