The manor : three centuries at a slave plantation on Long Island / Mac Griswold.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Griswold, Mac.

Contributor:

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Plantation owners.

Excavations (Archaeology).

Plantation life.

History.

Plantations.

Slavery.

Sylvester Manor Plantation Site (N.Y.).

Slavery--New York (State)--Long Island--History.

Plantations--New York (State)--Long Island--History.

Plantation life--New York (State)--Long Island--History.

Excavations (Archaeology)--New York (State)--Long Island.

Shelter Island (N.Y.)--History.

Shelter Island (N.Y.).

Long Island (N.Y.)--History.

Long Island (N.Y.).

Plantation owners--New York (State)--Long Island--Biography.

Long Island (N.Y.)--Biography.

New York (State)--Long Island.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiv, 461 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

Summary:

In 1984, the landscape historian Mac Griswold was rowing along a Long Island creek when she came upon a stately yellow house and a garden guarded by looming boxwoods. She instantly knew that boxwoods that large--twelve feet tall, fifteen feet wide--had to be hundreds of years old. So, as it happened, was the house: Sylvester Manor had been held in the same family for eleven generations. Formerly encompassing all of Shelter Island, a pearl of 8,000 acres caught between the North and South Forks of Long Island, the manor had dwindled to 243 acres. Still, its hidden vault proved to be full of revelations and treasures, including the 1666 charter for the land, and correspondence from Thomas Jefferson. Most notable was the short and steep flight of steps the family had called the "slave staircase," which would provide clues to the extensive but little-known story of Northern slavery. Alongside a team of archaeologists, Griswold began a dig that would uncover a landscape bursting with stories. Based on years of archival and field research, as well as voyages to Africa, the West Indies, and Europe, "The Manor" is at once an investigation into forgotten lives and a sweeping drama that captures our history in all its richness and suffering.

Contents:

Proprietors of Sylvester Manor Since 1651

The Discovery

Living with the Indians

Amsterdam

The Other Island : Barbados

Nathaniel's Middle Passage

Before the Whirlwind

The World Turns Upside Down

Time of Longing

Where They Lived

How They Lived

In the Ground

"Oppression upon the Mind"

Quaker Martyrs, Quaker Peace

"A Duchman in his Hartt"

"Children of the Founders"

Illusion and Reality

The Doors

Family and Slavery

Summer Colony

Ladies of the Manor.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 411-437) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

9780374266295

0374266298

OCLC:

828682574

Publisher Number:

99954479737