Swift Currents (Hardcover)

Praise for Swift Currents "The Sea Island community surrounding Beaufort, South Carolina, served as a center of historical action and events during our country's Civil War and Reconstruction Period. Iconic historical figures, families of southern planters, and emancipated enslaved Africans were involved in the Port Royal Experiment on the land and surrounding waterways. In Swift Currents, David Grim introduces readers to powerful figures who came to the region to make significant contributions: Harriet Tubman, Laura Towne, Clara Barton, Charlotte Forten, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Robert Smalls, and Robert Gould Shaw. His story seamlessly interweaves fictional characters with nonfictional events and individuals to document the unique Gullah culture and language. Grim conveys history through the point-of-view of a people whose perspectives of family, racial justice, and freedom have rarely been shared in literature." -Ronald Daise, cultural preservationist, former chairman of the Federal Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission, and charter member of the Sea Island Translation Team and Literacy Project Twenty-three year old Callie has lived in bondage at Oakheart Plantation since her birth. Although she has become a valuable asset to her cruel master, Daniel Bowen, Callie, her two brothers, and her young daughter struggle to cope with the outrages of enslavement. Change occurs suddenly on November 7, 1861, when the Union Navy attacks Port Royal Sound in South Carolina. Slavery ends across the surrounding sea islands as the planters flee. Ten thousand newly freed people, like Callie and her family, begin life under the authority of the US government. A historical novel based on actual events from 1861 to 1863, Swift Currents describes the slaves' transition from bondage to freedom through the lens of Callie and her two brothers. As they and others pursue education, work for wages, fight for freedom, and become landowners, their lives intersect with civilian and military authorities. Callie's story seeks to help the nation come to terms with its racial history and serves to provide a greater understanding of shared stories, thus lessening the inherited prejudice of generations.