In From Calabar to Carter's Grove, Lorena S. Walsh has done what conventional wisdom has deemed nearly impossible: she has assembled a substantial history of a seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Virginia slave community.

Walsh's analysis of existing plantation records, artifacts, and ruins has generated a clear and frequently detailed picture of these slaves, including lists of popular forenames and accounts of illnesses, childbirths, and escape attempts.

However, as the author is first to admit, this book does not - and, based on the available evidence, cannot - offer portraits of individual slaves; it is instead a collective portrait of the group, offering details of their African origins, slave histories, and daily hardships.

Enhanced with maps, drawings, and photographs, From Calabar to Carter's Grove is an innovative study that paves the way for similar research on other slave communities. This volume will be invaluable not only to historians but to those with an interest in antebellum or African-American history.