The Known World

Henry Townsend was born into slavery in Manchester County, Virginia. He became the trusted favourite of his owner, William Robbins, a planter who dominates the county, and stayed loyal to him even after his parents bought the family's freedom. With Robbins's backing he set up as a shoemaker, then acquired a plantation and people of his own to hold in bondage, a rare Black slaveholder in the South. When he dies at thirty-one, his widow Caldonia cannot hold things together. Enslaved people slip away at night, loyalties inside families break, and beyond the plantation poorly paid white patrollers look on while traders seize free Black people and sell them, and fears of an uprising turn masters against those they hold.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

United States, before the Civil War

First published

2003 by Amistad

Author's age

53 when first published

ISBN

9780060557546 (Amistad, United States)

9780007195305 (Harper Perennial, United Kingdom)

9780060557553 (Amistad, United States)

9780007195299 (Fourth Estate, United Kingdom)

9780061159176 (Amistad, United States)

9780008706142 (Fourth Estate, United Kingdom)

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Wikidata