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Paul Jennings and the Madisons
Macmillan
January 2012
On Sale: January 3, 2012
336 pages ISBN: 0230108938 EAN: 9780230108936 Kindle: B0065RDH20 Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
Paul Jennings was born into slavery on the plantation of
James and Dolley Madison in Virginia, later becoming part of
the Madison household staff at the White House. Once finally
emancipated by Senator Daniel Webster later in life, he
would give an aged and impoverished Dolley Madison, his
former owner, money from his own pocket, write the first
White House memoir, and see his sons fight with the Union
Army in the Civil War. He died a free man in northwest
Washington at 75. Based on correspondence, legal documents,
and journal entries rarely seen before, this amazing
portrait of the times reveals the mores and attitudes toward
slavery of the nineteenth century, and sheds new light on
famous characters such as James Madison, who believed the
white and black populations could not coexist as equals;
French General Lafayette who was appalled by this idea;
Dolley Madison, who ruthlessly sold Paul after her husband's
death; and many other since forgotten slaves, abolitionists,
and civil right activists.
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