Slaves in the family / Edward Ball.
Record details
- ISBN: 0374265828 (alk. paper)
- Physical Description: 504 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.
- Edition: 1st ed.
- Publisher: New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.
Content descriptions
Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references (p. [457]-484) and index. |
Target Audience Note: | Adult |
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Available copies
- 35 of 35 copies available at Bibliomation.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 35 total copies.
Other Formats and Editions
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ansonia Public Library | 975.7 BAL PBK (Text) | 34045105767417 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Ansonia Public Library | 975.7 BAL PBK (Text) | 34045105767425 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Babcock Library - Ashford | 975.791 Bal (Text) | 3311000057655- | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Beardsley & Memorial Library - Winsted | 975.7 BALL (Text) | 33750000059076 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Beekley Community Library - New Hartford | 975.7 BAL (Text) | 32544073152752 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Bethel Public Library | 975.7 BALL (Text) | 34030080503037 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Burnham Library - Bridgewater | 975.7 BALL (Text) | 36937002009414 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Burroughs-Saden Main - Bridgeport | 929.2 B187 (Text) | 34000071458848 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Burroughs-Saden Main - Bridgeport | HC 929.2 B187b (Text) | -178752 | Historical Collection | Available | - |
C.H. Booth Library - Newtown | 975.7 BAL (Text) | 34014079001260 | Adult Nonfiction | Available | - |
Electronic resources
BookList Review
Slaves in the Family
Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Journalist Ball conceived the idea to recount the family histories of his plantation-owning ancestors and, with more difficulty due to the paucity of records, the people they owned. This resulting microcosm of America's original sin of slavery is an innovative package of historical narrative and oral history and even modern reconciliation. In upholding their pillar in the structure of slavery, the Ball clan, whose rice-growing lands lay upriver of Charleston, weren't the cruelest of masters, or so said the family stories. This sentimental, fuzzy memory is belied by Ball's hard look at records stretching from the founding of the clan's wealth in 1698 to its end with the arrival of Union troops in 1865. In between, the author fascinatingly relates the Balls' grim involvement with slavery, such as advertising for runaways or riding the night patrol to catch them, and their dread of uprisings, as in the famous Denmark Vesey conspiracy of 1822. The mirror image of the Ball genealogy is that of the people they owned, and the author richly recounts the journeys and conversations he undertook to connect people named on the Ball slave lists with their living descendants. A multilevel effort to understand the past of slavery and its echo in the present, this is an informative, ruminative, and inspirational page-turner. --Gilbert Taylor
Kirkus Review
Slaves in the Family
Kirkus Reviews
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
A journalist's exhaustively researched, intensely personal quest confronts the legacy of slavery connecting his South Carolina family and the people they enslaved. Ball's mission, in reckoning with a past for which he feels accountable, if not responsible, is twofold: explore the story of his white slave-owning ancestors and seek out descendants of the people they bought and sold. The former Village Voice columnist displays his journalistic moxie wading through the voluminous written record (10,000 pages of family papers spanning four centuries, National Archives documents, census reports, and more) to flesh out the family character and track down slave descendants. Some were unaware of their ancestry. Others, like Emily Made Frayer, whose parents were enslaved at Limerick, one of a dozen Ball plantations in the Charleston area, tapped a rich oral history that supplements Ball's research. Consumed with the question of how slavery shaped the identity of both black and white families, he struggles to divine his ancestors' attitude toward slaves, sifting conflicting evidence that suggests they were both kind masters and cruel taskmasters. He gets more grief from his own family than from blacks, who view his earnest apologies as largely irrelevant--though one man credits Ball with being ""man enough"" to try. ""There is nothing I can do to give back for the pain that my family caused your family,"" he tells Frayer, during an emotional trip to her birthplace. But in trying to make amends, he links several families (through Ball family papers recording slave purchases) to their African ancestry--a rare gift that, while falling short of reparation, does establish a vital entrÿe to their past. Bali'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. Together, their searing, soul-searching grappling with past sins strikes deep at the heart of the country's enduring racial division. Copyright éKirkus Reviews, used with permission.
School Library Journal Review
Slaves in the Family
School Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
YA-A compelling saga, Ball's biographical history of his family stands as a microcosm of the evolution of American racial relations. Meticulously researched, and aided by the fact that the South Carolina Ball families were compulsive record keepers, the story begins with the first Ball to arrive in Charleston in 1698. The family eventually owned more than 20 rice plantations along the Cooper River, businesses made profitable by the work of slaves. In the course of his research, the author learned that his ancestors were not only slave owners, but also that there was a highly successful slave trader company in his background. He was able to trace the offspring of slave women and Ball men (between 75,000 and 100,000 currently living) and locate a number of his own African-American distant cousins. Although records indicate that the author's forebearers were not by any means cruel or vicious owners, his remorse for these facets of his family history is clear. In the course of his research, he visited Bunce Island, off the coast of Sierra Leone, to see the fortress from which his ancestors loaded terrorized men, women, and children onto slave ships. Their story represents that of many African Americans. This book helps readers to visualize, if not understand, the slave legacy still enmeshed in this country today. Despite its length, this is an important, well-written slice of history that will be of interest to young adults.-Carol DeAngelo, Garcia Consulting Inc., EPA Headquarters, Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Library Journal Review
Slaves in the Family
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
In this National Book Award-winning saga, Ball traces his family back to their first arrival on American shores and also traces the lineage of the slaves his ancestors once owned. He follows their stories through the decades as the families branched out. The Balls grew to be among the most prominent of South Carolina plantation owners; the black people suffered both slavery and the wrenching disruption of emancipation. In between his genealogical and historical explorations, the author interviews living descendants from both groups. Somehow he avoids a liberal angst in favor of a directly honest, matter-of-fact approach to both the subject and the people. The living Ball descendants are generally cautious as they approach the subject; the black families show almost no bitterness, and their stories are varied and intense. As a reader, Ball is subdued and rarely shows emotion; the narrative itself is what gives this presentation its punch. A mandatory acquisition for all audiobook collections.ÃDon Wismer, Cary Memorial Lib., Wayne, ME (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.