The Hill and Wang Critical Issues Series: concise; affordable works on pivotal topics in American history; society; and politics.The Origins of American Slavery is a short analysis that shows the complex rationale behind the English establishment of American slavery in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This new assessment of a pivotal time in the formation of what was to become the United States offers thought-provoking insights into the English influence on the development of the "peculiar institution."
#711286 in Books Tiya Miles 2012-08-01Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.10 x .90 x 6.00l; 1.15 #File Name: 0807872679336 pagesThe House on Diamond Hill A Cherokee Plantation Story
Review
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful. What a story!By AKMTiya Miles explores a complicated and multilayered subject in her book; The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story. It is a seemingly innocuous entity—a historic house in Georgia. However; the house is the Chief Vann House; a nineteenth-century mansion on traditional Cherokee land erected by a Cherokee family who owned more than one hundred slaves. When writing an earlier book about African and Cherokee interrelated histories; Miles came across the house with its interwoven past of Cherokee; European-American; and African and African-American lives. In this book; she takes a material culture approach—examining an “artifact†(the house) and uncovering its cultural; historical; and social contexts.With her background in African-American studies; Miles brings in scholarship about the African diaspora; slavery; the antebellum South; and black consciousness. She discusses subjugation and its many layers in this story—Cherokee men over Cherokee women; Cherokee men/women over African slaves; the United States over Cherokees. Also; she defines the mechanisms of slavery and its key facet of “the dehumanization of another person that transfers a sense of perverse superiority onto the slave owner†(116). Instead of talking about slaves generally; she defines three different slave populations on the Vann estate—slaves from Africa; slaves of African descent born in Cherokee country who spoke Cherokee; and slaves of mixed African and Cherokee ancestries. Each has a different and interlocking story.Instead of enduring as faceless statistics; Miles retells the lives of certain slaves; male and female; to illuminate life as a slave on the Vann estate. Caty; Patience; Grace; Pleasant; Isaac; and Michael had their own ways and methods of dealing with life as an enslaved person. Miles shows how slaves were treated and how they reacted. They were sold; punished; brutally abused; and overworked. The slaves resisted through work slowdowns; destroying tools; running away; burning homes; and committing suicide.Violence figures heavily in this book. It is uncensored and unapologetic. At times; it became too much. However; the Vann estate was a place of tremendous abuse. Nevertheless; Miles tackles deeply contentious issues that many do not want to address—black chattel slavery; domestic violence; colonialism; Indian Removal; and Cherokee slave holders. She demonstrates that the sources are there. It is a commendable topic which hopefully produces more scholarship.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Historical research.By SchwetlonaI read this book as an assignment for a college class. It was a good book. It just isn't one that I would have chosen for my self. It reads like a research paper and is very informative and I learned a lot.I was surprised that Native American's had slaves and plantations.If you like history; you will like this.~Me0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Diamond HillBy Shirley GrammerI loved the book! Ms. Miles is a wonderful writer and shared more about the Vann Plantation than any other book I have read regarding James Vann; Joseph Vann; Wahli Vann and Peggy Scott Vann and the people who lived and worked at Diamond Hill.
