Turk McCleskey. The Road to Black Ned's Forge

This deeply researched and highly recommended volume examines the life and circumstances of Edward Tarr: freeholder, blacksmith, and devout Christian who had been allowed to purchase his freedom by his master, Thomas Shute, only to have Shute's son, Joseph, attempt to re-enslave him. In this well-written narrative, Turk McCleskey brings to light and contextualizes a tale of mobility and motion within the American colonies. He cogently explores related topics that are integral to this broader theme, most significantly the “transitions from slavery to freedom and freedman to freeholder” as well as “the economic organization of families, the rise and falls of entrepreneurs, the spread of slavery into the continental interior, the role of trauma in transforming societies, and the significance of frontiers in American history” (pp. 6–7). The Road to Black Ned's Forge: A Story of Race, Sex, and Trade on the Colonial American Frontier begins with the arrival of a teenaged Thomas Shute in Philadelphia around 1681. The young man acquired a modest farm and soon proved adept at a variety of entrepreneurial activities, especially those attuned to the needs of the rapidly growing colony: farming, milling, mining, and quarrying granite and marble. Shute expanded his commerce through strategic partnerships and by shipping his goods to ports in Barbados, the Bahamas, and South Carolina. To control his labor supply he invested in slaves, including Black Ned. Shute's son Joseph relocated to Charlestown to build on his father's business there. Like his father the younger Shute married well and soon began to advertise luxury goods from London in addition to his father's flour, staves, beer, and soap. Joseph Shute operated a wharf and invested in an island he christened “Shute's Delight,” though it soon became known as “Shute's Folly.” He also owned slaves and engaged in the intercolonial slave trade.

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