The Clamorgans: One Family's History of Race in America

There's enough roguishness and propriety, fakery and deceit, true love and abandonment in Winch's history of the Clamorgan clan to sustain a TV miniseries. Although, the French "adventurer," Jacques Clamorgan (c. 1730%E2%80%931814) left his substantial property to his "four %E2%80%98natural children,'%C2%A0" his ownership of those large tracts of Missouri land was dubious to begin with. Added to that, the "irrefutable fact that Clamorgan had cohabited exclusively with women of color" (and that several other descendants were illegitimate) sparked generations of litigation over the inheritance. "Matters became very murky indeed," writes historian Winch (A Gentleman of Color), as the Clamorgan land claims played out on a national stage, stretching into the 1990s. As Jacques' descendants become more numerous, and distinctly white in appearance, ironies abound: some "passing" out of inertia or even ignorance, others maintaining ties to African-American groups. Although presidents get drawn in, and cases rise to the Supreme Court, this is essentially the saga of a singular American family and their dynasty-like preoccupation with the acquisition of land, money, and power, and later attempts to recoup (or at least leverage) them. Winch serves up more detail than casual readers may want to know, but she keeps the story moving, partly because where much "depends on whose versions of events one believes," she wisely leaves it to the reader to decide. (June)