The Slave Master's Son

The Slave Master's Son
Author: Tiana Laveen
Publisher: CreateSpace
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2012-01-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781468161649

"The 1800s for Black Americans was a time of forced servitude, anguish, heartbreak, and strength of faith. John, a wealthy Richmond, Virginia slave owner's son, and Hannah, the Negro daughter of a protective and loving mother, grew up as playmates, sharing their lives and dreams. Soon a sweet and tumultuous love affair began that grew so strong John would risk everything before relinquishing it. With his reputation in jeopardy, Hannah in his heart, and a father and country firmly against him, John must overcome innumerable obstacles, some involving incredible violence and cruelty. Along the way he discovers shocking family secrets, buried for years. This historic romance raises the question--can the love between a beautiful, young slave woman and a wealthy Confederate slave master's son endure the prevailing ideology of their time?"--Cover.

Jefferson's Sons

Jefferson's Sons
Author: Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2011-09-15
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1101529458

This story of Thomas Jefferson's children by one of his slaves, Sally Hemings, tells a darker piece of America's history from an often unseen perspective-that of three of Jefferson's slaves-including two of his own children. As each child grows up and tells his story, the contradiction between slavery and freedom becomes starker, calliing into question the real meaning of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This poignant story sheds light on what life was like as one of Jefferson's invisible offspring.

Slaves in the Family

Slaves in the Family
Author: Edward Ball
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 623
Release: 2017-10-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 146689749X

Decades after this celebrated work of narrative nonfiction won the National Book Award and changed the American conversation about race, Slaves in the Family is reissued by FSG Classics, with a new preface by the author. The Ball family hails from South Carolina—Charleston and thereabouts. Their plantations were among the oldest and longest-standing plantations in the South. Between 1698 and 1865, close to four thousand black people were born into slavery under the Balls or were bought by them. In Slaves in the Family, Edward Ball recounts his efforts to track down and meet the descendants of his family's slaves. Part historical narrative, part oral history, part personal story of investigation and catharsis, Slaves in the Family is, in the words of Pat Conroy, "a work of breathtaking generosity and courage, a magnificent study of the complexity and strangeness and beauty of the word ‘family.'"

Husband, Wife, Father, Child, Master, Slave

Husband, Wife, Father, Child, Master, Slave
Author: Kurt C. Schaefer
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2018-02-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 153264065X

When the New Testament speaks of slaves and masters, is it affirming an institution that we find reprehensible? Biblical scholars across the theological and political spectrum generally conclude that the answer is "yes." And in the same passages the Bible seems to affirm male dominance in marriage, if not in society at large. This book meticulously places these passages, the Bible's "household codes," in their historical and literary context, focusing on 1 Peter's extensive code. A careful side-by-side reading with Rome's cultural equivalent (Aristotle's household code) reveals both the brilliance of the biblical author and the depth of 1 Peter's antipathy toward slavery and misogyny.

The Water Dancer

The Water Dancer
Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Publisher: One World
Total Pages: 434
Release: 2019-09-24
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0399590609

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • From the National Book Award–winning author of Between the World and Me, a boldly conjured debut novel about a magical gift, a devastating loss, and an underground war for freedom. “This potent book about America’s most disgraceful sin establishes [Ta-Nehisi Coates] as a first-rate novelist.”—San Francisco Chronicle IN DEVELOPMENT AS A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Adapted by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Kamilah Forbes, directed by Nia DaCosta, and produced by MGM, Plan B, and Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films NOMINATED FOR THE NAACP IMAGE AWARD • NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST NOVELS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • Vanity Fair • Esquire • Good Housekeeping • Paste • Town & Country • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures. This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children—the violent and capricious separation of families—and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen. Praise for The Water Dancer “Ta-Nehisi Coates is the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race with his 2015 memoir, Between the World and Me. So naturally his debut novel comes with slightly unrealistic expectations—and then proceeds to exceed them. The Water Dancer . . . is a work of both staggering imagination and rich historical significance. . . . What’s most powerful is the way Coates enlists his notions of the fantastic, as well as his fluid prose, to probe a wound that never seems to heal. . . . Timeless and instantly canon-worthy.”—Rolling Stone

Sacred Hunger

Sacred Hunger
Author: Barry Unsworth
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 647
Release: 2012-01-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307948447

Winner of the Booker Prize A historical novel set in the eighteenth century, Sacred Hunger is a stunning, engrossing exploration of power, domination, and greed in the British Empire as it entered fully into the slave trade and spread it throughout its colonies. Barry Unsworth follows the failing fortunes of William Kemp, a merchant pinning his last chance to a slave ship; his son who needs a fortune because he is in love with an upper-class woman; and his nephew who sails on the ship as its doctor because he has lost all he has loved. The voyage meets its demise when disease spreads among the slaves and the captain's drastic response provokes a mutiny. Joining together, the sailors and the slaves set up a secret, utopian society in the wilderness of Florida, only to await the vengeance of the single-minded, young Kemp.

Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings

Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
Author: Annette Gordon-Reed
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1998-03-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813933560

When Annette Gordon-Reed's groundbreaking study was first published, rumors of Thomas Jefferson's sexual involvement with his slave Sally Hemings had circulated for two centuries. Among all aspects of Jefferson's renowned life, it was perhaps the most hotly contested topic. The publication of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings intensified this debate by identifying glaring inconsistencies in many noted scholars' evaluations of the existing evidence. In this study, Gordon-Reed assembles a fascinating and convincing argument: not that the alleged thirty-eight-year liaison necessarily took place but rather that the evidence for its taking place has been denied a fair hearing. Friends of Jefferson sought to debunk the Hemings story as early as 1800, and most subsequent historians and biographers followed suit, finding the affair unthinkable based upon their view of Jefferson's life, character, and beliefs. Gordon-Reed responds to these critics by pointing out numerous errors and prejudices in their writings, ranging from inaccurate citations, to impossible time lines, to virtual exclusions of evidence—especially evidence concerning the Hemings family. She demonstrates how these scholars may have been misguided by their own biases and may even have tailored evidence to serve and preserve their opinions of Jefferson. This updated edition of the book also includes an afterword in which the author comments on the DNA study that provided further evidence of a Jefferson and Hemings liaison. Possessing both a layperson's unfettered curiosity and a lawyer's logical mind, Annette Gordon-Reed writes with a style and compassion that are irresistible. Each chapter revolves around a key figure in the Hemings drama, and the resulting portraits are engrossing and very personal. Gordon-Reed also brings a keen intuitive sense of the psychological complexities of human relationships—relationships that, in the real world, often develop regardless of status or race. The most compelling element of all, however, is her extensive and careful research, which often allows the evidence to speak for itself. Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy is the definitive look at a centuries-old question that should fascinate general readers and historians alike.

Robert Stafford of Cumberland Island

Robert Stafford of Cumberland Island
Author: Mary Ricketson Bullard
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 378
Release: 1995
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780820317380

Robert Stafford of Cumberland Island offers a rare glimpse into the life and times of a nineteenth-century planter on one of Georgia's Sea Islands. Born poor, Robert Stafford (1790-1877) became the leading planter on his native Cumberland Island. Specializing in the highly valued long staple variety of cotton, he claimed among his assets more than 8,000 acres and 350 slaves. Mary R. Bullard recounts Stafford's life in the context of how events from the Federalist period to the Civil War to Reconstruction affected Sea Island planters. As she discusses Stafford's associations with other planters, his business dealings (which included banking and railroad investments), and the day-to-day operation of his plantation, Bullard also imparts a wealth of information about cotton farming methods, plantation life and material culture, and the geography and natural history of Cumberland Island. Stafford's career was fairly typical for his time and place; his personal life was not. He never married, but fathered six children by Elizabeth Bernardey, a mulatto slave nurse. Bullard's discussion of Stafford's decision to move his family to Groton, Connecticut--and freedom--before the Civil War illuminates the complex interplay between southern notions of personal honor, the staunch independent-mindedness of Sea Island planters, and the practice and theory of racial separation. In her afterword to the Brown Thrasher edition, Bullard presents recently uncovered information about a second extralegal family of Robert Stafford as well as additional information about Elizabeth Bernardey's children and the trust funds Stafford provided for them.

Henry's Freedom Box

Henry's Freedom Box
Author: Ellen Levine
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2016-03-29
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1338082655

A stirring, dramatic story of a slave who mails himself to freedom by a Jane Addams Peace Award-winning author and a Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist. Henry Brown doesn't know how old he is. Nobody keeps records of slaves' birthdays. All the time he dreams about freedom, but that dream seems farther away than ever when he is torn from his family and put to work in a warehouse. Henry grows up and marries, but he is again devastated when his family is sold at the slave market. Then one day, as he lifts a crate at the warehouse, he knows exactly what he must do: He will mail himself to the North. After an arduous journey in the crate, Henry finally has a birthday -- his first day of freedom.

To Be a Slave

To Be a Slave
Author: Julius Lester
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2005-12-29
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0142403865

What was it like to be a slave? Listen to the words and learn about the lives of countless slaves and ex-slaves, telling about their forced journey from Africa to the United States, their work in the fields and houses of their owners, and their passion for freedom. You will never look at life the same way again.