Tells the story of 23 surname families who were the Maryland ancestors of Eleanor Addison Smith Holliday who married James Bonsall Price in 1822. Most of them were tobacco plantation elites who controlled the political, economic, and social life of colonial Maryland. They saw themselves as intensely honorable, the apex of cultivated, civilized men and women, all the while completely dependent upon an unspeakably brutal racist enslavement system. The book explores the English roots of some of the families, and follows the Holliday family to a 19th century Louisiana sugar plantation. An appendix traces the descendants of Eleanor and James. There are over 100 black and white illustrations, charts, maps, copious notes, and an index.