Slaves in the Family | 
 enlarge | Author: Edward Ball
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy Used: $1.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  98 reviews
Sales Rank: 1347529
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Media: Audio Cassette
Edition: Abridged
Number Of Items: 4
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 4.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 067158121X
Dewey Decimal Number: 900
EAN: 9780671581213
ASIN: 067158121X
Publication Date: May 1, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Has one of the following applying to it: x-library, has some form of writing/highlighting on the item, or has above normal wear.
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Amazon.com Review
Writer Edward Ball opens Slaves in the Family with an anecdote: "My father had a little joke that made light of our legacy as a family that had once owned slaves. 'There are five things we don't talk about in the Ball family,' he would say. 'Religion, sex, death, money and the Negroes.'" Ball himself seemed happy enough to avoid these touchy issues until an invitation to a family reunion in South Carolina piqued his interest in his family's extensive plantation and slave-holding past. He realized that he had a very clear idea of who his white ancestors were--their names, who their children and children's children were, even portraits and photographs--but he had only a murky vision of the black people who supported their livelihood and were such an intimate part of their daily lives; he knew neither their names nor what happened to them and their descendents after they were freed following the Civil War. So he embarked on a journey to uncover the history of the Balls and the black families with whom their lives were inextricably intertwined, as well as the less tangible resonance of slavery in both sets of families. From plantation records, interviews with descendents of both the Balls and their slaves, and travels to Africa and the American South, Ball has constructed a story of the riches and squalor, violence and insurrection--the pride and shame--that make up the history and legacy of slavery in America.
Product Description
In 1698, Elias Ball traveled from his home in Devon, England, to Charleston, South Carolina, to take possession of his inheritance: part of a plantation and twenty slaves. Elias and his progeny built an American dynasty that lasted for six generations, acquiring more than twenty Plantations and enslaving close to four thousand Africans and African Americans until 1865, when Union troops arrived on the lawns of the Balls' estates to force emancipation. Edward Ball, a descendant of Elias, has written a nonfiction American saga that is part history, part journey of discovery. Ball chronicles the lives of the people who lived in his ancestors' lands: the violence and the opulence, the slave uprisings and escapes, the white and black heroes of the American Revolution, the mulatto children of Ball masters and "Ball slaves," and the culminating shock of the Civil War. He reconstructs the genealogies of slave families—from the first African captives, through ten generations, to the present—and travels to Sierra Leone to visit a prison from which his family once bought workers. Most remarkable of all, Ball has traveled all over the United States to meet descendants of Ball slaves (who number between 75,000 and 100,000 living Americans). In a series of memorable encounters, Ball hears from black families—some of whom are his blood kin—their stories, passions, and dreams, and reveals how the effects of slavery live on in black and white life and memory. Slaves In the Family is a microcosm of America's defining national experience, a story of people confronting their inescapable common history.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 93 more reviews...
 Slaves in the Family brought history alive for me... January 27, 2008
Quite often history textbooks can be dry and boring. Edward Ball's "Slaves in the Family" illuminates many larger historical events -- the slave trade, the institution of slavery, plantation economies, the Revolutionary War, The Civil War, and Emancipation -- and brings these events down to the human level, to the place where flesh and blood people lived through these events, how the events shaped them, and how they in turn contributed to history.
Ball's careful, meticulous research wove oral accounts with written records kept so well by the Ball family, giving a credible, well-balanced view of plantation life, slavery, and how it impacted the lives of both black and white Ball plantation residents.
Ball paid special note to the nuances of each speaker's story as told, not only through their words, but also their body language. He is an astute observer of people's reactions and unspoken thoughts.
I highly recommend this fasinating book. I couldn't lay it down.
History Made Real May 18, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Edward Ball made a courageous journey into his family's past when he researched and wrote this book about their slave owning history, and took the step of searching out and meeting descendants of their slaves. This paperback edition includes an insightful follow-up exchange between the author and one of his black relatives about the writing of the book, their relationship, and how their views of race relations have and have not changed since its writing. The book inspired me both to think deeply about my attitude towards race and to read more about southern history, using the prism of slave ownership and my own family's southern geneaology as a focus. Related recommendations: The Ruling Race: A History of American Slaveholders] and [ASIN:0465015557 My Confederate Kinfolk
Peninsula of Lies April 27, 2007
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Oh my gosh! I didn't realize that Dawn Langley Simmons had passed away. When I purchased her book about the life of Margaret Rutherford, "A Blithe Spirit", I wrote to Dawn, and was surprised to receive a reply from her or him. For several years she/he corresponded and now I realize that she/he may have mis-represented herself. She did send me several photos of Margaret Rutherford. Interesting story.
Interesting Read February 27, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I thought this was a good read. I especially appreciated the details of the types of Africans that the planters preferred and detested. I recommend this book. Yes, I do agree that the author's writing style was dry. However, I find most books that have a historical base, unless it is fiction, to be dry as cracker.
man enough to do it September 10, 2006
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Some reviewers below complain that this book is tedious. Well, sure. I bet the US Constitution and the Bible are tedious to someone who has no clue about, or doesn't care about, their context. To anyone with some understanding of US history, the project of writing this book marks a step forward in race relations, however big or small that step may turn out to be. If you care even a little about why this country is the way it is, this book crackles with a searing flame.
Ball writes about visiting a wary African American man in Chapter 6, and what that man says at the end of his interview speaks for me and my opinion of the book. "Someone has to break the ice. I gotta give you credit, you were man enough to do it."
People won't agree whether reconciliation or forgiveness apply in this situation, and I'm not sure either. But this is the author's best effort at telling the objective truth about black-white relations as it was lived by individuals over the centuries. "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."
Chapter 9 describes the shocking child mortality figures on the plantations. And on a slave voyage from Africa to Charleston, over a third of the captive passengers died en route - just the cost of doing business to the owners. No wonder some try to deny this history; it's too painful. Yet, the book also provides some episodes of humanity and hope. Readers will emerge with a greater understanding of our history and human nature. Maybe they'll become more vigilant against trespasses on human life and dignity in our own day as well.
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