.orange-text-color {font-weight:bold; color: #FE971E;}View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look. I learned a lot, and then the emotions came--it was hard to fathom some of the events that took place. Another place where cousins once lived, Mepkin, had been cleared and turned into a Catholic monastery. The Balls' Pimlico plantation was turned into a subdivision with winding streets and ranch-style houses. I literally couldn't put it down. After freedom, the former Ball slaves made a distinct community. As the first event in the Ball reunion fell apart, we clambered off the deck into the motorboats in twos and threes. The author explores his family origins, dating to his English immigrant ancestors to America and their becoming major planters in South Carolina. While keeping a hand on the transfer of property, traditional patriarchal marriage was also a way : .orange-text-color {color: #FE971E;} Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration. In general, a slave had far fewer rights to his offspring than to his spouse. Whereas Roman-law societies had elaborate norms on contracts, Muscovy had essentially none. This is the story of the author's research into his family's past as slave owners and slave traders. (The name Elias Ball would be used for many future sons, including Wambaw Elias, the Tory who moved back to England two generations later.) My great-grandma, Granny had stories. BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan said King Charles should apologise for the royal family's slave trade past. another drawing room, bathrooms, and, on the top floor, three more bedrooms, baths, a laundry. The sugar fields, workers, and mansion , Language On the spine the words But inwardly the plantations lived on. The brutal deprivation of rights was expressed in the Alabama case Creswells Executor v. Walter (1860); the slave, said the court, had no legal mind, no will which the law can recognize. I find myself repeatedly recommending it to people. Please try again. Some societies had much legislation on this topic, others practically none. Through a combination of meticulous research, general understanding of the history of the times, and imagination, Ball tells the other story of slavery, the untold story from the perspective of the enslaved. the plantations shadowed my dreams. Through painstaking research and wonderful storytelling Ball tracks down his ancestors, both white and black, and tells the story of slavery in this country from the point of view of one prominent family. I heard about this book through reading Thulani Davis' MY CONFEDERATE KINFOLK, and I'm glad I followed up. A workable definition of the Ball family for the purposes of my investigation soon appeared: they were men and women born with the name, women who took the name Ball with marriage, and one generation of the offspring of Ball daughters who had acquired There was more uniformity across systems regarding legal relationships between slave owners. I got a personal glimpse of the American Revolution, because the Balls had played a role in it--some of us fought for the British, some for independence. Others were freed from three Ball places--Kensington, Pimlico, and St. James--that were sold out of the Between 1698 and 1865, close to four thousand black people were born into slavery under the Balls or were bought by them. In the Ball family, the tale of Wambaw Elias and his slaves passed as a children's story. It was a rare society that permitted a slave to serve as a witness against his owner, but some societies, such as ancient Nuzi and Muscovy, allowed slaves to testify against, even to sue, third parties. Many stayed put and married others in the same group, and their children did the same. Oddly I first heard of this book while cruising around YouTube one sleepless night. Sensitive and formidable the historical sections rivet a reader.. These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. It subtly challenges whites to revise self-serving views of the past She says that when Florence got married, her father helped her buy 40 acres of land in Hazlehurst, MS. My family got reparations from my great-great-great grandfather Ephraim Payton Jr., Patrice says. Such an ambitious and huge undertaking is impressive; anyone else may have been discouraged by the tediousness or by fear. Slavery traders tried to cheat Africans with impure Cornish copper, says study. At the beginning were two questions: Who were the Ball Family? They may have had names and families but to the public record their names did not matter. '", Powerful. The New York Times Book ReviewGripping. The Boston GlobeBrilliant. The New YorkerA landmark book. San Francisco ChronicleEveryone should read and learn from this luminous book[Slaves in the Family] is not only honest in its scrupulous reporting but also personal narrative at its finest. San Francisco ChronicleOutside Faulkner, it will be hard to find a more poignant, powerful account of a white man struggling with his and his nation's past. The Atlanta Journal-ConstitutionMuch more than bare historyIt's the human encounters, and the live, breathing juxtaposition of past and present, that give [Edward Ball's] book its vibrancy and importance. Detroit Free PressA masterpiece . someone bought it. The earliest page is The workforce, whose names Edward Ball gave us much food for thought and a continued resolve to make freedom a reality for all men, women and children. The three of us drove north out of Charleston on a two-lane blacktop toward the upper streams of the Cooper River, where rice grew By the beginning of the Civil War, Isaac's father, William James Ball, controlled seven other rice plantations in addition to Limerick, each with its own black village. He learns that his ancestors not only owned slaves,but that 2 family branches were large-scale slave traders, importing human beings directly from West Africa, He searches out descendants of slaves who lived on Ball family plantations, preparing careful geneologies and scrupulously identifying and acknowledging black families as descended from his own white ancestors as well as slave women on the plantations. Please try your request again later. 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. , Word Wise finally trunks. Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago. The first piece of paper I remember my father presenting to me regarding the family was an obituary from the Charleston News and Courier. Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2022, Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2021. Daughters born in the Ball households often kept their hand in the business. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. the spelling of its name to Zeringue, the better to glide through the French-speaking caste of Louisiana slave owners. Webt. Travel, Help/Feedback | The crop .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. The White people who came from England and often married other early settlers in the colonial days. During slavery, the family had more than a dozen city residences in addition to the plantations out of town. I highly recommend reading this book,especiallly for white folks,as a major contribution to the attempt to reconcile and heal the scars of Americans' shared racial tragedy. Edward Ball has made an important contribution to those fields with this extensively-researched look at plantation life near Charleston, SC. around. In this way, we get some impression of how the effects of slavery continue on in our society today. Science | Please try again. Many wore shorts and T-shirts in the Carolina heat, though a few women turned out in heels and jewelry. For the most part. Half an hour passed, then an hour. After this encounter, the rest of the day's 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. On one side stood the ancestors, vivid, serene, proud; on the other their slaves, anonymous, taboo, half Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. I would find out what had occurred on the Ball lands in as much detail as I could. . Reeds brushed against the hull of the double-deck boat and greetings and laughter echoed over the water as each Ball walked the gangplank and made a little jump onto the deck. A second colonnade on the piazza supported a pediment, which gave the face of the building the look of a furrowed brow. The book is well researched and offers not only historical bits that we would not have learned in school, but debunks some of the misconceptions we were taught. I have several photographs of Isaac, my great-grandfather. Its not a quick read, but its worth it. To judge from its place, the bank was once part of Comingtee and had been built by Ball slaves. In childhood, I remember feeling an intangible sense of worth that might be linked to the old days. Elsewhere were two bedrooms, At times it was slow moving, but the book was at its best when Ball described conversations with people. In that moment, the story of the Ball clan was locked in the depths of my mind, to be pried loose one day. It was the largest number of slaves living at any address in the city. I felt proud (how rare the stories!) Puffs of ancient dirt breathed front crevices between the floorboards, and everywhere was peeling paint and water-stained He was born in 1844 on Limerick plantation, one of the many Ball tracts, and died in 1933 in Charleston. FACT CHECK: We strive for Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at. "Religion, sex, death, money, and the Negroes.". By the time of the photograph, the plantation had long passed out of the family and stood abandoned and decrepit. This is a wonderful book. For half an hour my brother and I sat simmering on the hot vinyl seats of the car, swatting mosquitoes. We have been in each other's pointing over George's head to some mile-away place. He was able to reconstruct slave families' genealogies down to the present and then he contacted 100,000 of the descendants of the "Ball slaves." 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. At the same time, the slave business was a crime that had not fully been acknowledged. and sentimental (how touching the cast of family characters!). Editorial | Despite their leisure, they did not paint pictures or perform music apart from recitals at home. But it is also a large omnium-gatherum of enchanting fireside anecdotes, secrets teased out of reluctant fragments from the remote past, the real lives of blacks and whites whose stories had been lost in the disintegrating churn of time until Edward Ball's patient reconstructions. The Raleigh News & Observer[An] unblinking history not only of [Edward Ball's] ancestors but also of the people they held as slaves . So there are a lot of details that you have to wade through. Isaac wore a mustache and a tuft of hair below his lower lip throughout life; the hair is dark in photographs "His plantation was on Wambaw Creek. It also didnt really do what I wanted it to do, except in the preface, which was written in 2014 and not included in the original publication. There were also one chemist, a priest, a banker, and a fashion model. they enslaved. 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. family property, and not "theirs," belonging to black families, but a shared history. Among the Ball family members, who overflow with legend, memory became He often put on a three-piece suit and ribbon tie, except in summer, when he pared down to starched shirts. The slave revolt , Enhanced typesetting is about one persons investigation of his familys slavesholding past, and about his search for and meetings with descendants of the people his ancestors once enslaved. They had many plantations just outside of Charlestown. In 1698, Copies of a few documents of later date (August 18, 1856-September 8, 1858) are included. At one extreme, among the Tuareg of North Africa, the slave owners themselves often lived badly, and so, of course, did their slaves. Soon Dad took my brother, cotton plantation, Marengo, and seventy-six slaves. In Muscovy and China, slave owners could sell or will children apart from their parents, but marriages were inviolable. For me, this book is another step in that process.I have to say, though, that this is a fairly hard book to read. family some years before fighting with the North began. The rooms were moldering, the air thick and bacterial. and two tables, which became the only furniture in the building. of the Ball Family of South Carolina and the Comingtee Plantation. He is also the recipient of a Public Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Photos. (Rowley is my middle name.) Phil CBS. Edward Ball smashed down the barrier between the history that is spoken of, and the history that is real. As a descendant of the oppressors, rather than the oppressed, Ball's tone is understandably gentler than Davis'--who occasionally could get rather acid (again, understandably), and I appreciated the spectrum of viewpoints he included, from the aggressive, unrepentant "white" perspective to the aggressive, embittered "black" perspective, with every stop in between. WebGreen Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, members of the vanguard 1847 pioneer company, were enslaved to Mormon families at the time of their pioneer journey. The Ball family's plantations were among the oldest and longest standing in the American South, and there were more than Page One Plus | Roman slaves were allowed to make contracts in regard to third peculium. It is a work about slaves in the family. 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