Tag Archives: Slavery

by | January 4, 2010

Cameron Kent. The Road to Devotion. Winston-Salem, NC: Press 53, 2009.

Transition is rapidly occurring on the Talton farm in 1860 Winston, North Carolina. Miles Talton, the patriarch, has just passed away, leaving his strong-willed daughter, Sarah, in charge. However, the farm is failing, requiring her to sell slaves and acres to survive. Also changing is Sarah’s perception of slavery as she befriends Jacquerie, a Louisiana runaway who ends up on the Talton farm. Jacquerie’s knowledge of the French language makes her valuable as she is the only mode of communication for Sarah and her beau, wealthy French businessman Edouard LeGare. Finally, the onset of the Civil War is transforming the country. As Sarah and her community adjust to the changes, she learns the importance of staying true to herself, even if others do not understand her.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Forsyth, Historical, Kent, Cameron, Piedmont, Surry

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by | December 23, 2009

Alex Haley. A Different Kind of Christmas New York: Doubleday, 1988.

Alex Haley was known worldwide for his blockbuster Roots.  Fewer people know this later, brief novel which tells the story of a slaveholding North Carolinian who has a change of heart.

Fletcher Randall is the son a powerful state senator in Ashe County.  Senator Randall’s 3,000 acre plantation is worked by over 100 slaves who bring in crops of cotton and tobacco.  Fletcher’s parents send him to the College of New Jersey (Princeton) where he endures insults and harassment because of his family’s slaveholding.  The harassment does not move Fletcher, but his relationship with three Quaker brothers does.  On a visit to their home in Philadelphia he is taken to a meeting of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, an anti-slavery organization involved with the Underground Railroad.  His outrage at this affront turns to something else as he reads about the Quakers and the Underground Railroad.  After much soul-searching, Randall changes sides and returns to Ashe County to assist enslaved people in a mass escape set for Christmas Eve.

This book was evidently issued for the holiday season in 1988. It is beautifully produced book, with a lovely dust jacket and ornamental designs in the book itself.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 1980-1989, 1988, Ashe, Haley, Alex, Mountains

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by | June 19, 2009

Michael Phillips. A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2003.

Although Katie and Mayme are only teenagers, they are trying to run the Rosewood Plantation on their own and convince everyone in the nearby town of Greens Crossing that nothing is amiss. Under their watch, Rosewood becomes a sanctuary for several other young women in trouble, including a girl whose mother died when she and her daughter were fleeing her abusive husband, and an ex-slave who is hiding herself and her new baby from a cruel former master. Throughout the novel the four girls struggle to survive, keep one step ahead of those who would harm them, and find a way to pay the bank loans against the property. A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton is the the second book of the historical, faith-based Shenandoah Sisters series.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Historical, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Phillips, Michael, Piedmont, Religious/Inspirational

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by | March 10, 2009

Michael Phillips. Angels Watching Over Me. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 2003.

Katie Clairborne and Mary Ann (Mayme) Jukes were born in the same county less than a year apart, but they did not meet until the Civil War brought tragedy to both their lives. Mayme, a slave on a plantation outside the fictional Greens Crossing, is the lone survivor of an attack by marauding Confederate deserters. She flees and eventually finds herself at Rosewood, the plantation owned by the Clairbornes. Unfortunately, the same gang attacked Rosewood and everyone is dead except Katie. The girls decide to run the plantation and keep the deaths a secret to protect Katie’s claim on the land. They form a strong bond and, through toil and faith, they survive together. This is the first book in the Shenandoah Sisters series of historical, faith-based novels.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Historical, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Phillips, Michael, Religious/Inspirational

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by | February 12, 2009

Edmund Kirke. My Southern Friends. New York: Carleton, 1863.

A New York businessman forms close ties of friendship with several families in Jones and Craven counties.  They assist each other in solving personal and financial problems even though they have different points of view on slavery and other issues.  Slavery receives a lot of attention; corrupt masters, violent overseers, and miscegenation figure in the plot.  The tragedies in the book are based on episodes that the author knew of from his experiences as a director of a cotton trading and shipping company prior to the Civil War.

Edmund Kirke is a pseudonym of James R. Gilmore.

Check this title’s availability and access an online copy through the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 1860-1869, 1863, Coastal Plain, Craven, Jones, Kirke, Edmund, Novels to Read Online

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by | November 4, 2008

Michael Phillips. Never Too Late. Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2007.

The third book in the Carolina Cousins series, Never Too Late follows the story of Josepha (Seffie). A slave in her childhood years, Seffie weathers significant personal hardship, beginning when she is sold away from her family as a punishment at seven years old. She plans her escape from slavery for years and eventually tries–and fails–to get to the North through the underground railroad. The story continues into the post-Civil War years, explaining how she comes to live and work at Rosewood, the home of the Carolina Cousins (and Shenandoah Sisters) series’ overall main characters Katie and Mayme. Like other books in the series, the main themes of Never Too Late are the characters’ faith, friendship, and dependence upon each other.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Historical, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Phillips, Michael, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship

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by | October 23, 2008

Payne Erskine. When the Gates Lift Up Their Heads: A Story of the Seventies. Boston: Little, Brown, 1901.

Although this novel is set in the mountains of western North Carolina, plantation slavery is presented is part of the local heritage and figures in the plot. The shoe is on the other foot when John Marshall returns to his hometown near Asheville in the 1870s. Northerners have come to this part of the South and they are making their presence felt through land purchases and business deals. His family home has been sold and is now a boarding house run by the optimistic and energetic Portia Van Ostade. Old racial and social attitudes are still alive, but the younger characters find romance across the sectional divide. The happiness of one young couple is threatened by a secret from the past.

Check this title’s availability and access an online copy through the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 1900-1909, 1901, Buncombe, Erskine, Payne, Mountains, Novels to Read Online

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by | October 9, 2008

Eugene Hall. Vernal Dune: In Which Is Shown the End of an Era. New York: Neale Publishing, 1913.

The subtitle is a giveaway of the author’s intentions. This novel is a strong defense of slavery and the antebellum social structure of North Carolina. It is loosely based on the Theophilus Hunter Jr. family of Raleigh, and fictionalized versions of several North Carolina political figures appear in novel. Eugene Hall is the pseudonym of Emma Eugene Hall Baker.

Check this title’s availability and access an online copy through the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 1910-1919, 1913, Hall, Eugene, Historical, Novels to Read Online, Piedmont, Wake

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by | May 29, 2008

Buddy Strickland. Dreamweaver. Indian Trail, N.C.: Dreamweaver Publishing, 2006.

This part-memoir, part-novel alternates the story of Buddy, a southern boy growing up in the 1940s, with a fictional recreation of the lives of Lea and Amos, Buddy’s Cherokee ancestors. Through the two stories readers can learn about the enslavement of Native Americans, mill village life, and mid-twentieth century Southern popular culture.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Cabarrus, Historical, Piedmont, Rowan, Strickland, Buddy

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by | May 12, 2008

Bob Zeller and John Beshears. Jacob’s Run. Wilmington, N.C.: Whittler’s Bench Press, 2007.

It’s 1860 and Coleman Blue is a reporter for the Wilmington Standard. He’s comfortable in his hometown and doesn’t give much thought to the slave trade that is responsible for a significant part of its prosperity. That changes when he’s questioned by Ira Spears, an agent from Philadelphia who’s come to town to investigate the deaths of slaves insured by his company. Since those slaves were owned by two men whom Blue has long suspected of corruption, the newspaperman leaps into an investigation that upends his worldview and imperils his life.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Beshears, John, Coast, Historical, Mystery, New Hanover, Zeller, Bob

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