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A Priscilla's Homecoming journal

Read a firsthand account of the extraordinary journey

A depiction of the slave trade

A depiction of the slave trade

In 1756 a 10-year-old girl was kidnapped from her homeland in West Africa and through the Atlantic slave trade was taken to a plantation outside of Charleston, S.C. Named Priscilla by her South Carolinian slave master, she lived as a slave another 55 years, married and had 10 children.

JMU professor Joseph Opala and author Edward Ball traced, not only the extraordinary journey of this girl, but also her descendants through seven generations. They have done what millions of African-Americans often only dream about, determined a specific country or region of family origin and documented 250 years of family history long since forgotten.

Thomalind Polite

Thomalind Polite

In May 2005 that history was rewritten as Thomalind Martin Polite, the seventh generational granddaughter of that 10-year-old girl, traveled to Sierra Leone for the first time.

I had the opportunity to witness firsthand that extraordinary journey and record my impressions, and conduct interviews with several of the key players in Priscilla's Homecoming.

Read more of Jeanine Talley's account of Priscilla's Homecoming:

The kidnapping

Jeanine Talley's journal

Interview with Professor Opala

Interview with Joshua Klemm ('04)

About the author

Jeanine "Nina" Talley, daughter of JMU professor Cheryl Talley, worked with the JMU Honors Program and Furious Flower Poetry Center. She now lives in San Francisco, where she is a research and administrative assistant at the National Senior Citizens Law Center, Oakland Branch, located in downtown Oakland, Ca.