Goodreads Reviews: Liberty Brought Us Here
Eva: "I read this book like a detective story, in one sitting."
Sarah: "Well researched and accessible . . . [a] brilliantly balanced picture of the complexities of the slave / slaveholder relationship . . ."
David: "An extraordinary picture of an infinitely complex relationship between former master and slave . . ."
2023
Journal of the Jackson Purchase Historical Society
Liberty Brought Us Here is a pioneering work, which focuses on the primary sources . . . an example to anyone seeking to write history of the historian’s ability to synthesize information gleaned from letters, newspapers, census data, and historical knowledge. It is a welcome addition to any bookshelf.
October 2020
Midwest Book Review
In Midwest Book Review, Michael J. Carson wrote, "An inherently engaging and impressively informative study, Liberty Brought Us Here: The True Story of American Slaves Who Migrated to Liberia is a seminal work of meticulous scholarship. Read more at
MBR: Reviewer’s Bookwatch, October 2020 (midwestbookreview.com).
July 2020
She's Single Magazine
In a review for She's Single magazine, writer Dakotah Jennifer calls Liberty Brought Us Here: "artful historical narrative" and writes "The book is not only a rare, forgotten perspective of history but also an engaging piece of accessible scholarship." Read her full review here.
Other Reviewers
Poignant and Provocative
"In recounting the lives of freed slaves who immigrated from Kentucky to Liberia decades before emancipation, Lindsey breathes life into a poignant, provocative, and largely forgotten tale. Beautifully written and meticulously researched, Liberty Brought Us Here is both a significant contribution to the historical record and a pleasure to read."—Alan Huffman, author of Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today
Engaging, Nuanced, Imaginative
"Based on extensive archival research, Liberty Brought Us Here is an engaging, nuanced, and imaginative work that merits a prominent place in the scholarship on the American Colonization Society and Liberia."—Eric Burin, author of Protesting on Bended Knee: Race, Dissent, and Patriotism in Twenty-First-Century America
An Urgently Necessary Book
"Lindsey has ambitiously and carefully told the other side of Liberia’s story: the connection or disconnection of Americo-Liberians to America, their hope of finding a truly free and peaceful land, the contradictions of Liberia’s history as the unwanted ‘uncolonized colony,’ and Americo-Liberians’ struggle to be liberated while perpetuating the same slave culture that had kept them in bondage in America for centuries. This is an urgently necessary book that should be on the shelf in every library."—Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, author of Praise Song for My Children: New and Selected Poems
"An Outstanding Job Weaving Together Original Sources . . . and Archival Research"
"Lindsey does an outstanding job weaving together original sources, including letters between the US and Liberian families and archival research. Relying on these sources plus germane scholarly writings covering the American Colonization Society’s settlements, Lindsey deftly and authentically fills gaps in the original documents and scholarly publications. A good read about a Liberian settler family’s struggles in the mid-nineteenth century."—Verlon Stone, former special advisor, Indiana University Liberian Collections
"She Weaves a Story of Two Migrations in Search of Better Lives"
"At a time when Liberia is seeking to redefine itself in the aftermath of civil war, the author takes us back to America’s role in the founding of the Liberian state as she weaves a story of two migrations in search of better lives—black Kentuckians to what became Liberia, and white Kentuckians and former slave owners to frontier Illinois.”—D. Elwood Dunn, author of Liberia and the United States during the Cold War: Limits of Reciprocity and editor of The Annual Messages of the Presidents of Liberia, 1848–2010
Five-Stars on Amazon
See numerous five-star ratings from readers on Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Brought-Us-Here-American/dp/0813179335/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3NBMJZE86Z6V5&dchild=1&keywords=liberty+brought+us+here&qid=1615644073&sprefix=Liberty+Brought+Us%2Caps%2C264&sr=8-1#customerReviews.