
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 23, 1994                   TAG: 9407290044
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Reviewed by ROBERT HILLDRUP
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AN OUTSTANDING WORK ON SLAVERY

Although it reads for the most part with all the sparkle of a legal brief, this is a book not to be missed by anyone with an interest in the history of life in the community of Buffalo Forge near Lexington before, during and immediately following the Civil War.

Charles Dew, professor of Southern history at Williams College, achieves an accomplishment by which all other accounts of slave life will have to be measured.

It is the story, first, of William Weaver, the visionary Pennsylvanian who began the Buffalo Forge iron-manufacturing success shortly after the War of 1812. It is the story, too, of Daniel C.F. Brady, and his descendants who occupy part of the original property today.

But no story of this era of America is complete that does not deal with slavery and slaves as individuals, and it is here that Dew succeeds most brilliantly. He does so for two reasons. First, he presents a balanced view, one that condemns the basic evil of slavery as seen with modern eyes, yet credits Weaver and Brady - as did most of his slaves - with an exceptionally fair-minded decency by the standards of their day.

Second, Dew was able to locate and utilize the detailed daily records that Weaver and Brady kept to identify and describe the lives of individual slaves: Sam Williams and family; Henry Towles, Harry Hunt, Henry Matthews and others, particularly Garland Thompson, whose descendants are among those he interviewed.

``Bond of Iron'' thus gives a picture of a mutually shared life and hardship that would be impossible to understand without the detailed, personal history of the lives and accomplishments of the blacks.

There are good maps and good photographs, and there is much to be learned here from their comprehensive integration with the text.

In 40 years, Weaver never whipped a slave. If they contracted venereal disease or demonstrated a general worthlessness, he sold them. But he also paid them, regularly and fairly, for work done beyond their regular requirement. Except for their lack of freedom - and no amount of paternalism could ever make up for that - many of the Buffalo Forge slaves lived far better than poor whites of the area. Many mastered skills and trades, gaining a limited leverage and control over their lives that is part of the overlooked story of slavery in the South.

Charles Dew has put a great deal of effort into the research and writing of ``Bond of Iron'' and the result shows. It is a landmark work.

Robert Hilldrup is a Richmond writer and former newspaperman.

by CNB