When John F. Baker Jr. was in the seventh grade, he saw a photograph
of four former slaves in his social studies textbook--two of them were
his grandmother's grandparents. He began the lifelong research project
that would become The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation, the fruit
of more than thirty years of archival and field research and DNA testing
spanning 250 years.
A descendant of Wessyngton slaves, Baker has written the most accessible
and exciting work of African American history since Roots. He has not
only written his own family's story but included the history of hundreds
of slaves and their descendants now numbering in the thousands
throughout the United States. More than one hundred rare photographs and
portraits of African Americans who were slaves on the plantation bring
this compelling American history to life.
Founded in 1796 by Joseph Washington, a distant cousin of America's
first president, Wessyngton Plantation covered 15,000 acres and held 274
slaves, whose labor made it the largest tobacco plantation in America.
Atypically, the Washingtons sold only two slaves, so the slave families
remained intact for generations. Many of their descendants still reside
in the area surrounding the plantation. The Washington family owned the
plantation until 1983; their family papers, housed at the Tennessee
State Library and Archives, include birth registers from 1795 to 1860,
letters, diaries, and more. Baker also conducted dozens of
interviews--three of his subjects were more than one hundred years
old--and discovered caches of historic photographs and paintings.
A groundbreaking work of history and a deeply personal journey of
discovery, The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation is an uplifting
story of survival and family that gives fresh insight into the
institution of slavery and its ongoing legacy today.
