Synopses & Reviews
Review
"Walsh has completed a remarkable piece of scholarship. Piecing together the fragmentary bits of information about slaves appearing in the plantation and court records, she has written a rich and detailed history of a slave community living on the plantations comprising the Carter's Grove estate. Walsh shows us that though a plantation's records of its slave populations may seem scant, with careful, painstaking research, one can paint a detailed picture of their lives, one brush stroke at a time. The book is densely
packed with details both of the Burvvell family, and life on an early plantation. Most remarkable is Walsh's ability to trace the Burwell family slaves to their African origins, and document aspects of African culture retained by slaves into the 19th century. Though the sources remain silent on the individual life experiences of slaves, From Calabar to Carter's Crove is an unprecedented examination of slave life in the colonial period." Reviewed by Andrew Witmer, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)