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    Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend
    Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend
    Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend
    Ebook302 pages4 hours

    Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend

    By Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina

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    About this ebook

    Lucy Terry was a devoted wife and mother, and the first known African-American poet. Abijah Prince, her husband, was a veteran of the French and Indian Wars and an entrepreneur. Together they pursued what would become the cornerstone of the American dream — having a family and owning property where they could live, grow, and prosper. When bigoted neighbors tried to run them off their own property, they asserted their rights, as they would do many times, in court.

    Merging comprehensive research and grand storytelling, Mr. and Mrs. Prince reveals the true story of a remarkable pre-Civil War African-American family, as well as the challenges that faced African-Americans who lived in the North.

    Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina is the author and editor of several books, including Carrington, Black London (a New York Times notable book), Black Victorians/Black Victoriana, and Frances Hodgson Burnett. She is the Kathe Tappe Vernon Professor in Biography at Dartmouth College, where she is the first African-American woman to chair an Ivy League English Department. She has won grants from Fulbright and the National Endowment for Humanities and hosts “The Book Show,” a nationally syndicated weekly radio program that airs on ninety stations across the country.

    “Compelling ... History and mystery mix in this tale to make Mr. and Mrs. Prince as absorbing as it surprising and informative.” — Christian Science Monitor
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJul 28, 2009
    ISBN9780061950407
    Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend
    Author

    Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina

    Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina is the author and editor of several books, including Carrington; Black London (a New York Times notable book); Black Victorians, Black Victoriana; Frances Hodgson Burnett; and others. She is the Kathe Tappe Vernon Professor in Biography at Dartmouth College, where she also chairs the English Department, the first African-American woman to do so in the Ivy League. She has won grants from Fulbright and the National Endowment for Humanities and hosts The Book Show, a nationally syndicated weekly radio program that airs on ninety stations across the country, interviewing current authors of literary fiction, biography, and history.

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    • 5/5
      The story of Abijah and Lucy Prince, freed slaves who became landowners, was part of the legends of Vermont. Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina saw little hope of filling in the many gaps in their story, but decided to try. Joined by her husband, Anthony, she prowled through libraries, archives, and courthouse records to find the facts of their lives. They were able to piece together an astonishing amount of information, and found the received story to be both right and wrong.The result is fascinating and surprising. The story begins when slavery was legal throughout the thirteen colonies. The experience of the largely urban slaves of New England was quite different from the more familiar history of Southern slaves. Abijah, Lucy, and their children were literate and they were able to use the court system to defend their rights. The pair lived through both the French and Indian Wars and the Revolutionary War. Abijah saw service in the first, two sons participated in the Revolutionary War. Along the way, Gerzina tells the story of the couple's search, a rather heroic effort of poring over any possible source of information, sometimes coming up dry, and other times finding unexpected gems of information in unlikely sources.The emotional attachment of the Gerzina's may give the reader some cause to wonder about their interpretations. They tell us what the Princes were thinking when they obviously are only guessing. It is a long-standing argument whether or not an author needs to preface speculation with "I think." Some argue that it is not necessary, since obviously what an author writes is his/her opinion. I generally disagree; usually authors are interspersing objective facts with opinions, and it is necessary to differentiate. In this case, I think it is clear from the sources when the Gerzina's are speculating. The question of whether they are imposing 21st century values on 18th century people remains, but is somewhat unavoidable.A fascinating account both of history, and the writing of history.

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    Mr. and Mrs. Prince - Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina

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