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kappareads's review against another edition
5.0
A heartbreaking yet fascinating part of social history that is often over looked, this was phenomenally written and easy to follow.
(4.5/5 stars)
(4.5/5 stars)
momwrex's review against another edition
5.0
An extremely well written book on the separation of families by white slave owners who treated African Americans as property. Williams explores the newspaper ads of former enslaved people searching for family members they had been separated from while the ownership of humans was legal. She discusses and disproves the myth that African Americans were detached and unemotional and unaffected by separations. (Why was this charge not aimed at the OWNERS who were uncaring and unfeeling and evil in owning people, and separating families??) The author provides of evidence and examines the emotional impact of these separations. The primary sources that she uses in writing the book demonstrate the obvious grief and longing of the family members.
The book also explains the efforts the freed people spent on searching for family members, and how the government filed to support many of the searchers. This is a very important book to deepen understanding of a central part of American history, and the impact it had on families of color, and on our country as a whole.
The book also explains the efforts the freed people spent on searching for family members, and how the government filed to support many of the searchers. This is a very important book to deepen understanding of a central part of American history, and the impact it had on families of color, and on our country as a whole.
lovesarahmae's review
5.0
#helpmetofindmypeople by #heatherandreawilliams
...
This is a beautifully researched and devastating truthful exploration of reunification of formerly enslaved peoples after the American Civil War. Williams focuses on primary sources, which give a haunting tone to the whole book. The @audible narrator did a good job reflecting the seriousness of this subject. A historical frame of reference for anyone questioning the family structure in American Black culture. Excellent read.
...
...
This is a beautifully researched and devastating truthful exploration of reunification of formerly enslaved peoples after the American Civil War. Williams focuses on primary sources, which give a haunting tone to the whole book. The @audible narrator did a good job reflecting the seriousness of this subject. A historical frame of reference for anyone questioning the family structure in American Black culture. Excellent read.
...
librarianonparade's review against another edition
4.0
This book focuses on one of the most inhuman and heart wrenching aspects of American slavery - the destruction of families through sale, the separation of husbands from wives, mothers from children, brothers and sisters from one another, often never to be seen again. It's an aspect of slavery that almost every book on the period touches on, but to read an entire study devoted to the topic makes for painful reading.
Williams breaks her study into three, the first section focusing on the separation itself, the second on the search for family members, both during slavery and after its end, and finally on the lucky few who succeeded in reuniting their families. Her narrative draws up on letters and memoirs, lectures, newspaper ads, late in life interviews and memories from descendants. Reading these tales of loss and grief in the words of those affected makes this an incredibly powerful read, so much more than many histories of slavery and the Civil War that focus on facts and high-powered events and individuals and neglect the emotional context. As Williams notes in her introduction, the entire story of American slavery is one of emotion - of love and loneliness, despair and grief, hope, joy, anger, resentment, determination.
This book doesn't neglect the other side of the tale - the deliberate decisions of white slaveowners to sell their slaves, to break up families, to ignore the powerful bonds of motherhood and kinship. Some acknowledged the emotions of their slaves and were stricken with guilt and shame, yet still their own financial or familial priorities took precedence. Others were utterly unconcerned, incapable of recognising any common humanity in the slaves and convinced that slaves could not feel as deeply as white men and women.
Exploring emotions, as Williams acknowledges, is always a perilous task, particularly the emotions of a people who learned through a great many years of brutality and violence to shield their thoughts and feelings, to mask their pain, to play a role to ensure their own survival. Add in the difficulty of retrieving these individuals from the historical record - for every letter or memoir or interview there must be hundreds and thousands of men, women and children who have been lost to history - and the very concept of this book becomes daunting. But something like this needed to be written, and I could only wish it had been longer, that there was more to learn about these people. To read about a mother's search for her children and never to know the outcome, a husband's hunt for his wife long lost to him forever unknown - it's heartbreaking reading. You hope and pray for a joyful ending for these people, as they must have hoped and prayed themselves, but knowing too that hope is often the cruellest emotion.
Williams breaks her study into three, the first section focusing on the separation itself, the second on the search for family members, both during slavery and after its end, and finally on the lucky few who succeeded in reuniting their families. Her narrative draws up on letters and memoirs, lectures, newspaper ads, late in life interviews and memories from descendants. Reading these tales of loss and grief in the words of those affected makes this an incredibly powerful read, so much more than many histories of slavery and the Civil War that focus on facts and high-powered events and individuals and neglect the emotional context. As Williams notes in her introduction, the entire story of American slavery is one of emotion - of love and loneliness, despair and grief, hope, joy, anger, resentment, determination.
This book doesn't neglect the other side of the tale - the deliberate decisions of white slaveowners to sell their slaves, to break up families, to ignore the powerful bonds of motherhood and kinship. Some acknowledged the emotions of their slaves and were stricken with guilt and shame, yet still their own financial or familial priorities took precedence. Others were utterly unconcerned, incapable of recognising any common humanity in the slaves and convinced that slaves could not feel as deeply as white men and women.
Exploring emotions, as Williams acknowledges, is always a perilous task, particularly the emotions of a people who learned through a great many years of brutality and violence to shield their thoughts and feelings, to mask their pain, to play a role to ensure their own survival. Add in the difficulty of retrieving these individuals from the historical record - for every letter or memoir or interview there must be hundreds and thousands of men, women and children who have been lost to history - and the very concept of this book becomes daunting. But something like this needed to be written, and I could only wish it had been longer, that there was more to learn about these people. To read about a mother's search for her children and never to know the outcome, a husband's hunt for his wife long lost to him forever unknown - it's heartbreaking reading. You hope and pray for a joyful ending for these people, as they must have hoped and prayed themselves, but knowing too that hope is often the cruellest emotion.
vivamonty's review against another edition
4.0
What an incredibly moving book. 'Help Me to Find My People' examines the horrors of American slavery through the specific topic of the forced separation of families. The book is rife with vivid primary sources and testimonies of former slaves who had been torn asunder from their loved ones. The later chapters focus on post-war reunion efforts, specifically through newspaper advertisements seeking information regarding long-lost relations. There's also some interesting analysis of how white masters perceived slave relationships and why they were rarely hesitant to destroy them.
Slavery and racism will forever be the dark, indelible scar on America's face. Reading a book like this only further drives that important lesson home.
Slavery and racism will forever be the dark, indelible scar on America's face. Reading a book like this only further drives that important lesson home.
mandkips's review
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery and Racism
catsandclover's review
5.0
Well researched book detailing the emotional destruction resulting from the American domestic slave trace.