By James H. Johnston
The biography of a outstanding person and the chronicle of a family's upward thrust from slavery to profitable the yank dream.
From Slave send to Harvard is the real tale of an African American kinfolk in Maryland over six generations. the writer has reconstructed a detailed narrative of black fight and fulfillment from work, photos, books, diaries, court docket documents, criminal records, and oral histories. From Slave Ship to Harvard strains the family members from the colonial interval and the yank Revolution during the Civil struggle to Harvard and at last at the present time.
Yarrow Mamout, the 1st of the kin in the USA, used to be an informed Muslim from Guinea. He used to be delivered to Maryland at the slave send Elijah and won his freedom forty-four years later. through then, Yarrow had develop into so popular within the Georgetown component to Washington, D.C., that he attracted the eye of the eminent American portrait painter Charles Willson Peale, who captured Yarrow's visage within the portray that looks at the disguise of this ebook. the writer the following unearths that Yarrow's rapid relatives-his sister, niece, spouse, and son-were extraordinary of their personal correct. His son married into the neighboring Turner family members, and the farm neighborhood in western Maryland known as Yarrowsburg was once named for Yarrow Mamout's daughter-in-law, Mary "Polly" Turner Yarrow. The Turner line eventually produced Robert Turner Ford, who graduated from Harvard college in 1927.
Just as Peale painted the portrait of Yarrow, James H. Johnston's new e-book places a face on slavery and paints the background of race in Maryland. it's a various photo from what such a lot folks think. Relationships among blacks and whites have been way more complicated, and the races extra depending on one another. thankfully, as this one family's adventure exhibits, members of either races time and again improved to reduce divisions and to maneuver the United States towards the various society of at the present time.
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Additional info for From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family
Example text
The judge had declared Nancy Hillman of Frederick, Maryland, to be the daughter of Yarrow’s sister and, as his only surviving heir, entitled to enforce a loan Yarrow had made on a warehouse in Georgetown. The court ruling came ninety-eight years after Yarrow arrived. How did he and his 46 | w el co me to am er ic a sister know where the other was, how did they and their families stay in touch over all those years, and how did Hillman know about the Georgetown property? The only explanation is that, like Stonewall Jackson’s great-grandparents, they came on the same ship.
21 An Insidious Dependency on Slaves By 1700, tobacco had become the mainstay of the Maryland economy in the counties nestled against the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River. Lord Baltimore’s vision of a colony with diversified industry had been dashed. The planters were in charge. Slavery had not yet taken hold and would not do so for another decade. The importation of slaves was a trickle of what it would become. Maryland’s colonial governor, Francis Nicholson, reported in a letter of August 20, 1698: ‘‘There hath been imported this summer about four hundred and seventy odd negroes viz.
Therefore, he may have left Yarrow on the Elijah until this other business was done. But within a day or two, he would have gone back to the ship and gotten Yarrow. The two of them were then rowed ashore. w el co me to am er ic a | 45 The two had different agendas on their first meeting. Of greatest importance to Yarrow was the fate of his sister. If Beall did not buy her, then who would, and how was Yarrow going to stay in touch with her? Only Beall could supply answers, and Yarrow would have been frantic to get his help.