From Kirkus Reviews
An affectionate tribute to the resilience and innovativeness of the African-Americans of a small farming community in South Carolina's pine belt. Each summer, Vernon, now living in Iowa, returned to Mars Bluff to visit her family, but the seeds for this book were sown when she learned in the 1970's that ``two irreplaceable hewn-timber houses built by African-Americans about 1836'' were to be torn down. The information that she gathered about the houses led to her discovering all sorts of things about the rest of the community. She began to interview other older African-Americans, many of whom recalled stories told to them by grandparents born in slavery- -stories of how their relatives had been brought from Africa, sold at the slave markets in Charleston, and then transported to the pine belt, where the farms were smaller and the work harder. Vernon notes the possible African roots of local colloquial words; the difficulties of clearing the land when poisonous snakes lurk at every tree base; the types of food eaten, and the disappointments and hard times that followed Emancipation. But her most intriguing discovery was remnants of land that had once been cleared by slaves to grow rice for themselves. While rice-growing on the coast became a major agribusiness, the cultivation of the crop has usually been credited to a New England sea captain who gave a rich Charlestonian rice seeds that he'd picked up in Madagascar. Here, Vernon makes a persuasive case that African-Americans brought the farming techniques and the seed with them from Africa, and that many of the slaves were already experienced rice-growers. Copious footnotes and appendices pad the sometimes uneven text, but Vernon's research adds a valuable chapter to the story of African-American contributions. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
Author Vernon was raised in the farming community of Mars Bluffs, became interested in its history, and spent years interviewing the town's elderly members to compile a history of the blacks who lived in the community from the 1800s through the 1900s. Inland blacks have received scant prior mention, making Vernon's chronicles all the more important. -- Midwest Book Review
