The Purchase
Format: hardcover
ISBN:
9780771079351 (0771079354)
Publish date: September 25th 2012
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Pages no: 368
Edition language: English
The year is 1798. Daniel Dickenson, the father of five children is a Quaker living in Pennsylvania. His wife has just died a few months after giving birth to his youngest son. He has taken on a young woman, Ruth Boyd, an orphan and a Methodist, on a bond of indenture to help with the family during t...
In 1798, Daniel Dickinson, a young father and widower, shunned by his Quaker community, leaves his home in Pennsylvania to start a new life in Virginia where, despite his good intentions, he becomes embroiled in the slave economy, raises his children in poverty and ignorance and watches from the sid...
Historically, The Purchase is fascinating as it combines several different elements of the country’s unique background. Daniel’s world is as unfamiliar to him as it is to modern readers, but it is Ms. Spalding’s succinct descriptions that allow readers to adapt and learn about this unfamiliar settin...
The hard life of pioneers mixed with the horrible outrages of slavery and religious oppression. Predictable, plodding.
So, what does freedom really mean? This book seems to examine this question from a few different angles.First, the obvious, slaves bought and sold. Slaves in any capacity, past or present, are the least "free" beings on earth. However, is there some recompense if the slave is actually as much a f...