The Other Madisons

Biographies & Memoirs

synopsis

Synopsis

For more than 200 years, Bettye Kearse’s family credo “Always remember—you’re a Madison. You come from African slaves and a president” has served as a source of pride and inspiration. But Kearse doesn’t know why the credo should make her proud. For her, it resounds with the abuses of slavery. In 1990, when her mother turns over to her the old box of family memorabilia, Kearse becomes her family’s eighth-generation griotte, the oral historian. To confront the discomforting parts of her family’s story, she begins a journey of discovery—of her ancestors, her country, and herself. She travels to Lagos, Portugal, where the transatlantic slave trade began; to Ghana, West Africa, where her family’s first African ancestor in America, and their first griotte, was born; to Baltimore, Maryland, where a replica of a slave ship sits in a museum; to James Madison’s plantation where three generations of her family lived in bondage; and to Bastrop County, Texas, where her enslaved family resided when Emancipation came. Kearse learns that wherever African slaves once walked, history had tried to bury their footsteps and silence their voices. She also learns that slaves possessed hope and inner strength, by which they survived, and talents, by which they contributed mightily to America. Then they passed down those same qualities to their descendants, including those alive today. Kearse decides to give voice to the stolen Africans and to encourage African Americans to embrace their slave ancestry so that they, too, to contribute mightily to America.

bio

Author Biography

Bettye Kearse, a descendant of a slave and President James Madison, is a writer and retired pediatrician living in Santa Fe, NM. Her commentary “Our Family Tree Searches for Branches” appeared in the Boston Herald. “Destination Jim Crow,” a personal narrative published in the fall 2013 issue of River Teeth, was listed as a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2014 and nominated for the 2015 Pushcart Prize. In March 2020, TIME Magazine published her article "I Feared My Enslaved Ancestors Had Been Dishonored in Death." Her essays "Slavery on Wall Street" and "America's Hidden Stories: The Other Madisons" appeared in May 2020 issues of Image Makers and Influencers Magazine. She is the author of the memoir, The Other Madisons: The Lost History of A President's Black Family (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. March 24, 2020). Her website is www.bettyekearse.com. .

website

Author Insight

Slavery in Manhattan

In 1991, an excavation crew for a new federal building in lower Manhattan unearthed several human remains. Land surveys from the 18th century revealed that the sight had been a cemetery for the thousands of deceased enslaved Africans who had built much of the city's infrastructure, including the wall that once defined Wall Street, and whose labor had made New York City astoundingly wealthy.

Book Excerpt

The Other Madisons

The Reverend Dr. Herbert Daughtry reminded the nation that, “had it not been for the bodies and the bone, the body and the labor, of those people who rest yonder—our ancestors—there would not have been a United States of America. There would not have been any wealth in the Western world. And not only that, after we had worked the fields and built the roads, and had our bodies sold, we went out and died for the country.”

I was particularly stirred by the proclamation of city council member Helen Marshall: “We were the slaves, and our magnificence is in our survival. What is in that burial ground will teach us immensely.”

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Bettye Kearse

The Other Madisons

Synopsis

Author Biography

Author Insight

Slavery in Manhattan

Book Excerpt

The Other Madisons

Comment on this Bubble