Major Butler's Legacy: Five Generations of a Slaveholding Family

Traces the life of a Georgia plantation family, from slave-holding colonial times to the beginning of the twentieth century

Pierce Butler (17441822) resigned his British army commission in 1771 when he married into the gentry of South Carolina, where he subsequently established a family fortune based on the plantation labor of nearly 600 slaves. This academic study of Butler, his plantations and the lives of his descendants through the early 1900s provides instructive glimpses of the Southern slave economy and its dissolution after the Civil War. Historian Bell uses primary sources to reveal Butler's inconsistency as an advocate of slavery (he helped ensure its continuation as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention) who efficiently managed his lands from the distance of a Philadelphia townhouse, all the while regretting that he ever came to own one of the "Wretched Affricans." Later, the race issue deeply affected the lives of Butler's heirs, including a grandson married to British actress-abolitionist Fanny Kemble and great-greatgrandson Owen Wister, the novelist, who sold the last of the family estate. Illustrations.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A life and times family biography. In abundant (and sometimes deadening) detail Bell weaves together the lives of whites and blacks who occupied the Butler properties in Georgia, South Carolina, and Philadelphia. The focus is on Pierce Butler, the "patriot" patriarch who bequeathed a legacy of property and self-interest to his family and, as a public figure, a Constitution and government committed to the protection of slavery. While we meet many fascinating members of the Butler family, most striking is the counterpoint of white and black playing out its intricate and contradictory theme in slavery and freedom. Bell's rich account clarifies why the Old South and the New defy easy summary and ensnare our imagination. With the epic sweep of the Children of Pride (1972), this is highly recommended for major libraries. Randall M. Miller, History Dept., St. Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.