Seeds of America

by Laurie Halse Anderson 3 books in this series

The Seeds of America trilogy follows Isabel and Curzon, two young people fighting enslavement while Britain’s North American colonies fight for independence. Beginning in New York in 1776, continuing through Saratoga and the Valley Forge encampment, and ending at Yorktown in 1781, the novels connect their search for freedom to major turning points of the American Revolutionary War.

Alternating viewpoints and the continuing search for Isabel’s sister Ruth expose the contradiction between revolutionary claims about liberty and the legal reality of chattel slavery. Loyalist households, Patriot camps, prisons and battlefields show how competing political causes could invoke freedom while denying it to Black Americans.

Reading order

Books in this series (3 books)

1. Chains

Laurie Halse Anderson

First published 2008

4.1(63,096)

New York, 1776. Thirteen-year-old Isabel and her younger sister Ruth are promised freedom after their owner’s death, but the promise is ignored and they are sold to Anne and Elihu Lockton, wealthy Loyalists who take them to Manhattan. Curzon, an enslaved boy connected to the Patriot…

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2. Forge

Laurie Halse Anderson

First published 2010

4.2(19,286)

New York and Pennsylvania, 1777–1778. Curzon is separated from Isabel and working as a wagon driver when he is caught in the fighting at Saratoga. He enlists in the Continental Army while concealing that he is an escaped enslaved person. The march to Valley Forge gives…

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3. Ashes

Laurie Halse Anderson

First published 2016

4.4(8,583)

Virginia, 1781. Isabel and Curzon have escaped Valley Forge but remain fugitives, pursued by Bellingham and separated from Ruth. Their search carries them through a southern landscape where military movements, plantations, bounty hunters and the movement of self-emancipated people make every road dangerous. Finding Ruth does…

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