The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation: Stories of My Family's Journey to Freedom

by John F. Baker Jr.

Book Overview

When John F. Baker Jr. was in the seventh grade, he saw a photograph of four former slaves in his social studies textbook--two of them were his grandmother's grandparents. He began the lifelong research project that would become The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation, the fruit of more than thirty years of archival and field research and DNA testing spanning 250 years.

A descendant of Wessyngton slaves, Baker has written the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1416567410
• ISBN13: 9781416567417
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: Atria Books
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Interesting, Very Engaging

This is an interesting book that describes the families of a large, well-documented Tennessee tobacco plantation. The Washingtons, who were related to George Washington, seemed to have had some very unusual policies for that age. They tried to keep family units together and also encouraged the women slaves to remain productive while raising children. They used the task labor system, which reduced the need for white overseers and gave the slave more control over his time. He seems to try and let facts speak for themselves and not condemn the family for keeping slaves - remember at one point, it was the law of the land (as putrid an institution as it is) and also the `father of the country' (as did many founding families) kept slaves to run his estates. They also sold off very, very few slaves. The descriptions of the punishments for escapees or other `rule'-breakers are often left to the imagination as euphemisms are often used by the owners in letters to each other. The author also states that the slaves were provided accommodations that were equal to (non-wealthy) whites of the era. Even so, that was not all that great, but does help to put things into perspective. If you only look at the photographs, the dwellings look pretty bad, but if you saw photos of regular (non-mansion) dwellings of whites of the era, they may not look very different. The black families and white families maintained close ties, even after emancipation. The flip side to this maintenance of family connections is that it can also lead to lingering resentments on both sides. In one passage, he states that the original slaves walked all the way there from Virginia and that was a hardship, over and above everything else. Undoubtedly, most of the owner's family walked there, too. As their holdings increased, and war and emancipation neared, they had more discipline problems from their slaves. During the war, and especially after emancipation, there was a lot of trouble for the Washingtons and the (former) slaves and it was really difficult to tell the `good guys' from the `bad guys' as there were robbers and soldiers from both sides that tried to take anything they wanted. There were even altercations between different regiments of the Union Army over what the Washingtons did and did not do. From the problems the former slaves had - impressments by the army (just another form of slavery it must have seemed to some), theft of possessions, and dispersion of families, to the former owners - theft, harassment, injuries, and destruction of property; the time surrounding the war was very hard in everyone. Whenever people are held in slavery or peonage of one form or another, they may have a difficult time adjusting to the `real world' or freedom as they suddenly need to make a lot of decisions that had been made by someone else, so it is no surprise that the freed slaves had more trouble than they expected. This work is a great preservation of the author's family history as w

Brilliantly readable, compassionately presented. . .

John Baker's lifetime of research is readably presented. I have read hundreds of popular history books, and this one is in the top one per cent for a thorough, near first-person, diary and letter-based account of life in a given period. In this case, the time is from 1803 up to election day, 2008, and concerns slaves and their descendants on a Middle Tennessee plantation. He does a masterful job of portraying both black and white residents in an unbiased manner. My background of Western Kentucky is geographically near his, but even if that were not true, I would appreciate this book. He has certainly put flesh on the bones of history with his broad research and riveting interviews. He definitely was the man in the right place and time to capture his data, and I appreciate it.

A GREAT READ - EVEN FOR NON-HISTORIANS

Clearly, John F. Baker Jr. has completed a labor of love with the amazing history he has chronicled in THE WASHINGTONS OF WESSYNGTON PLANTATION but many readers may wonder what's in it for them, if biographies and autobiographies are not their usual choice. The answer would be an amazing view into history that reasonates because of the large collection of original images and text; such as the quote at the beginning of chapter nine from Andrew Jackson's favorite slave, "How would you like to be a slave?" "Page-turner" is not always a term we apply to non-fiction but that is what this book is, you start reading and the authentic quotes hold and haunt you. The text is told in plain straight-forward fashion which makes it even more dramatic because the reader experiences the real happenings, including tales of a suicide, the war, education, etc. If you love history, biographies, or autobiographies this is an absolute must. If you don't normally love this genre, this is the book to read. You will better understand our history and come away touched by this family.

A Beacon of Hope for Those Who Follow

John F. Baker, Jr.'s magnificent account of the 200 year history of Wessyngton Plantation in Tennessee is one of the most significant books on U.S. history of the past decade. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, it is at once fascinating, compelling, enlightening and deeply moving. It is finally a work of magnificent hope. It is a celebration of the indomitable power of family connections and the rich inheritance of the generations of humankind. Baker's thirty year research began with his discovery in Junior High School that the portrait of four slaves printed in his social studies textbook included two of his own great, great grandparents. He had discovered his lifework! In his early teens, his parents drove him to state archives and to the vast Wessyngton plantation where for 187 years the Washington family had run the largest tobacco plantation in America, largely with the labor of many generations of slaves and their free descendants. Remarkably, the Washington family had never sold a single slave from the Wessynton plantation operation, and so the African-American family life on the plantation was largely left intact for upwards of two centuries. Baker began by interviewing his elderly family members, and then pored over the treasure trove of Wessynton documents in the state archives. Ultimately his research branched out into participation in the archaeological digs of the original slave cabins on the plantation and into a vast DNA project involving hundreds of descendants of Wessyngton slaves. The result is the single most significant work on the history of slavery in the United States of the past decade. Some additional thoughts: 1. One of the most remarkable aspects of Baker's work is the tone of his writing. He depicts both slaveowners and slaves with the same narrative respect, honesty and candor. He allows the facts to indict the institution, but never descends to acrimony and bitterness. The result is quite moving. He has succeeded in depicting the vast canvass of American slavery with equal understanding of its many complex parts and relationships. Baker is both a researcher and writer of the first rank, but also a man with a great heart! 2. The progress of Baker's research from essentially a family oral history project to his culminating and insightful understanding of both the archeaological picture and the stunning DNA research is marvelous. Thus, a piece of family history has burgeoned into almost a worldwide story, encompassing more than three centuries of history over four continents (if you include Asia, as some of the Wessyngton descendants were shown to have DNA markers from the Han Dynasty of China!) The DNA research shows that Wessyngton slaves came primarily from the Ibo and Yoruba peoples of Nigeria, and the Ewondo and Ga peoples of Cameroon and Ghana. 3. Above all, the power of this book is in its depiction of the deep and moving connectedness of people. To read of Baker's great, great Grandfather "U