Great piece, but I am surprised that the author does not reveal (perhaps does not know?) that Roswell King, Sr., and another son, Roswell King, Jr., spent decades as overseers on Major Pierce Butler's rice and cotton plantations in McIntosh and Glynn counties on the Georgia coast. Specifically, they managed the Butler Island (rice) plantation and the Hampton (cotton) plantation on St.Simons Island. Roswell Sr. was overseer of the Butler plantations from 1802 till 1820, when he handed over to Roswell Jr, who was overseer from then until 1838, returning for a brief stint in the 1840s. Both men were known to be harsh overseers, and wantonly took sexual advantage of slave women under their charge; both had offspring by slave women. History has to be fair and balanced. The view given by the author of this piece is that the Kings were aristocrats; without a mention of their slave holding and other excesses, it is at best, disingenuous and incorrect. An excellent text that gives a fair view of the Kings as plantation overseers is: Malcolm Bell's Major Butler's Legacy; Five Generations of a Slave holding family (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1987). It is interesting that the piece is titled "Ruined lives", in reference to the Roswell King and other families of Roswell Georgia. It is an even more appropriate epitaph for all the enslaved lives ruined by the Butler and King families, not only along the Georgia coast, but in Roswell, throughout America, in Canada, and in the Caribbean.
MY COMMENTS (1)
RE: Ruined lives
Posted by Kwesi DeGraft-Hanson on 06.06.09 @ 11:54 AM
Great piece, but I am surprised that the author does not reveal (perhaps does not know?) that Roswell King, Sr., and another son, Roswell King, Jr., spent decades as overseers on Major Pierce Butler's rice and cotton plantations in McIntosh and Glynn counties on the Georgia coast. Specifically, they managed the Butler Island (rice) plantation and the Hampton (cotton) plantation on St.Simons Island. Roswell Sr. was overseer of the Butler plantations from 1802 till 1820, when he handed over to Roswell Jr, who was overseer from then until 1838, returning for a brief stint in the 1840s. Both men were known to be harsh overseers, and wantonly took sexual advantage of slave women under their charge; both had offspring by slave women. History has to be fair and balanced. The view given by the author of this piece is that the Kings were aristocrats; without a mention of their slave holding and other excesses, it is at best, disingenuous and incorrect. An excellent text that gives a fair view of the Kings as plantation overseers is: Malcolm Bell's Major Butler's Legacy; Five Generations of a Slave holding family (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1987). It is interesting that the piece is titled "Ruined lives", in reference to the Roswell King and other families of Roswell Georgia. It is an even more appropriate epitaph for all the enslaved lives ruined by the Butler and King families, not only along the Georgia coast, but in Roswell, throughout America, in Canada, and in the Caribbean.
Kwesi DeGraft-Hanson,
Doctoral student
Emory University, 6-6-09