Edward Ball's Slaves In The Family

Words: 864
Pages: 4

2.) The author is Edward Ball. Slaves in the Family explores Ball's family's involvement with plantations and slavery. Edward Ball was born in 1958 in Savannah, Georgia, into a heavily South ancestry family. Growing up with these relations weighed heavily on Edward as he felt guilt and remorse for those families and children his family once enslaved. His father's ancestors significantly influenced rice farming and slavery for six generations in South Carolina. Isaac Ball, Edwards's great-great-grandfather, inherited the Comingtee plantation and owned five hundred seventy-one enslaved people. Over the generations of the Ball's family involvement in plantations and slavery, they owned over 4,000 enslaved African Americans. Edward did intensive …show more content…
This is one of the main central arguments of this book. I believe the thesis for Slaves in the Family emphasizes the importance of initiating an honest conversation about slavery's legacy in the US, which is challenging to start but can be very informative. Edward wanted to uncover the secrets of his family and make a difference; he did this by understanding the history and his research of the Ball family. 4.) What is the difference between a'smart' and a'smart'? Edward Ball wrote Slaves in the Family to find the stories of his ancestors and, most notably, the stories of the people his family enslaved. He states, "The more I learned about what the Balls had done as slaveholders, the more I wanted to tell the family story openly and without disguise" (Ball preface viii). He felt guilty and had a moral obligation to expose the Ball family's unpleasant participation in slavery. He aimed to break down the barriers preventing truthful retelling of their ancestors' stories without receiving undeserved criticism or hate. 5.) What is the difference between a'smart' and a'smart'? The book is structured both chronologically and …show more content…
The book begins with Elias Ball coming to America in 1698 to inherit a rice plantation. This set the course for the next five generations of Ball's family plantations and their involvement in slavery. The book contains events all the way up to after the Civil War and covers Edward making connections and taking ancestors of the enslaved families back to old Ball plantations. 7.) 8.) What is the difference between a '' and a ''? The intended audience for this book is the public. Edward Ball wanted to bring our ancestors' stories to light with his personal stories. The public includes everyone in the community. He wanted to write a story to show us Americans how America truly was during that time. His way of writing and telling the stories. I believe Edward wanted to write this book to uncover the secrets of the Ball family and help the ancestors of the enslaved find closure. 9.) One of the primary sources Edward Ball used was the book Recollections of the Ball Family of South Carolina and the Comingtee Plantation, which his father gave to him. An Edwards ancestor wrote it in