{"id":25591,"date":"2012-09-26T02:08:38","date_gmt":"2012-09-26T02:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=25591"},"modified":"2013-02-09T19:58:39","modified_gmt":"2013-02-09T19:58:39","slug":"from-slave-ship-to-harvard-yarrow-mamout-and-the-history-of-an-african-american-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=25591","title":{"rendered":"From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Fordham University Press<\/a>
\nMay 2012
\n310 pages
\n6 x 9
\n25 Black and White Illustrations
\nHardcover ISBN: 9780823239504<\/p>\n

James H. Johnston<\/a><\/strong>, Lawyer and Writer
\nWashington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From Slave Ship to Harvard<\/em> is the true story of an African American family in Maryland over six generations. The author has reconstructed a unique narrative of black struggle and achievement from paintings, photographs, books, diaries, court records, legal documents, and oral histories. From Slave Ship to Harvard<\/em> traces the family from the colonial period and the American Revolution<\/a> through the Civil War<\/a> to Harvard and finally today.<\/p>\n

Yarrow Mamout, the first of the family in America, was an educated Muslim from Guinea. He was brought to Maryland on the slave ship Elijah and gained his freedom forty-four years later. By then, Yarrow had become so well known in the Georgetown<\/a> section of Washington, D.C., that he attracted the attention of the eminent American portrait painter Charles Willson Peale<\/a>, who captured Yarrow\u2019s visage in the painting that appears on the cover of this book. The author here reveals that Yarrow\u2019s immediate relatives\u2014his sister, niece, wife, and son\u2014were notable in their own right. His son married into the neighboring Turner family, and the farm community in western Maryland called Yarrowsburg was named for Yarrow Mamout\u2019s daughter-in-law, Mary \u201cPolly\u201d Turner Yarrow. The Turner line ultimately produced Robert Turner Ford, who graduated from Harvard University in 1927.<\/p>\n

Just as Peale painted the portrait of Yarrow, James H. Johnston\u2019s new book puts a face on slavery and paints the history of race in Maryland. It is a different picture from what most of us imagine. Relationships between blacks and whites were far more complex, and the races more dependent on each other. Fortunately, as this one family\u2019s experience shows, individuals of both races repeatedly stepped forward to lessen divisions and to move America toward the diverse society of today.<\/p>\n

Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n