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Author Griswold, Mac, author.

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

Publication Info. New York : Picador/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014.
©2013

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Portland Public Library - Adult Department  974.7 GRI    Check Shelf
Edition First Picador edition.
Description xiv, 461 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 24 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 411-437) and index.
Contents 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.
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.
Subject 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.
Plantation owners -- New York (State) -- Long Island -- Biography.
Excavations (Archaeology) (OCoLC)fst00917564
Plantation life. (OCoLC)fst01065779
Plantation owners. (OCoLC)fst01065786
Plantations. (OCoLC)fst01065800
Slavery. (OCoLC)fst01120426
Sylvester Manor Plantation Site (N.Y.)
Shelter Island (N.Y.) -- History.
Long Island (N.Y.) -- History.
Long Island (N.Y.) -- Biography.
New York (State) -- Long Island. (OCoLC)fst01241714
New York (State) -- Shelter Island. (OCoLC)fst01257672
New York (State) -- Sylvester Manor Plantation Site. (OCoLC)fst01889756
Genre/Form Biography. (OCoLC)fst01423686
History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
ISBN 9781250050205
1250050200
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