Slaves In The Family
(Edward Ball)
Edward Ball has achieved in writing a bestseller in his book: Slaves In The Family. He hasmade extensive use of his own Family history as well as exhibited his considerable skill in relating what he has uncovered in genealogical research to conversations he has had with members of his own family as well as descendants of slaves his own ancestors kept in their various plantations along the Cooper river stretching from downtown Charleston on the peninsular inland northwestwards. His ancestor, Elias Ball, arrived from Devon in the 1690s, and soon developed into a wealthy landowner, and succeeding generations took advantage of the opportunities for business enterprise in the slave economy. In the so-called Lowcountry, near the Carolina shore-line, rice was cultivated, because the landscape favoured such production and the slaves, who managed to survive the hazardous so-called Middle Passage across the Atlantic from their homesalong the West African coast, had considerable skills inproducing rice.
It is interesting to compare the family trees in the appendix of the book with the people Edward describes from the past -especially Angola Amy, from whom he has been able to relate tothe present generation of the family - a particular achievement in view of the difficulties in finding accurate documents to substantiate thevarious links.
I am not unique in stating that Edward Ball's stands in the same tradition as Roots - the autobiography of Alex Haley - which was made into a feature film. I believe and hope that one day Edward Ball's family's story may similarly be made into a film.
Resumos Relacionados
- Slaves In The Family
- Roots
- Genesis
- Genesis
- When Europeans Were Slaves
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