'The Drifters' Focuses on the Melungeon Boat People

The Drifters' Focuses on the Melungeon Boat People


First Novel to Feature Melungeon Shantyboat People Is Published


(BookCatcher.com) 3/9/05 -- Harriett Holmes was 15 and pregnant when in 1837 she boarded a Kentucky shantyboat that would become her home for the next decade. Life was difficult for many people during the 1800s, but it was especially so for Harriett�s family, because they were Melungeons, a mixed race with low social status.
Racial discrimination is one of the key themes of The Drifters, a new book that follows Harriett and her family through the Trail of Tears, the Civil War and Texas cattle drives. Redemption is another theme. Can a slave help Harriett and her family find solace, redemption and grace through God?

The Drifters: A Christian Historical Novel about the Melungeon Shantyboat People is the first novel to feature the Melungeon shantyboat people, a nearly forgotten ethnic group in American history. Tonya Holmes Shook of Hastings, Oklahoma, spent eighteen years researching and writing the book."

Drifters: A Christian Historical Novel about the Melungeon Shanty Boat People