A really excellent read - dense and information-packed and sometimes academic to the point of being difficult to get through (as a casual reader), but so informative that it was worth it. Kanakamedala does a great job of providing the necessary background information to make her account understandable and her research was absolutely exhaustive. Not a light read by any means but incredibly informative about a little-studied aspect of a much-studied city and time period, which in turn is going to color my perspective on future reading and thinking about nineteenth-century New York (and US) history in the years to come.

Very informative reading! I am in awe of the strength and tenacity of the black people who are depicted in this book.