From Slave Ship to Harvard

Born in 1736 in West Africa, Yarrow Mamout was enslaved, transported to America, and purchased by Marylander Samuel Beall in 1752. Freed in 1797, Yarrow accumulated sufficient capital to invest in bank stock and to purchase a house in Washington, DC. Today, he is remembered primarily because in 1819 the artist Charles Willson Peale painted an intriguing portrait of him (as did James Alexander Simpson, in 1822). Johnston, an attorney and journalist, tells the story of Yarrow and his relatives, including Yarrow's sister, son, and later descendant Robert Turner Ford, who, in 1927, graduated from Harvard University. Chapters reconstruct Yarrow's life in Africa, his slave life in early America, the circumstances surrounding Peale's portrait, and Yarrow's family tree through to the present. An epilog offers remarks on 29 "tangible things" (e.g., art, buildings, and documents) that relate to the book's themes and still survive. Johnston draws on primary documents, secondary scholarship, and scores of interviews with living authorities.