For Adam's Sake: A Family Saga in Colonial New England - Hardcover

Di Bonaventura, Allegra

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0871404303 ISBN 13: 9780871404305

Publisher: Liveright, 2013

Synopsis

“A work of astonishing ingenuity, intellectual and emotional depth, and (most of all) brilliant writing.”―John Demos, author of The Unredeemed Captive

In the tradition of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s classic, A Midwife’s Tale, comes this groundbreaking narrative by one of America’s most promising colonial historians. Joshua Hempstead was a well-respected farmer and tradesman in New London, Connecticut. As his remarkable diary―kept from 1711 until 1758―reveals, he was also a slave owner who owned Adam Jackson for over thirty years. In this engrossing narrative of family life and the slave experience in the colonial North, Allegra di Bonaventura describes the complexity of this master/slave relationship and traces the intertwining stories of two families until the eve of the Revolution. Slavery is often left out of our collective memory of New England’s history, but it was hugely impactful on the central unit of colonial life: the family. In every corner, the lines between slavery and freedom were blurred as families across the social spectrum fought to survive. In this enlightening study, a new portrait of an era emerges. 16 pages of illustrations; 2 maps

About this title

About the Author

Allegra di Bonaventura is the associate dean for graduate academic support at Yale University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She received a PhD from Yale University and a JD from Yale Law School. She is the author of For Adam’s Sake, which was awarded the New England Historical Association James P. Hanlan Book Award and named one of the best books of 2013 by the Wall Street Journal.

Reviews

There are numerous scholarly studies of social relations and family life in colonial New England, but, unfortunately, few of them examine the institution of chattel slavery and how it influenced the families of both slaves and master. Di Bonaventura has adapted her doctoral dissertation on the topic to provide an engrossing, if somewhat slow-moving, study of two Connecticut families in the eighteenth century. Much of her account relies on the extensive diary of Joshua Hempstead, a successful farmer from New London and the owner of the slave Adam Jackson. But di Bonaventura utilizes other primary sources to fill in gaps about Jackson and his family. The relations between master and slave are complex. At times, Adam and his family seem to be virtually part of the larger Hempstead family, and the burden of enslavement appears light. Yet di Bonaventura provides often brutally disturbing examples that remind us that slavery is a condition of subjugation to the whims of the more powerful. This is an important examination of an often-neglected aspect of our colonial heritage. --Jay Freeman

Edition details

• Publisher: Liveright
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0871404303
• ISBN 13: 9780871404305
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464