Black Masters: A Free Family of Color in the Old South

Rating:
Summary: What I think
Review: A great read. I am a history major and was very pleased with the content of this book. It makes it known that there are exceptions to all popular history. If you like the comfort of being told the generic old history of the South than I do not suggest this work. It is as provocative as it is interesting. It also an enjoyable read following the modern trend of being understandable and fun yet informative at the same time.

Rating:
Summary: What I think
Review: A great read. I am a history major and was very pleased with the content of this book. It makes it known that there are exceptions to all popular history. If you like the comfort of being told the generic old history of the South than I do not suggest this work. It is as provocative as it is interesting. It also an enjoyable read following the modern trend of being understandable and fun yet informative at the same time.

Rating:
Summary: The Title Should Be "Mulatto Masters"
Review: The title of this book should be "Mulatto Masters." Is is dishonest to pretend that these people were "black." Once you recognize the ethnic and racial separation, the actions of mulatto elite slaveholders are not difficult to understand. One of the grandsons of this family even served in the Confederate Army - as WHITE of course (despite officers' knowledge of his mixed ancestry). There were no "black" Confederate soldiers.

Rating:
Summary: A Mind-opening work??? Please open a dictionary.
Review: The word "complected" does not refer to a person's skin tone. It is not a form fo the word "complexion." :-)

Rating:
Summary: A Mind-opening work
Review: This was the first book (aside from narratives by Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass & etc) I read concerning antebellum black and bi-racial history. It was so interesting I have since read a dozen others. As the authors state in the Introduction, this book really focuses on biracial persons of white/black ancestry. However, because, presently, persons who tend to be dark complected often consider themselves (and are considered by others) to be black and because the laws of antebellum South Carolina clearly differentiated between whites and free persons who did not fall into the white category (including pure blacks and biracial persons), the authors used the term BLACK MASTERS in the title.

The book is generally about William "April" Ellison, born a slave but well treated, trained in mechanical skills and then freed as a young man. Because of this, the authors believe him to be the biracial son of the white planter Robert or William Ellison. Once freed, April officially had his name changed to William Ellison and moved to Statsburg, a wealthy suburb away from his previous owner. He slowly amassed a fair amount of wealth; although, unlike many of the more aristocratic planters of South Carolina, William "April" Ellison worked his own fields and, in his role as a mechanic, had to walk a fine line between independence and not overstepping the bounds permitted to a free person of color. His was the only family not considered white by his fellow South Carolinans who was able to sit in the church on the ground floor in the pews reserved for well-off whites and wealthy planters.

William Ellison's family interacted with and married into some of the better off free families of color in Charleston. He became a member of the BROWN FELLOWSHIP and FRIENDLY MORALIST SOCIETIES which was generally limited to biracial persons (in fact, one biracial person was expelled from one of the societies because he maintained close ties to free persons who appear to have been of pure African-American heritage, leading the society to decide he was socially a black rather than a biracial person). FPCs who were apparently of pure African ancestry also had their own societies (and owned slaves) as, of course, did persons considered to be of pure European ancestry.

Much of the book focuses on the curious position of biracial persons in South Carolina: many wealthy whites wanted to re-enslave free blacks (which, in their minds, included anyone of African extraction) while many poor whites wanted to prevent anyone of African ancestry (free or enslaved) from being able to hold any skilled positions (thus effectively opening many areas employment to themselves). In the wake of the slave rebellion led by the well-off free black named Denmark Vessy, these views gained much support and many laws on education and etc were temporarily enforced with enthusiasm, only to be narrowly defeated.

The Ellisons supported the Democratic Party and the Confederacy, even though William's sons were not allowed to enlist in the military. William's grandson, who (according to the authors)had noticable "black" features also attempted to enlist and was accepted even though the officers knew his family and ancestry - apparently the question as to whether or not he was black never came up! During the Civil War, Wisdom Hall and the other dwellings on the Ellison estate barely avoided being destroyed, but the Ellisons began to lose their wealth and as their old white friends died or moved away, the family began to be considered, even by their neighbors, as simply another black family.