Sleeping with the Ancestors: How I Followed the Footpri… (2024)

"Sacred spaces can serve as classrooms."

"Sleeping with the Ancestors" chronicles the author's experiences over the last decade plus as he endeavours to locate extant slave dwellings across the United States and spend a night sleeping in each one. The author, Joseph McGill Jr, is a Black historian, preservationist and Civil War re-enactor who initially envisioned a small scale one-year project limited to his home state, but the scope quickly expanded as publicity grew. The Slave Dwelling Project, as it is now called, has resulted in him spending more than 200 nights at former slave dwellings in both Northern and Southern states with the goal of honouring the ancestors and their connection and presence to the land. His nights now often include educational lectures and school tours as well as having various guests such as historians, journalists, and descendants of both the enslaved and the enslavers join him on the sleepover.

Having worked for various historical preservation societies, McGill noticed that there was a trend among historic building projects to focus funding on preserving the main houses that had visual architectural importance while ignoring extant slave dwellings on the premises by relegating them with titles like out-buildings or sheds that hide their true significance in telling the stories of the experience of enslaved people in America. Following a visit to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, he was increasingly convicted of the importance of preserving these types of historic sites because "old buildings tell the story of the people who found shelter in them." His Slave Dwelling Project has now encompassed dwellings that represent both rural plantation slavery as well as the lesser represented urban slavery detailing how enslaved people lived and worked in cities and college campuses in both Northern and Southern states. McGill uses a combination of land and property records as well as quoting extensively from oral histories (such as the WPA Federal Writers' Project) to powerfully recreate the history and lives of enslaved people who may have lived in each of the dwellings that he describes visiting.

Overall I found this book to be quite fascinating. I had heard of the Slave Dwelling Project in passing in some of the online genealogy communities that I am a part of, so I was very interested to get the full background about the origins and growth of the project. I found the tone of the book quite conversational and readable despite dealing with obviously emotionally heavy topics. I deeply appreciated how McGill was willing to be both physically and psychologically uncomfortable and takes us along on his own journey of personal growth as he learns from the people and places he visits throughout this project.

I would recommend this book to readers who are interested in learning more about Black history in America, people who have enjoyed books like "Freedom Libraries: The Untold Story of Libraries for African Americans in the South" by Mike Selby or "Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"" by Zora Neale Hurston, and anyone with an interest in the preservation and management of museums and historic sites. If you are someone with an interest in genealogy, particularly with an interest in how to honour, respect, and balance the good and bad parts of our ancestors' stories, I think you would really enjoy this book as well.

The one feature that I really felt this book was missing was photos. I don't know if the physical copy will have photo inserts, but the eARC that I read had neither photos throughout or a dedicated photo section and I think having some visuals of the places that the author visited would have made an even greater impact.

*DISCLAIMER: I received an eARC of this book from Hachette Books through NetGalley for the purposes of providing an unbiased review.*

The premise of this book is promising: a man grappling with slavery in the US decides to sleep in surviving "slave cabins"--the shelters where enslaved people were forced to live--and document his experiences. But in addition to one sleepover being much like another, the author's wandering focus and long asides without clear connections to the premise or anything else is terribly distracting. If the author dictated this as an oral history account, it would make more sense that there are these issues. But that doesn't seem to be the case, in which case this needs a lot of editing. It was a real disappointment.

I had the privilege of hearing Joseph McGill give an impromptu lecture at the Old Slave Market Museum in Charleston, SC. I also visited the Magnolia Plantation. McGill since 2010 has been sleeping in slave quarters and slave-built buildings since then. But the sleeping in cabins part is only they vehicle for telling the stories and raising the awareness of slavery in the United States. This book captures both the history and the stories of the last twelve years. The writing is a bit uneven - it is, after all, a memoir - but it's an incredibly important book that everyone should read and think about.

David J. Kent
Author, Lincoln: The Fire of Genius
President, Lincoln Group of DC

Absolutely fascinating book about a man honoring and seeking the history of his ancestors and the stories of those enslaved whose experiences , traditions, and dwelling places don’t get the same spotlight that is given to those who enslaved them.

The author himself has a fascinating story: a veteran, Civil War reenactor, and former Parks Service guide at Forts Sumter and Morris, he matches his love of history with a deep empathy for others.

This book and the author don’t shy away from the hard topics, such as black slave owners, slavery in the North, and the struggle to keep telling the whole story of slavery in America while politicians, school boards, and others try to gloss over or erase entirely the narrative. As a result, it gives a full, honest look at a reprehensible part of our past in the hope that acknowledging it, confronting it, and honoring those who lived through it will bring a sense of peace.

As I began reading this book, I got serious Confederate in the Attic vibes; I'm glad McGill calls out Tony Horowitz in the first couple of chapters because I think reading them together could be really powerful. However, for those who aren't familiar with that style of writing, Sleeping with the Ancestors is what I might best describe as "exploratory history" in which one person, using a strong journalistic lens, writes about the overlap between history and his own experiences. It's deeply a humanizing read that gives history buffs (and really Americans overall) a sense of their history from a experiential point of view. It's pretty clear that history is not done and over, and that the past continues to influence us all in ways we may not recognize. Perhaps that's McGill's greatest gift in this book.
There are some points at this book that may possibly make your mind start to wonder and/or make you uncomfortable, but I think both of those feelings are create to McGill's exploration of the impact of the past on the present.
Some people might think of this, at first glance, as some tome adding to the current culture wars on history and race, but leave your preconceived biases aside when you read, and you'll find out there's more that's being said. In other words, don't go into it looking for a fight, because I don't think McGill is trying to start one. What he is trying to do is help us link those voices from the past, forgotten souls living their day to day lives between the walls he visits, to our identity today.

I thought the subject matter was excellent and thought provoking. I like how the author facilitated interracial conversations around this sensitive topic. The only reason it is 3 stars is because the prose can be jumbled and disjointed at times so that it is hard to follow the author’s argument.

An excellent [if sometimes a teeny-bit dry] and timely book about how the author, in a time of anger, discovered he wanted to learn more about his ancestors by locating and sleeping in slave home/quarters/dwellings that still can be found all over the south, and all he has since learned, discovered, created [The Slave Dwelling Project], and all that he is still fighting for and from all that, with help from Herb Frazier, decided to write this book so others could learn as well and think about their ancestors and how the fight is never over.

I learned so much reading this book, and I admire the author very much for what he has done and what he continues to do to bring the truth to light and to educate those who have never really learned about slavery and what it was TRULY about.

A must read for any historian and for anyone who is also engaged in the fight for the truth to be taught and the fight for equality for all.

Thank you to NetGalley, Joseph McGill Jr., Herb Frazier, and Hachette Books for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I overall enjoyed the book, and really got into it once I realized that I had been on a tour that the author led at Magnolia Plantation!

However, the book does become repetitive and hard to follow. I struggled to find some connections the author was attempting to make. The way that the book also jumps around in the timeline is also confusing.

I had very high hopes for the book and was looking so forward to it. It unfortunately is very repetitive. I enjoyed the insight and perspective, but wish there was some change in the pattern that developed.

The flow was a little choppy and kind of juvenile at times but I appreciate how raw and earnest it was. An incredible story that needs to be read.

As the description for this book "Sleeping with the Ancestors" by Joseph McGill Jr. and Herb Frazier states, the premise that Joseph McGill Jr. devised a project in which to sleep overnight in former dwellings of enslaved people of African descent in the United States that still stand across the country. McGill is a historic preservationist and Civil War re-enactor who founded the Slave Dwelling Project in 2010 based on an idea developed a decade before. People make many assumptions about the dwellings of the enslaved people of African descent who lived and worked on plantation properties across the United States. While it is true that per capita, the Southern states like Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina have a higher number of plantation properties or remnants of what were properties that were burned down during or after the Civil War, fell into a state of disrepair and so on, there needs to be a challenge so that people can understand there are these dwellings of the enslaved in the North and the West.

Transatlantic slavery in the United States was not solely relegated to the Southern states. Even before Massachusetts and New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Ohio, etc, became the states that closer to the time of the Civil War were known as non-slaveholding states, as in they did not allow the practice of enslavement to go on, things were not always that way. These states used to have enslavement and enslaved people of African descent. They changed that, but unless people have looked into the history, they tend not to realize that New York, for instance, or Rhode Island, were not always the non-slaveholding safe havens that they later became known as. If we want to go even broader, for the people who don't know that slavery existed in Canada well into the first part of the nineteenth century, it became abolished only in 1834 because England had abolished it and Canada, as a country of the Dominion of Great Britain, followed suit--not because of some altruistic understanding that slavery was fundamentally wrong and corrupt and inhumane.

I was intrigued when I read about the premise of the book -- especially in light of the pernicious usage of plantation properties in the modern era as "luxury, Southern comfort, lavish Airbnb getaways." Airbnb has since apologized publicly for allowing people to list these properties on their website and profit from the murder and horrors of these plantations, which were concentration camps. One such Airbnb host had listed a dwelling of an enslaved person or "slave cabin" where one of the enslaved families who were forced to be on this plantation property would have lived and slept, but also lived in terror that the plantation owner could come to them at any time, day or night, and force himself sexually onto one or more of the women and girls who he owned, as often as he wanted to, as repeatedly as he wanted to. The terror of not having enough nutritious food to eat, or of access to water, to cleaning. And far, far worse.

McGill went into this project with all of that knowledge and of the living trauma that seeps through those walls.
He starts off talking about the Magnolia Plantation, invited to a private ceremony to honour the African ancestors in 2009. He faced mixed reactions, including from his family, who feared that some harm might befall him.

My first three overnight stays were scheduled for Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, the Heyward House in Bluffton, and McLeod Plantation on James Island near Charleston. All lie within a culturally important geographic region for Gullah Geechee people, the descendants of enslaved West Africans. In 2006 Congress passed an act that created the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor along the coastal lowlands from Wilmington, North Carolina, through South Carolina and Georgia to St. Augustine, Florida. In Georgia and Florida, people of African descent prefer the term Geechee to describe themselves and their culture.

He then expands to providing details of all of the things that people might not realize about much larger plantations, like Monticello--yes, former President Thomas Jefferson's home, yes the one built by enslaved people. Yes, the same one where many white visitors routinely complain that they don't want to hear about all that "slavery stuff" and don't want to hear anything negative about Jefferson's troubled past.

McGill talks about the logistical difficulties in figuring out how to actually enact this project that he wanted to do, the on-the-ground "this is how I'm going to do this" parts, and it is definitely interesting. People might have expected McGill to provide some kind of a memoir that recounts his diary-like entries of experiences after having stayed at dwellings of the enslaved, but this book is so much more than that. Highly recommended.

Interesting book how this man went around different places. He was a black man and he started to sleep in the slave cabinets. This was interesting because there's a lot of stuff. Went on with this opened my eyes to a lot of different things, which we didn't really look at in the past.. There's a lot of history in this book, especially about the plantations and how they were run. Thomas Jefferson house was interesting because on the old days. They would never talk about the slave caverns. But as history changed, they started to talk about it. Some people are uncomfortable with this. But I think it's really interesting when you bring this up and to show people how there's two sides of the story. I like how we did the different groups and tours. And he explained the area around where he was gonna stay that night. A lot of our founding fathers had slaves because it was acceptable behavior in those days. But people really don't like to talk about that because they just don't.. I think the college campus named crimson was a slave plantation at one time. And how they turned it around for learning. People probably don't realize that. They also talked about the different cemeteries. How they're trying to preserve those as well. Because a lot of them want to be developed. These cabins are somewhere in good shape and summer or not. They're trying to preserve them as well.

Joseph McGill Jr. is a preservationist and Civil War reenactor who saw a need to call attention to the historic slave dwellings that still stand around the country. He created the Slave Dwelling Project in 2010 with the goal of traveling the US and spending a night in those homes. During these "sleepovers', McGill meets other historians, preservationists and member of the nearby communities to discuss the past and how it still affects people of all races today. It also offers an in depth look at how history has become clearer and more honest by having real conversations and doing better research about the time period.

This was an immersive and powerful look at the sin of slavery and how communities are still affected by it today. McGill uses his nights in those cabins to show the impact to the story of the people who suffered under slavery, but also to really help the reader understand the bond that the enslaved people had to each other and their families. I also really enjoyed when he discusses the meetings he had with fellow historians and preservationists, seeing how each group tells the story and continues to document as much as they possibly can. As I work for a museum, I understand the need to be accurate, inclusive, and engaging as we educate the public. McGill's work is a high standard that we should all strive for.

Thought provoking, nuanced observations of how this nation grew on the backs of enslaved people (and the forced displacement of Native Americans); not a pretty picture and certainly not the "devoted and happy slave" (or "the brave cowboy defending himself against murderous Indians") narratives that I grew up with, ala Gone With the Wind and John Wayne.

Racism.... so ubiquitous in our culture, in our institutions, in our psyche. I come from immigrant stock and doubt my Polish/ Italian ancestors who came to America in the early 1900s were slave holders (but who knows?). Nevertheless, I can remember all sorts of episodes in my life that shaped my own unconscious bias .... from rolling up windows when we drove through "the wrong side of town", wearing an Aunt Jemima costume at Halloween, refusing to dance with Johnny at a middle school dance and the privilege and advantages afforded me as a white person.

To say that we should protect our children from history rather than holding history up to the light will deny those children the opportunity to grow by opening their eyes to the truth.

The book was well researched, perhaps the detail bogged me down at times yet the importance of illuminating each slave's history brought honor to their history.

This was an incredible book. Joseph McGill started the Slave Dwelling Project. He traveled the country sleeping in former slave dwellings. Most were on plantations but some were in places that surprised me, such as colleges. Colleges built with slave labor. Fort Snelling, MN was one location he traveled to. Minnesota is such a “new” state, I never thought of slavery happening there. Mr. McGill names many Presidents that were slave owners. He does not sugarcoat history. Thank God. I am so tired of only being told the good or not so bad things. Bad things happened and they are part of history. I have found no enslavers in my family tree but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. I should say I’ve found no proof. My family was at Jamestown so it’s very possible. After reading this, I’d like to visit some of the locations mentioned. I’d like to look for fingerprints in the bricks. People built those places and should be acknowledged, and I’m not referring to those that ordered the building. I’m speaking of those that did the back breaking work against their will. The enslaved. Read the book. Educate yourself.
I received a free copy of this book and am reviewing it voluntarily.

Okay wow. I REALLY enjoyed this one!! It's very informative and I learned a lot.

Slavery is always a tough subject but it's also one that's pretty glazed over in the American school system so I'm really glad that this took the time to really bring to light a lot of the aspects of slavery that just aren't taught. I feel like I learned so much more from this book than I ever would've in a classroom. Which is really sad for our school system!

All that aside, I also found the cabin project really fascinating. As someone who really enjoys visiting places with historical significance, whether it's in good condition or not, I really found the author's visits and sleepovers at the cabins to be a really fascinating way to connect with the ancestors.

So. Loved this book so much!! It is a heavy subject and I did end up taking my time with this book but I'm really, really glad I read it. It's one of those nonfiction books that I'm really glad exists and think everyone should read! This should be a mandatory read in history classes!! It's so informative! Highly recommend!

And thank you to Hachette Go for sending a copy of this my way in exchange for an honest review!

I have followed this Instagram account for quite a while, and have always admired the concept. I think the power of place is really significant in public history, and McGill is doing good public history work!

Having not read the blog, I am not sure what I expected from this book. If I think of this narration style as various blog posts spliced together, it makes a little more sense. What I mean is that the style of the book is a little hard to follow. It's not precisely in chronological order and I found it to be repetitive with the author explaining things to the audience several times over different chapters. In my reading, the way chapters or line breaks were handled didn't really have an organization behind it.

Where the book was strongest was when we got a real-world story of someone who actually lived in a dwelling that McGill spent time in. Of course that is a super effective tool for getting people to relate to the history, so it's amazing to see what is out there and available.

I definitely will continue to follow the account, and I have the opportunity to attend a conference he's speaking at in early 2024, but unfortunately the book was not my favorite.

Sleeping with the Ancestors, How I Followed the Footprints of Slavery by Joseph McGill, Jr.
This is a very personal account of a man who decided to research former dwelling places of enslaved people and then spend the night in these long overlooked places of American history. As a fellow South Carolinian, I, like the author, learned a very one-sided history of my state in public schools of the 1960’s. Living in Charleston, SC, I toured the antebellum mansions and plantation homes in the area, until it dawned on me that all of these places were built by the enslaved people, whose dwelling places were overlooked.
The book could have been written better, or gone through another editing process, but as McGill says, he’s not a writer. But as a local historian, he has a story to tell, and I commend him for his research.
McGill’s well documented history of the people who were overlooked in my history textbooks was enlightening for me. His work with The Slave Dwelling Project is one I will continue to follow.

The author started the Slave Dwelling Project in 2010, never thinking that it would grow into a years' long project that took him from the South to the North where he slept, often alone, in dwellings where enslaved people had lived from th 1700s into the 20th century. He writes about the process of gaining access to the buildings which were sometimes still owned by individuals, other times by local or state or national organizations. As the project gained traction it drew the attention of news organizations (radio, newspaper, etc) and others wanted to join him. He was invited to speak at conferences, schools, colleges, organizations and used the opportunities there to have sometimes difficult conversations with listeners. The book also includes excerpts from the WPA Writers' Project interviews from the 1930s when writers collected more than 2300 firsthand accounts of slavery in mostly southern states.

“You have to know your grannies and your great-grannies. You can’t just go through life believing that you made yourself.”

I received an ARC for this book. As a Canadian with Caribbean immigrant parents, I really learned a lot about slavery in the US. The author describes his journey sleeping in former slave dwellings throughout the US. He shares many historical facts of events and stories of enslaved people. Our schools barely taught us about slavery in the states, so this was a great introduction of this topic. I could feel the raw emotions of some of the participants in the program. I encourage anyone of African American descent to read this book.

I found this book to be well written and quite informative. I have had the pleasure of meeting Joe previously and attending one of his discussions. His book traces the evolution of his Slave Dwelling Project which has raised awareness to the experiences of the enslaved, while he also takes on a mission to spent a night in extant slave dwellings across the country. The book describes a number of his overnight stays, but also provides rich background information about the local areas, the slave dwellings, and the stories of the enslaved Ancestors. It all combines for a rich story that I found very informative.

Thank you for the ARC. This was so well written and informative. I don't live in an area with documented slave history so my historic research (which mainly stays in this county) is severely lacking. You can't be a fully formed civic minded adult without knowing these things.
I am incredibly uncomfortable with the confederate flag, even as a white woman, because it feels hostile. It feels like a threat. I can't explain it but it makes my blood turn cold. I admire the author for being okay attending events where the flag is displayed.

Joseph McGill Jr’s work deserves 5/5 stars, but as a piece of writing, I give this a 3.7. It reads like an on-site journal/musings of a very educated man about his journey with his life’s work. I appreciated the stories about the enslaved woven throughout his stays. I just wish this book felt a bit more fleshed out and less “internet blog”. Not really the content’s fault at all.

But…I did enjoy the ending….”Peace!” ☺️

The story of how Mr. McGill developed his personal project to spend the night in a few cabins once inhabited by enslaved people into something much larger makes a fascinating read. Along with descriptions of the many dwellings he visited are stories passed down from the enslaved and gatherings with descendants. His research, perseverance in the face of resistance, and dedication to preserving the structures and educating people about the obscured parts of history is impressive.

The author, Joseph McGill, has embarked on an interesting project of spending the night in as many former slave dwellings as he can find throughout the South, and even some he has identified in the North. He is endeavoring to locate and preserve these dwellings to honor all those who endured the horrors and discomforts of slavery. He is quick to point out that not everything we learned in school about slavery is accurate. There is much more to learn.

In 2017, I joined Joseph McGill and other Slave Dwelling Project members for a sleepover at Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest. In this audiobook read by Joe himself, I loved learning more about his history, the history of the project, and the history he's uncovered. Some slave dwellings aren't cabins on plantations but urban sites, and some of them aren't located in the Southern states but in Northern ones—even in Minnesota, which has a Dred Scott connection. These places and these people matter. Bravo!

What a wonderful book of one mans vision for a night in a former slave cabin becoming many nights and has influenced and taught so many people along the way. As he points out so much of the history we have been taught has left out many truths. Hopefully efforts such as the author's is helping to bring to light a more truthful past.

This is a memoir with history lessons interspersed with all the angst and insight of someone uncovering the hard truth. The book inspired me as opposed to depressed me. I enjoyed it and learned so much.

Received as an ARC via my employer Barnes & Noble. Started 1-7-24. Finished 1-12-24. The author's plan was to have a sleepover in a slave cabin from as many plantations as possible. He visited Southern as well as Northern homes that had enslaved people in their past. The Slave Dwelling Project went beyond expectations and encouraged these museums to provide information about the slaves instead of just the owners. Many organizations were eager to open dialogs while others have refused to talk about the truth. What started as a one-year project has now been going on since 1999 and has opened the minds of Blacks as well as Whites.

Absolutely loved. I had no idea people up North owned slaves. Very informative. I loved how he was able to link stories to the actual places. And the genealogy. I love how he is bringing two separate sides of America together. If you love history like I do, this is a must-read.