![]() ![]() ![]() Indeed, as the book reveals, slaveholder and enslaved lives intertwined in many complicated ways. Schwartz promises not to write hagiography of so-called “good mistresses,” but instead to explore “the relationships that developed between the First Ladies and their slaves, making visible the domestic spaces where the ladies lived with their help.” The author’s approach, by definition, unfortunately allows her to essentially ignore Abigail Adams, who is mentioned only in passing and whose omission is explained briefly in a footnote. ![]() ![]() Ties That Bound, the resulting well-researched history of the relationships that developed between these first ladies and their slaves, makes for compelling reading. To bring some balance to the flood of books on the Founding Fathers and their political lives, Marie Jenkins Schwartz turns her lens on the wives of the Virginia presidents: Martha Washington, Martha Jefferson (who complicated her narrative because she died so young that her daughter stepped in as surrogate first lady for several months), and Dolley Madison - women who were born into slaveholding families and married slaveholding men. ![]()
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