Drum

Drum is a novel that follows three generations of men and their experience of slavery in the nineteenth century. It portrays how, in just three generations, a proud and free people can be transformed into abject but loyal slaves. The story starts in Africa where Tamboura is drugged by his brother and given to a slave trader. He is transported to the coast where he is sold to a slave ship captain and transported to Cuba. Like the first book in the Falconhurst series, Mandingo, Tamboura is used by his new owner as a sire to breed new slaves. Only Tamboura and his owner's mistress decide on a breeding campaign all their own. When the cuckolded "master" finds out, he has Tamboura killed and his mistress flees to New Orleans with Tamboura's child in her womb. She calls Tamboura's son Drum and raises him as her slave rather than her child. He becomes a fighting slave who is famous for beating all competitors. His son Drumstick is sold by his white grandmother when he is 17 to Hammond Maxwell of Falconhurst Plantation. This is the same Alabama plantation where the first novel of the series is set. So the last third of Drum takes us back to the characters of the novel Mandingo. Onstott has a great talent for bringing this period and this subject to life. He writes about interracial male and female relationships and slavery while remaining true to both races and sexes.