Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad

Book Description

Forbidden Fruit is a collection of fascinating, largely untold stories of ordinary men and women who took extraor

dinary measures, risking life and limb to be together. It¹s the story of couples who faced mobs, bloodhounds, bounty hunters, and bullets to defy the system that allowed slave masters to breed and sell people like cattle. Some broke the taboo against interracial marriage, putting their lives in the most severe peril.

In one remarkable story, a Georgia couple who fled slavery wearing multiple disguises sailed for England with bounty hunters and federal troops on their trail. A fugitive slave from Virginia spent seventeen arduous years searching for his wife. A Missouri slave fell in love with his white Mormon neighbor and escaped to Canada to be with her, putting pepper in his shoes to throw dogs off the scent at night and hiding in trees by day.

Betty DeRamus gleaned these amazing stories from descendants of runaway slave couples, unpublished memoirs, Civil War records, books, magazines, and dozens of previously untapped sources. Beautifully and compassionately written, this important book reveals a chapter of American history that is shameful but is about triumph as well as torture, achievement as well as degradation, and indomitable love as well as hate.

Download Description

"Forbidden Fruit is a collection of fascinating, largely untold stories of ordinary men and women who took extraor dinary measures, risking life and limb to be together. It's the story of couples who faced mobs, bloodhounds, bounty hunters, and bullets to defy the system that allowed slave masters to breed and sell people like cattle. Some broke the taboo against interracial marriage, putting their lives in the most severe peril. In one remarkable story, a Georgia couple who fled slavery wearing multiple disguises sailed for England with bounty hunters and federal troops on their trail. A fugitive slave from Virginia spent seventeen arduous years searching for his wife. A Missouri slave fell in love with his white Mormon neighbor and escaped to Canada to be with her, putting pepper in his shoes to throw dogs off the scent at night and hiding in trees by day. Betty DeRamus gleaned these amazing stories from descendants of runaway slave couples, unpublished memoirs, Civil War records, books, magazines, and dozens of previously untapped sources. Beautifully and compassionately written, this important book reveals a chapter of American history that is shameful but is about triumph as well as torture, achievement as well as degradation, and indomitable love as well as hate. "

Customer Reviews:

Not Just Love Stories but History Too!.......2007-06-30

This book contains not only love stories, but inspiring stories of faith, strength, endurance and resilience as well as stories of suffering and heartache. The book is written by a jouralist which is evident in the historical details of the unfolding stories. I found it interesting, entertaining , informative and educational. I am a minister and used it in a Bible study on the subject of "eros."

The price of love.......2006-05-08

FORBIDDEN FRUIT: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad by Betty DeRamus is an earth-shaking book of short stories about what African Americans were willing to do to keep their loved ones in their lives. In "The Special Delivery Package," a female slave, Lear Green, was willing to have herself shipped in a sailor's chest to the north to meet her husband-to-be. With no food, water and scant air, she traveled 18 hours to Philadelphia. James Smith, "A Love Worth Waiting For," was beaten bloody on several occasions as he attempted to escape to the wife he'd been sold away from. A black overseer heard him praying for him and the white men who abused him and was so moved that he unchained Smith so that he could finally successfully escape. Isaac Berry, of "Hound Dogs Hate Red Pepper," put red pepper in his shoes to throw the dogs off his scent as he rushed toward the north. There were many people, including those of the Underground Railroad, who helped him in his escape. The Underground Railroad, operating at the peril of the conductors, rushed slaves seeking freedom across the US border into Canada because the Fugitive Slave laws frequently made it dangerous, if not impossible, for them to find peace even in the northern United States.

All of the stories were heart wrenching and it made you wonder if you would have the strength, the persistence, the nerve, that these early Africans had to pursue love at any cost. The tales also brought to the forefront the tragedies that our ancestors survived daily: beatings, being sold from family and friends, early death from abuse, starvation and terror. Ms. DeRamus brings the stories of these brave people alive and puts it in your face where you can't hide. She awakens the sleeping and lost history of the brave people of Africa and what it took for them to survive. It is an excellent read, smooth and enticing, bringing forth not only the history, but the bravery of the displaced Africans of yesteryear. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand what slavery was really all about.

Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Forbidden Fruit: love stories from the underground railroad.......2005-09-13

I was hooked on this one when I picked it up. I was just going to read a paragraph or two to see how it reads. The next thing I knew the phone was ringing, and when I answered the phone, I realized that I had been reading for a couple of hours. I had to control my urges to pick up the book when I had appointments or other things I needed to do first. It is a really interesting read. And it reads well also.

Adds a Human Dimension to Slavery.......2005-03-03

These are stories of hope that take place in the midst of one of the most terrible times in American history. When some people thought that they could own others based just on skin color, other people lived and even loved.

These stories are based on the tales passed down by descendants, unpublished memoirs, Civil War records, books, magazines and dozens of previously untapped sources. They add an entirely new dimension to what life must have been like in the pre-war South.

More than anything else these stories help you to relate to the people, they add character to the bare statistics. It adds a very human dimension to the people who through no fault of their own were slaves. These people knew love, had feelings, were not just the animals they were considered by their owners.

wonderful book.......2005-02-12

Forbiden Fruit is one of the best history books I've seen in a long time. It tells a largely ignored story and reminds the reader that the slaves were human beings, not symbols and that they weren't passively waiting to be saved. This book is filled with men and women who risked everything for the freedom to be with their beloved.

Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad

Average customer rating:

Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad
Betty DeRamus
Manufacturer: Thorndike Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Board book

Literature & Fiction | Large Print | Formats | Books
ASIN: 0786278315

Book Description

Veteran journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Betty DeRamus offers a rich collection of fascinating, largely untold slave-era stories of ordinary men and women who took extraordinary measures, risking life and limb to be together. In these remarkable tales, couples face mobs, bloodhounds, bounty hunters and bullets to defy the system that allowed slave masters to breed and sell people like cattle.

Amazon.com

The growing frequency of peaceful expansions of human rights, private property, and market capitalism lead many to consider violent revolutions a thing of the past. In light of, for example, the dismantling of the Soviet Empire, the reunification of Germany, and the Czechoslovakian "velvet Revolution," violence as a mechanism for institutional change seems immoral and counterproductive, an anachronism in our age of global economies and shuttle diplomacy. Arno Mayer takes a contrarian position in The Furies: Violence and Terror in the French and Russian Revolutions. Throughout his comparative study, he maintains that "there is no revolution without violence and terror." Contrary to popular belief, Mayer argues, ideologies and personalities did not control events. Rather, the tide of violence overwhelmed the political actors who assumed power, and even the best-laid plans could not stem the chaos.

Mayer structures his study around what he considers integral components of revolution: civil and foreign war, iconoclasm and religious conflict, and collision between city and country. The Furies begins with a theoretical examination of revolution in general, counterrevolution, violence, terror, vengeance, and religion. Its second portion offers a close comparison of the revolutions in 1789 France and 1917 Russia, following each from their outbreak to the foreign and civil wars that ensued. Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton University, Mayer belongs to the major league of heavy-hitting academic historians, and to a large degree, The Furies is written for his colleagues. Footnote heavy, it assumes a studied familiarity with both revolutions, and Mayer's abundant theoretical references quickly frustrate the lesser informed. However, in maintaining the integrality of violence in revolution, Mayer challenges many unexamined assumptions about the two most influential revolutions of modern times, and he forces reexamination of the nature of violence in the revolutionary process. --Bertina Loeffler Sedlack

Book Description

Although these two upheavals arose in different environments, they followed similar courses. The thought and language of Enlightenment France were the glories of western civilization; those of tsarist Russia's intelligentsia were on its margins. Both revolutions began as revolts vowed to fight unreason, injustice, and inequality; both swept away old regimes and defied established religions in societies that were 85% peasant and illiterate; both entailed the terrifying return of repressed vengeance. Contrary to prevalent belief, Mayer argues, ideologies and personalities did not control events. Rather, the tide of violence overwhelmed the political actors who assumed power and were rudderless. Even the best plans could not stem the chaos that at once benefited and swallowed them. Mayer argues that we have ignored an essential part of all revolutions: the resistances to revolution, both domestic and foreign, which help fuel the spiral of terror.

In his sweeping yet close comparison of the world's two transnational revolutions, Mayer follows their unfolding--from the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Bolshevik Declaration of the Rights of the Toiling and Exploited Masses; the escalation of the initial violence into the reign of terror of 1793-95 and of 1918-21; the dismemberment of the hegemonic churches and religion of both societies; the "externalization" of the terror through the Napoleonic wars; and its "internalization" in Soviet Russia in the form of Stalin's "Terror in One Country." Making critical use of theory, old and new, Mayer breaks through unexamined assumptions and prevailing debates about the attributes of these particular revolutions to raise broader and more disturbing questions about the nature of revolutionary violence attending new foundations.

Download Description

The great romance and fear of bloody revolution--strange blend of idealism and terror--have been superseded by blind faith in the bloodless expansion of human rights and global capitalism. Flying in the face of history, violence is dismissed as rare, immoral, and counterproductive. Arguing against this pervasive wishful thinking, the distinguished historian Arno J. Mayer revisits the two most tumultuous and influential revolutions of modern times: the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917.Although these two upheavals arose in different environments, they followed similar courses. The thought and language of Enlightenment France were the glories of western civilization; those of tsarist Russia's intelligentsia were on its margins. Both revolutions began as revolts vowed to fight unreason, injustice, and inequality; both swept away old regimes and defied established religions in societies that were 85% peasant and illiterate; both entailed the terrifying return of repressed vengeance. Contrary to prevalent belief, Mayer argues, ideologies and personalities did not control events. Rather, the tide of violence overwhelmed the political actors who assumed power and were rudderless. Even the best plans could not stem the chaos that at once benefited and swallowed them. Mayer argues that we have ignored an essential part of all revolutions: the resistances to revolution, both domestic and foreign, which help fuel the spiral of terror.

Customer Reviews:

Evolution, revolution or involution ?.......2007-02-19

"The revolutions - like Saturn - devour its own sons"

The violence and terror in the French and Russian revolutions are separated by a period of almost a century and a third. But the French revolution carved in relief and some how the conscious of the collective in the political decision take, as well as the introduction for the first time in the history of three concepts that sounded much more metaphorically that realistically, liberty, equality and fraternity.

The author examines zealously many conceptual signposts such as revolution, vengeance, violence and terror, from a enriched perspective where he makes a lucid revision of the implicit facts derived from these poetic ideas, that not only shocked the world but the way it was molded by this fact.

It's useless to affirm the echoes of the French revolution to the light of just two hundred years and two decades, is less than nothing in the history. The inherited paradigms, the wrong beliefs and distorted concepts have generated between other the nationalism fever that altered radically the sociopolitical geography of four continents, besides altered the cultural development all over Europe and seeded new horizons into Philosophy, art and religion; also it accelerated the process of other political movements (The boxers in China, for instance) but even its influence in the happen of both World Wars as well as the significance of liberation in the ancient colonies for better or worst, the emancipation and adhesion of Turkey into the same entrails of the Western hemisphere in the second decade of XX century, among other consequences. But there is so much conceptual material to discuss, state and argue that this little review is simply quite short to intend to expose, that it's better to take a profound reading around this invaluable essay that claimed for being exposed.

A text of maxim interest for all kind of readers.

The thesis is strong, but the argument is weak.......2002-08-20

Arno Mayer's "The Furies" show the qualities that were present in his two previous works on, respectively, pre-1914 Europe and the Holocaust. They are based on secondary sources, and they clearly articulate a theme that had been percolating through the historiography of their subject. "The Furies" is a comparative history of the French and English revolutions and is divided into five parts. The first deals with "conceptual signposts" such as revolution, counterrevolution, violence, terror, vengeance and religion. The second part is an overview of the process of the terror, the third looks at "metropolitian condescension and rural distrust," the fourth looks at the revolutions' challenges to the bigotry of the established church and the fifth looks at the international context of Napoleon and Stalin.

Why did the Furies arise? Mayer emphasizes such aggravating factors as domestic and foreign counter-revolution, the collapse of the old state, and personal and popular vengenace. There was considerable ideological fanaticism, but it was as much effect as cause of the violence. On Russia he declares "Even in normal times, let alone in a time of troubles, Russia defied governance as a single unit--a single sovereignty--by virtue not only of its sheer expanse but also its bewildering diversity of cultures, its uneven levels of development, its primitive state of transport, and its encumbrance by a torpid peasant world. The rich but refractory endowment of vastness, diversity, and unsimultaneity was at least as burdensome as the enduring deficit of democratic thought and praxis." (233-34)

Although there is much to be said that for that last statment, ultimately this is a disappointing book. A synthesis is rarely more than the sum of its part and Mayer's work suffers from the fact that the literature on French and Russian terror is less sophisticated than work on, say, the Holocaust. Mayer cannot read Russian, and while he can read French he is not an expert on 18th century French history. Much of the book consists of competent, uninspired narrative detailing the course of atrocities (but oddly enough omits the Prairial executions).

There are other conceptual weaknesses. Mayer states (4) that revolutions cannot exist without religious conflict. But the Chinese civil war and revolution cannot really be considered one. His discussion of peasant rebellion in France does not emphasize that much of Peasant France either did not rebel or did support the republic (326-28). He dismisses the American revolution as insufficiently revolutionary (26) on the grounds that it was a "restoration"; but this begs the question of how the American colonies received these glorious institutions in the first place.

The comparative discussion on Napoleon and Stalin is too long (533-701) and much of it consists of padded history. Oddly enough Mayer does not mention Orlando Figes' vicious circle of conscription: the Bolsheviks needed to form an army but economic crisis made them unable to feed it. So mass desertion resulted, requiring further conscription and more strains on the economy. Nor does he mention the arguments of Lars Lih and William G. Rosenberg on the pervasiveness of the economic crisis.

More could have be done to criticize the ideological determinism of the Furet school. More use could have been made of Timothy Tackett's massively documented work on the National Assembly and about their pragmatic, non-philosophe nature. Mayer could have mentioned Barry Shapiro and the moderate attitude of the 1789-91 authorities to rumours of counter-revolutionary plots. He could have noted Emma Rothschild's portrait of a pluralist, liberal Condorcet. On the other hand Mayer does point out that Burke stated before the outbreak of the war that the revolutionaries had no right to expect civilized warfare (121). It is interesting to hear de Tocqueville complain that the philosophes are unfairly denigrated in contemporary France (46). It is important to notes that when Pope Pius VI condemned the Civil Constitution of the clergy he not only criticized its ham-handed nature but the very idea of granting non-Catholics toleration at all (427-30). Mayer does remind us that counter-revolutionaries are more than capable of terror, and one should remember the 20,000 slaughtered by the Russians in one day in Warsaw in 1794, or the 30,000 killed when Britian suppresed an Irish bid for independence in 1798. One should especially remember the 150,000 Haitians who died (30% of the total) resisting Napoleon's attempt to re-establish slavery there. In conclusion there is much to be said for the thesis, but the argument could use more work.

Fascinating study of counter-revolutionary violence.......2001-08-04

In this book, Mayer studies the French Revolution of 1789 and the Russian Revolution of 1917. He seeks to explain why the peoples made these great revolutionary advances, and also why the nobility fought to destroy them and to restore the savage old orders. He studies the role of religion in the counter-revolutions, particularly the Papacy's bitter hostility to the Revolutions, compared to its notorious slap on the wrist for the Nazi counter-revolution. He cites Michelet's famous remark that the numbers killed by the Spanish Inquisition in just one province of Spain far exceeded the number killed by those defending France and its Revolution. The Inquisition was the crowning revelation of Christianity's ingrained violence, its hostility to people who dared to think for themselves, and to think differently from the Church: for six centuries, the leaders of the Catholic Church ordered the killing of millions of men and women for the glory of God. After the French Revolution, the British ruling class organised the foreign counter-revolutionary war. This enormously increased the economic, social and military difficulties faced by the new Government. Later in the war, Napoleon continued France's defence against the counter-revolution, upheld the Revolution's destruction of the nobility's privileges, and extended its gains abroad. After the end of World War One, the rulers of the British, US and French states united in `helping the Whites overthrow the Bolshevik regime', as Mayer writes. Their intervention prolonged the civil war, enormously increasing the suffering of the Soviet people, and adding to the huge economic, social and military difficulties faced by the new Government. Stalin played a key part in defending the Soviet Union against the Intervention; later, he expanded the Revolution's gains and, after defeating Hitler's counter-revolutionary intervention, extended these gains to the nations of Eastern Europe. However, studies that focus on the violence and terror involved in counter-revolutions, even those studies, like Mayer's, that explain why people defended their countries' Revolutions, tend to overlook those Revolutions' tremendous achievements. Of course, people fought to survive the furies of the counter-revolution, but they also fought to build better societies, and they succeeded.

Revolutions 17891917 (Cambridge Perspectives in History)

Average customer rating:

Revolutions 17891917 (Cambridge Perspectives in History)
Allan Todd
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Russia | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

General | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

All Deals | Blowout Books | Stores | Books

Children's Books | Blowout Books | Stores | Books

Nonfiction | Blowout Books | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0521586003

Book Description

Allan Todd provides a lucid exploration of the main features of revolutions: the economic, social, political and ideological developments prior to the revolution, and the roles and actions of crowds, parties, women and counter-revolutionaries. Particular attention is paid to the French Revolution of 1789, and the 1848 Revolutions, the 1871 Paris Commune and the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Bauwelt Fundamente, Bd.92, Russische und französische Revolutions-Architektur 1917, 1789

Average customer rating:

Bauwelt Fundamente, Bd.92, Russische und französische Revolutions-Architektur 1917, 1789
Adolf M. Vogt , Ulrich Conrads , and Peter Neitzke
Manufacturer: Birkhäuser Verlag
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

All German Books | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 3764363738

The Counter-Revolution in Revolution: Images of Thermidor and Napoleon at the Time of Russian Revolution and Civil War

Average customer rating:

The Counter-Revolution in Revolution: Images of Thermidor and Napoleon at the Time of Russian Revolution and Civil War
Dmitry Shlapentokh
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Japan | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

Revolutionary | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Eastern Europe | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Book Description

The collapse of the imperial regime excited Russian intellectuals of all political persuasions. Although eager to draw comparisons between pre-Revolutionary Russia and revolutionary France, the political elite saw the outcome in their own country as vastly different to the events which had occurred in France. Looking to the past they tried to predict the future--how their revolution would end. As the political situation became more unstable, there was increasing fear of dictatorship and bloodshed. The perception of Napoleon as a victorious general changed; he was seen instead as a powerful man who had brought stability to France. Thus came the search for a Russian Napoleon--first in the form of Alexander Kerensky, and later General Lavr Kornilov. Neither man was a successful candidate. Shlapentokh examines one of the most dramatic periods in European history. Drawing comparisons between revolutionary Russia and France, he provides an insightful and original analysis of such subjects as counter-revolution, terror and dictatorship.

The French Revolution in Russian Intellectual Life: 1865-1905

Average customer rating:

The French Revolution in Russian Intellectual Life: 1865-1905
Dmitry Shlapentokh
Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Japan | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Eastern Europe | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Revolutionary | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

History of Ideas | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

History & Theory | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

History | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Nonfiction | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0275955737

Book Description

The interest of Russian intellectuals in the French Revolution demonstrates that some Russian thinkers of the 19th century had begun to question the concept of Russia's uniqueness. Yet most of them came to believe that the French Revolution (which they tended to equate with the Western experience) was irrelevant not only to Russia but to the rest of the world as well. They saw, perhaps correctly, that the Western experience, with the French Revolution as its symbol, was foreign to Russian destiny. Most of the Russian intellectuals of that time had rightly foreseen Russia, and to some degree the rest of the world's future, as following an authoritarian/totalitarian model of development.

Russische und franzosische Revolutions-Architektur 1917/1789;: Zur Einwirkung des Marxismus und des Newtonismus auf die Bauweise (DuMont Kunst-Taschenbucher, 9)

Average customer rating:

Russische und franzosische Revolutions-Architektur 1917/1789;: Zur Einwirkung des Marxismus und des Newtonismus auf die Bauweise (DuMont Kunst-Taschenbucher, 9)
Adolf Max Vogt
Manufacturer: M. DuMont Schauberg
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Perfect Paperback

General | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

German | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Arts & Photography | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books

Nonfiction | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books

Professional & Technical | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books

All German Books | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 3770106121

Average customer rating:

Three revolutions

Manufacturer: Greenwood Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

Average customer rating:

The God-Man and other essays
Joseph Gilpin Pyle
Manufacturer: [s.n.]
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

Mgnovene slavy nastaet--: God 1789-i (Khronika trekh stoletii)

Average customer rating:

Mgnovene slavy nastaet--: God 1789-i (Khronika trekh stoletii)
N. IA Eidelman
Manufacturer: Lenizdat
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

Russian | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

History | Russian | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books

Nonfiction | Russian | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books

All Russian Books | Russian | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 5289002642

Average customer rating:

Revolutions 1789-1917

Manufacturer: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GTHZ0I

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books