cover image Ten Hills Farm: The Forgotten History of Slavery in the North

Ten Hills Farm: The Forgotten History of Slavery in the North

C. S. Manegold, . . Princeton Univ., $29.95 (317pp) ISBN 978-0-691-13152-8

Manegold (In Glory's Shadow ) centers her study of slavery in the North on Ten Hills Farm, a 600-acre estate north of Boston, passed down through five generations of powerful slave-owning dynasties. Famous figures defend and transform Ten Hills, beginning with Manegold's epitomic “Puritan,” John Winthrop, founder of the farm and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and his son, John Jr. The Puritan is followed by William Ryall, “the Immigrant,” whose heirs Isaac Royall and Isaac Jr. morph into “Master” and “Benefactor” of Harvard, respectively. Their domestic lives and commercial dealings form the scaffold of Manegold's “forgotten history” of the tangled bond, “stitched with the skins of slavery and blown by the winds of greed,” between American slavery and American wealth. Tightly focused on the Ten Hills Farm connection, Manegold conveys a lively depiction of New England social, cultural and political history peppered with jolting reminders that what may have been forgotten, nevertheless remains. Manegold's thoughtfully researched and eminently readable biography of this piece of land will allow no one to “remain unaware of the North's extensive links to slavery and the slave trade.” (Jan.)