Synopsis
A personal history of slavery in the South, written by a descendant of South Carolina slaveowners who traced the histories of the slave families owned by his ancestors and searched out their descendants. A New York Times Notable Book for 1998.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 1998-02-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 504 pages | | Height: | 9.8 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 2.0 in | | Weight: | 32.8 oz |
Publisher's Note
Edward Ball...has written a nonfiction American saga like no other. Part history, part journey of his discovery, this is the story of black and white families who lived side by side for five generations--and a tale of everyday Americans confronting their vexed inheritance together. Using the copious planation records of his family, supplemented by both black and white oral tradition, ball uncovers the story of the people who lived on his ancestor's lands--the violence and opulence, the slave uprisings and escapes, the dynastic struggles, and the mulatto children of Ball slaveholders and "Ball slaves." He identifies and travels to a prison in Africa from which his family once bought workers. Most remarkably of all, Ball also locates and visits some of the nearly 12,000 descendants of Ball slaves and reveals how slavery lives on in black and white memory and experience.
In 1698, Elias Ball traveled from his home in Devon, England, to Charleston, South Carolina, to take possession of his inheritance: part of a plantation and twenty slaves. Elias and his progeny built an American dynasty that lasted for six generations, acquiring more than twenty plantations along the Cooper River near Charleston, selling rice known as Carolina Gold, and enslaving close to four thousand Africans and African Americans until 1865, when Union troops arrived on the lawns of the Balls' estates to force emancipation. Ball chronicles the lives of people who lived on his ancestors' lands: the violence and the opulence, the slave uprisings and escapes, the white and black heroes of the American Revolution, the mulatto children of Ball masters and "Ball slaves", and the culminating shock of the Civil War. He reconstructs the genealogies of slave families - from the first African captives, through ten generations, to the present - and travels to Sierra Leone to visit a prison from which his family once bought workers. Edward Ball has traveled all over the United States to meet descendants of Ball slaves (who number between 75,000 and 100,000 living Americans). In a series of memorable encounters, Ball hears from black families - some of whom are his blood kin - their stories, passions, and dreams, and reveals how the effects of slavery live on in black and white life and memory. Slaves in the Family is a microcosm of America's defining national experience, a story of people confronting their inescapable common history.
Industry Reviews
"...an entirely absorbing combination of historical reconstruction and social observation. Edward Ball is a journalist and he uses investigative journalism to very good effect, mixing documentary research and historical narrative with a series of expertly handled interviews....Edward Ball has made a very valuable contribution to our knowledge of this nefarious trade and what it has done to the American psyche. His book deserves to be widely read."
Literary Review - Barry Unsworth (07/19/1998)
"Ball's impressive detective work and the black voices it records build a monumental and extraordinary case history of the rise and fall of America's most shameful institution."
Kirkus Reviews (02/01/1998)
"The book is not only honest in its scrupulous reporting but also personal narrative at its finest."
San Francisco Chronicle Book Review - Charlotte Painter (02/22/1998)
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