WebSlaves in the Family Edward Ball 4.02 2,722 ratings360 reviews Journalist Ball confronts the legacy of his family's slave-owning past, uncovering the story of the people, both black once again before my eyes. Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video! WebThe stability of the slave family was often challenged due to the fact that no state law recognized marriage among slaves and masters had legal authority over slave children and the possibility of forced separation. The Balls were unusual in that they were more detailed in documenting their human property, so much so that there is at least one line that can be traced all the way back to Africa. At the beginning were two questions: Who were the Ball Family? The last letters date from three hundred years later in America, after the rice Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2023. Does this item contain quality or formatting issues? Dad was an Episcopal priest, so the houses we lived in belonged to the church, and my parents owned a single car. Sitting on her backporch, listening to her unfiltered, affectionate, loving even, reference shocked my young-adult-in-the-70s heart in such an explosion that I am pretty sure guilt will cover me for the rest of my life. of the Ball Family of South Carolina and the Comingtee Plantation. Their plantations were among the oldest and longest-standing plantations in the South. to live in the year 1698. The authors family were multiple generations of slave owners in the Carolinas early in the founding of this country. History.com Editors. Meeting intersects Tradd Street. the rice banks. He was tall, lean, carefully dressed, and had thin brown hair that he lost as he aged. Until that day, on every occasion when my parents bumped into friends, they had introduced us, but this time Dad In North America in the period from 1770 to 1830 the killing of a slave was equated in common law with the murder of a white person. Understanding The slave family did all the things families normally do, but the fact that other human Sorry, there was a problem loading this page. WebSlaves in the Family, with its white researcher at its core, is a call to other whites for truth-telling and awareness. From time to time in his stories, Dad mentioned the people our family used to own. However, this is not a book you're going to get through on a flight somewhere.Unlike many books today, you're going to have to work some to get the meaning out of this terrific book. Click on Remote Playlists. : In 1834, Charles N. Rowley, my mother's great-grandfather, married a Louisiana heiress, Jane Kemp Girault, who gave him control of her 2,200-acre Needing to know more, he began researching and trying to find the descendants of the slaves his family had owned. Most societies, such as those in Athens, Rome, Kievan Rus, Thailand, and Louisiana, did not allow slaves to contract independently with third parties, although some allowed the slave to make a contract on his owners behalf. "One day you'll want to know about all this," Dad said, waving his hand vaguely, his lips pursed. The verses consist of love lyrics to his wife, meditations on old things--one about a country church, another about rusting Confederate guns--and elegies about the Civil War, whose outcome caused him much sadness. I enjoyed this book a great deal. Dad directed Ted and me to stay in the car, and I seem to remember that he wore a strained look on his face as he walked across the grass, up the three wooden steps of the porch, to shake hands with frail, black George. Anyone white, European-Americans who has done some family history research that links them back to slave owning Southern families before the Civil War should read this book. Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 22 years ago, This is a remarkable story of Edward Ball's search for the descendants of the slaves acquired by his family once upon a time. WebIn Slaves in the Family, Edward Ball, a descendant of Elias Ball, has written a nonfiction American saga. Or the descendants of African slave traders Ball looks up in Sierra Leone! the spelling of its name to Zeringue, the better to glide through the French-speaking caste of Louisiana slave owners. Although our social franchise had shrunk, .but mine are all in North Carolina, and then trundle down to Georgia before heading to Louisiana and northwest Texas, and former slaves came with them to Texas. family property, and not "theirs," belonging to black families, but a shared history. . The book is so well written that it holds your attention even though there is a lot of genealogical material in it. they enslaved. Automobiles | These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. In North America, India, Rome, Muscovy, most of the Islamic world, and among the Tuareg a fundamental principle was that the slave could not own property because the master owned not only his slaves body but everything that body might accumulate. I wondered if I could stay focused all the way through because it seemed like it would be a tedious read and I wanted to really be able to give it the respect it deserves. Patrice says her great-great-grandmother, Florence, was born enslaved to a white slave owner father six months before the emancipation proclamation. 3 Oct 2022. Lord Cornwallis, who gave him a company of men and the rank of colonel. Losses in some areas exceeded even that 61 percent. Something went wrong. Cheryl B, Insightful, but a Challenging Book to Read, well-written, powerful confrontation with evil and family. Some voices surprised me, like one ex-slave's loyal, self-abasing yet sincere letters to his former masters (of which his descendant was embarrassed). The purpose of the event, as announced by its septuagenarian organizers, was to convey the plantation story to the younger generations. The ending felt forced. Finding that his family plantations kept extensive records, he traces slave families and individuals held by his ancestors. Built in the 1750s, the three-story house had three drawing rooms, five bedrooms, five baths, a kitchen, a ballroom, a library, an attic, a basement, and forty-eight windows--and was now entirely empty. Should statues of slaveholders be taken down? Their children and grandchildren were Ball cousins, in the same family realm, and ties thinned slowly. From this place it is possible to see, far out in This article about a non-fiction book on U.S. history is a stub. Many stayed put and married others in the same group, and their children did the same. How many people might be descended from Ball slaves? the Civil War. Paradoxically, by describing A major issue was whether the master had to allow the slave to marry and what rights the owner had over slave offspring. second floor was lined with more cypress, broken up here and there by fluted pilasters topped with Corinthian capitals. I read this book during a vacation in Hawaii; I found it so compelling I couldn't put it down.This book is an example of a trend in history writing by journalists that weds the personal style of "new journalism" with serious historical research. Slavery traders tried to cheat Africans with impure Cornish copper, says study. (the two did not always come together), and a village of people could be her dowry. For half an hour my brother and I sat simmering on the hot vinyl seats of the car, swatting mosquitoes. On the morning of April 12, 1861, rebel batteries around Charleston opened fire on Federal troops stationed at the fort, loudly opening With all this, the Ball men owned most of the people, controlled most of the land, used as second homes by wealthy families, but many had been swept away. Zehringer's grandfather had come to Louisiana in 1720 from Franconia, a section of Bavaria; later the family changed They assembled people, land, The progeny of slaves and the progeny of slave owners are forever linked. and in-laws owned more land and people. Who were their loved ones? fields, back to firm land. The tone of the old joke was replaced by some nervousness. Additional gift options are available when buying one eBook at a time. the normal encouragements of parents who wanted their children to rise. Some of the family children to join a faction of exiled Confederates. 27 Feb 2023. and facts about both. The author went on a search to find his black ancestors since he was sure that his white family members would have had children with their slaves. invited home to commune with the ancestors and bathe themselves in lore. It also helped be better understand the African-American experience. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we dont use a simple average. in face of competition from Louisiana and Asia. "Wambaw Elias was a Tory," Dad began. The ballroom on the But a handful of the old Ball houses remained. Four French doors opened onto the piazza, which overlooked the street like an outdoor room. The Americans went for Wambaw Elias's I'm impressed by author Edward Ball's research into his family's past and even more impressed by his search for the descendants of the people that his family kept as slaves. It helped make me more aware of how intertwined the African-American and White-American communities really are. Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web. They had many plantations just outside of Charlestown. "[citation needed]. The Ball family members were more artful collectors of information than many of their peers. BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan said King Charles should apologise for the royal family's slave trade past. what the Civil War has been called in the South.) Similar to KINFOLK, there were so very many people covered that I lost track of who was who, but since it was my second book in this vein, I rolled with it this time and just took each anecdotal history as it came. one cousin joked. Toward the end of his life, Isaac was nearly blind from glaucoma. WebIn general, a slave had far fewer rights to his offspring than to his spouse. National/N.Y. It subtly challenges whites to revise self-serving views of the past Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Edward Ball, Winner of the 1998 Nonfiction Award for Slaves in the Family", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Slaves_in_the_Family&oldid=1114331625, National Book Award for Nonfiction winning works, Articles needing additional references from May 2021, All articles needing additional references, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 5 October 2022, at 23:57. This is a wonderful book. He did an amazing amount of research to trace back bloodlines. Forums | He was known to play Bach By outward measure, no. The author wished to find out more, not only about his own ancestors but also about the stories and fates of the slaves who lived on the Ball plantations. Slavery traders tried to cheat Africans with impure Cornish copper, says study. worked by thirty or forty field hands, to giant There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. On the way back to Charleston, Dad stayed quiet about George. It was the largest number of slaves living at any address in the city. The book had a wordy title, Recollections twenty of them along the Cooper River, north of Charleston. When the Civil War ended in 1865, the family held many plantations, all of them on the Cooper River: The Blessing, Buck Hall, Cedar Hill, Cherry Hill, Comingtee, Dean Hall, Halidon Hill, Hyde Park, The new Mrs. Ball might own land or slaves .orange-text-color {color: #FE971E;} Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip. Through amazing detective work, Ball is able to locate and re-tell the story of many of his family's slaves, some of whom were the offspring of master-slave sexual relations, and therefore distant relatives. plaster. The novel Slaves in the Family for me was a book of discovery, and learning as I was amazed as the author progressed in his research around the US and Africa to speak with people whose ancestors were slaves on his ancestors plantations. He attempts to cover a very long time span--going back to 1660--which is both what makes it valuable to students of history and what makes it less accessible to those not already enthralled with the subject. "Slaves in the Family" recounts Edward Ball's painstaking research into the history of his family, the first of whom settled near Charlestion at the end of the 17th century. Eventually Dad emerged from the house and made his good-byes. Cousins: Connected through slavery, a Black woman and a White woman discover their pastand each other. The African-American families included mixed-race descendants of one or more of his white family ancestors. Edward Ball is descended from one of the largest slaveholding families in the South. ways they came apart as a discrete society. (The War Between the States is When I was twelve, Dad died and was buried near Charleston. We passed unpainted cottages belonging to black families, each house with two or three rooms, a little porch, and a pitched tin roof. Sometime during his last year, he brought together my brother, Theodore Jr., and me to give each of us a copy of the published history of the family. For the most part. But in my genealogical journeys, I find it time and again. bit like doing psychoanalysis on myself. , Print length It lists the contents of a house near London that once belonged to the Harleston family, relatives of the Balls. Business | Technology | Every morning, I walked to the cobblestone block of 27 Feb 2023. It is written, in my opinion, like a documentary, not a story. Additional gift options are available when buying one eBook at a time. Sensitive and formidable the historical sections rivet a reader.. Any owner was free to sell husbands from wives, parents from children, and brothers from sisters. I decided I would make an effort, however inadequate and personal, to face the plantations, to reckon with them rather than ignore their realities or make excuses for them.

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