Allied Arts hosted a free book talk with author T. M. Brown on Thursday, April 17, regarding his 2023 novel The Last Laird of Sapelo, his fourth novel.
“The history of Milledgeville is involved in this, and that's always important,” said Kristin Allen, program coordinator at Allied Arts.
“I'm a big history buff myself, so any history is important to me. Because he's [Brown] exactly right, if nobody writes it and nobody tells it, we don't know it.”
The Last Laird of Sapelo follows the Spalding family and the role they played during the time leading up to Georgia’s secession from the Union. The Spalding family was one of the most influential families in McIntosh County during the Antebellum period.
“My fourth novel is a historical fiction story revealing how our past legacy inescapably shapes who we are today,” Brown said. “The characters in the story, both fictional and actual, play out their drama in this novel about McIntosh County’s storied Georgia coastal region which to this day remains cursed by its past, according to many of their residents.”
In Brown's book, he follows the life of Randolph Spalding, who was the 15th child of Thomas Spalding and his wife, Sarah Leake Spalding. Spalding's family owned Sapelo Island and the enslaved people on it, but did not treat them as slaves.
Thomas Spalding bought enslaved families and brought them to the island.
“Spalding promised them three things: Sapelo will always be their home, they will never be sold, and the family will always take care of them,” Brown said.
Brown spoke about the history of the Spalding family and how the most powerful families during that time were all connected through marriages and living in Milledgeville.
Brown covered all the history that he read through and documented to help him write the book. He used real people and their names as well as fictional characters.
“Well, I learned a lot of history,” said Carol Ward, a Milledgeville resident. “I was sharing with the author that my father's family is from Darien, Georgia, and ironically, there are some Spaldings that I heard we were related to, and obviously, with the slave population carrying names, I would imagine that's where the connection is. So, when I saw this being presented here, I was intrigued. I knew that his book, the story, is fiction, but everything else is based on history and research. So as I've been doing some genealogy work, it also helped me kind of understand the period of time.”
Brown became interested in Sapelo after visiting the island in August 2020 and wanted to know more about the history and how it was intertwined with Baldwin County.
“History matters,” Brown said.
“I mean, Milledgeville, back in the antebellum period, when it became the capital, it was the fourth capital of Georgia, and it lasted the longest of all the capitals, with a perception of the land and animals. And so, this being a capital, think about what life was like in the 1820s, the 1830s.”
Brown showed the audience photographs of Sapelo Island and Darien Island. He told stories of each place and how he used historical documents to piece together Spalding's life through the times.
Brown showed a variety of maps and tombstones of the important members of the Spalding family and how they married into families across counties.
Those in attendance could purchase The Last Laird of Sapelo and a few other books Brown has written. Brown also informed the audience that he is working on the sequel to The Last Laird of Sapelo and hopes that people will continue to learn from history.