Synopses & Reviews
In 1860, Somerset Place was one of the most successful plantations in North Carolina--and its owner one of the largest slaveholders in the state. More than 300 slaves worked the plantation's fields at the height of its prosperity; but nearly 125 years later, the only remembrance of their lives at Somerset, now a state historic site, was a lonely wooden sign marked "Site of Slave Quarters."
Somerset Homecoming, first published in 1989, is the story of one woman's unflagging efforts to recover the history of her ancestors, slaves who had lived and worked at Somerset Place. Traveling down winding southern roads, through county courthouses and state archives, and onto the front porches of people willing to share tales handed down through generations, Dorothy Spruill Redford spent ten years tracing the lives of Somerset's slaves and their descendants. Her endeavors culminated in the joyous, nationally publicized homecoming she organized that brought together more than 2,000 descendants of the plantation's slaves and owners and marked the beginning of a campaign to turn Somerset Place into a remarkable resource for learning about the history of both African Americans and whites in the region.
Review
The moving story of how one black woman, inspired by Alex Haley's
Roots, discovered her family's heritage.
New York Times Book Review
Review
[Redford] tells the storyand it is a fascinating onewith charm and good humor.
The Atlantic
Review
It makes fascinating reading, thanks not only to the engrossing subject but also to a finely tuned, appealing style.
Southern Living
Review
There are moments of drama, high humor and sorrow in Redford's odyssey.
Publishers Weekly
Review
Dorothy's study is the best, most beautifully researched, and most thoroughly presented black family history that I know of.
Alex Haley
Synopsis
Chronicles the author's ten-year quest to trace the history of her enslaved ancestors and her successful efforts to reunite more than 2,000 of their descendants at Somerset Place, the original plantation, now a historic site in North Carolina.
Synopsis
[Redford] tells the storyand it is a fascinating onewith charm and good humor.
The Atlantic The moving story of how one black woman, inspired by Alex Haley's Roots, discovered her family's heritage.
New York Times Book Review It makes fascinating reading, thanks not only to the engrossing subject but also to a finely tuned, appealing style.
Southern Living There are moments of drama, high humor and sorrow in Redford's odyssey.
Publishers Weekly Dorothy's study is the best, most beautifully researched, and most thoroughly presented black family history that I know of.
Alex Haley
About the Author
Dorothy Spruill Redford is now executive director of North Carolina's Somerset Place State Historic Site in Creswell, the antebellum plantation on which four generations of her enslaved ancestors lived.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Beginnings
"Over de River"
The Road Home
The Arrival
Voices from the Past
Connecting
Somerset Homecoming
Epilogue
Sources