Are you the descendant of slave owners? Do you want to share your (family's) story?

[Coventina]

https://www.speakingtruth.org/

In partnership with museums and cultural institutions, Speaking Truth invites the descendants of slave owners to describe and reflect upon their ancestors’ role in slavery. The goal is to open a space for national reckoning, an airing of difficult truths, and a path to reconciliation regarding slavery and racism in our culture.

An estimated 500 - 1,000 participants will examine their relatives’ beliefs, actions, and the ways in which they continue to benefit from the economics of slavery today. By volunteering their personal stories, these descendants will renounce injustices committed by their ancestors and open channels to discuss and denounce structural racism in America. Ultimately, these narratives will form an archive of references for scholarly or artistic exhibits and other endeavors.

Speaking Truth is not meant to offer redemption, nor does it seek to replace the narratives of enslaved people and their descendants who continue to bear the weight of this injustice. Rather, it proposes a template for ongoing, rigorous discussion regarding the merging of national responsibility and atonement.

[llashram]

1. interesting

I wonder how many takers here...

[Walleye]

2. I have at least one ancestor in colonial times on the eastern shore Virginia

Who not only owned slaves but he brought them down from New York. And slaughtered Indians for fun I don’t know what I’m supposed to think about that. Colonel Edmund Scarborough was the colonial governor of the eastern shore of Virginia. From what I can read about him he was just a horrible person

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. Hello, distant cousin!

I'm descended from Edmund Scarburgh's sister Hannah who married John Wise. (Edmund was surveyor of the Eastern Shore, not governor.)

[Walleye]

15. Oh my God! Well you never know. My mom's people were from around Accomac. I really don't know all

The family names. Mapp was one of them. I remember visiting an old farm with a very old cousin or uncle. And seeing some really worn lime stone tombstones with birthdates in the 1600s. Was old grandpa Edmond a terrible person? That is his reputation in my family. I sometimes think of the colonial times down there. Mosquito infested. But oysters and crabs for the taking. My mom called the Eastern shore “the little end of nowhere.”

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. My ancestors were mostly in Somerset and Worcester counties in Maryland

Scarburgh, Wise and Stockley are my only lines in Accomack/Northampton Counties, as far as I know.

[Sapient Donkey]

18. How do you all figure that stuff out?

[Spider Jerusalem]

24. 20 years as a hobbyist genealogist helps!

I discovered most of it through a combination of census records, wills, deeds, land records, and birth/marriage/death records. If you're interested in seeing what you can discover for yourself, start with the furthest back generation you have info for (which for most people will be grandparents or great-grandparents). US Census records are available from 1940 and earlier (censuses from earlier than 1850 only listed the head of household, so they're less useful), and the availability of birth/death/marriage records varies by state. This is a good place to start (requires a free account): https://www.familysearch.org/en/

[Sapient Donkey]

26. I'll have to try that sometime

Sounds like a lot of work, aye?

I literally know nothing about my family history.

*By sometime, I meant right after I posted this. Wow, that is cool. Easier than I thought too.

[Walleye]

22. Sounds like you have a pretty good knowledge of your family history.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. Interesting

Forwarding to an older, old friend. When I went to work in the snowmaking business years ago - we learned we were connected in a deep way by our last names. His branch of his family headed west at the beginning of the Civil War - as they were not 'towing the line' for white folks at that time in the deep South.

[Trailrider1951]

4. How would one find out this information?

Both my mother's and father's families originate in Virginia colony, mother's family mostly from England, dating back to the 1650's. My father's ancestor arrived in the 1750's from Switzerland. As far as I know, none were wealthy landowners, although several of my father's ancestors were gunsmiths.

[haele]

8. Look for their names in census and tax rolls.

My father's French name family came over as 5 indentured servants to several English settler families who had escaped the Hugenaut massacres.
They found themselves over a ten year period during the mid 17th century and escaped to the hills together to settle with friendly Creek indians and other assorted runaways (slaves and indentured) for another couple decades.
Tracking them down across the Carolinas, the family genealogist found on tax rolls that on occasion, they rented skilled slaves from a nearby larger landowner to make additions to either to family houses or the family businesses (they were gunsmiths and general store owners) as they spread out over the centuries.
They also ran guns to both sides of both the Revolutionary and the Civil War. But several family members also ran legit safe stations on the Underground Railroad.
A bit ethically challenged in some ways. But there are always records somewhere.

Haele

[Walleye]

16. Wow. Very interesting history

[WhiteTara]

11. My mother's family was from Tennessee

and the family records show that 3 human beings were bequeathed to their children. They had no last names listed and I think they were given a value. I have never seen the piece of paper that noted this family horror, but my Mother told me about it before she died. She linked so many families for Ancestry.com because she was obsessed with genealogy.

[AOC Rocks]

5. No one in my family owned slaves

I did have 2 great uncles who fought in the civil war for the north.

[luvs2sing]

6. I know of two ancestors who owned slaves..

and one who was famous as an “ Indian hunter”.

The first time I found a copy of an ancestor’s will (4th great-grandfather) that listed how his slaves were to be distributed, I threw up, then I cried for several hours, then I didn’t touch my research for three or four months. I took small comfort in the fact that his 2nd great-grandson, my 2nd great-grandfather, was part of the unit that raised the Union flag at Lookout Mountain, TN, and that was a family story often told with great pride. I still have his powderhorn.

I can trace my family history back to the earliest days of the nation, but it is only my research skills that give me pride. My ancestors have done terrible things. My way of reconciling this knowledge is to make it a mission to do better. Luckily, that is the way my parents raised me.

[tavernier]

7. Nope. I'm first generation off the boat.

I’m the first person of all my ancestors to ever see a black man or woman. When I went back to visit Latvia I did not encounter one person of color. So little has changed in that regard.

[Demsrule86]

9. I have no idea what my ancestors did or didn't do...honestly I don't care.

I have enough problems in the here and now.

[AndyS]

10. None for me. Mom was first gen American, family arrived in 1880's from Germany.

Dad's side (Scott) was here way back and fought in the Civil war--for the winners.

[Mariana]

12. One that I know of, in Boston.

A slave named Dover married a slave named Violet in 1764. The marriage was recorded in Boston and in Malden. Dover's owner was my ancestor.

In Boston: Dover neg. svt. [to After Stoddard] of Boston, and Violet neg. svt. [to Ebenr. Pratt] of Malden. Rev. Eliakin Willis, Oct. 7, 1764.

In Malden: Dover, belonging to Mr. Stoddard of Boston, m. Violet, belonging to Ebenezer Pratt of Mald. Rev. E. Willis. Oct. 7, 1764

This is the only record of Dover I have seen. Violet appears to have remarried in 1771.

In Malden: Bristol, belonging to Zachariah Pool of Medford, m. Violet, belonging to Ebenezer Pratt of Maid. Rev. P. Thatcher. Feb. 7, 1771.

[Spider Jerusalem]

13. I am the descendant of dozens of slave owners; I wouldn't know where to begin

my family on both sides have been in America since the 1600's, with most of the early colonial arrivals settling in Maryland and Virginia. Collectively my ancestors owned well over a thousand slaves. Some of them have already had their role in American slavery examined at some length (for instance William Boarman of Charles County, Maryland, who is mostly notable because of his connection to the story of Irish Nell Butler).

[JCMach1]

19. Some were slave owners, but some were also genocided Native Americans

And mostly they were in almost every facet of this country's history ... Good and bad.

My family also raised/adopted a disabled (deaf) African American boy orphaned in the 1930s south (my deceased great uncle).

Me, I married a Kenyan ( now American) and my son is multiracial.

So yeah, pretty much America's story.

[róisín_dubh]

20. Fascinating

I’m from poor Irish and Italian stock, and all arrived in the 20th century. But this is an interesting project.

[GoCubsGo]

21. My paternal grandmother's grandparents didn't get here until just after the Civil War.

They were the first of my ancestors to immigrate here. Everyone else came post-1900. So no, no slave owners in my family. At least not in the US. It's certainly possible that that there was some slave ownership in the family hundreds of years ago, as slavery did exist in Europe in various places at various times. I don't really know much beyond a generation or two of what went on with my family in Europe.

[milestogo]

23. Not a descendant of slave owners.

I did my history on ancestry. The census forms provide information on who was living in a given household, whether slave or free.

Pretty much everyone lived in the northern US, so I would have been surprised.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. A direct ancestor was the joint owner of a slave plantation in Antigua; she and her siblings

inherited it from their uncle who was a slave trader - he co-owned a slave ship. That was in the first half of the 18th century. His cousin Edward Chester worked for the Royal African Company, which had, until that point, a monopoly on the slave trade to the British Caribbean islands. They had a complicated connection to Martha Washington's family: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Chester_Parke

[Behind the Aegis]

27. Interesting, but have mixed feelings about it.

Racism in this country is not and was not limited to slavery. So, while this can be an interesting series of "tales", it leaves out those involved in a myriad of ways in the Slave trade, not to mention (as some have) the treatment of Native peoples, the Chinese, and a few other groups. I don't understand how sharing one's "story" of a group of people one has never met, will be useful. Now, someone who has diary entries, family stories, and the like, that would be interesting and useful in the discussion, but "My Great-great, great, great-uncle Joe Lassiter owned slaves", adds nothing to the conversation. Also, as we can already see (and in just about any thread about slavery), people start crowing about not being Southern (not the only group who owned slaves or profited from their labors) or using such information in other ways.

We'll have to see how it is handled and what info comes about; maybe it will be worthwhile.

[Coventina]

29. I have seen that behavior in my own life. It destroyed a book club.

My sister-in-law had us reading "White Fragility" as the pick that month.

Wow, did White Fragility ever flex its muscle!

The pervading attitude toward those hostile to the book largely fell into this argument:

I'm not racist. There's no way me or my family is racist because my family immigrated from (insert country here) in the 20th century. We were the ones who were mistreated! We never mistreated anyone. The American Civil War has nothing to do with us. I don't see why I should take any responsibility over this issue. How dare you do this to me?!?!?!

I was left thinking, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much." (The book club consisted of only women).

[ananda]

28. Yes.

On my dad's side, slave-owning ancestors were small farmers
in Tennessee with a couple of slaves... my aunt showed us
the papers when they came to light.

We were shocked and ashamed, but it is what it was.

[iemanja]

30. Yes, I'm a decedent of Arron Burr

They owned slaves but weren't planters (households that owned 20 or more slaves).

Then of course he shot Alexander Hamilton.

[Chainfire]

31. My great grandfather used slaves to clear land stolen from Native Americans.

Lots of slaves and lots of land, perhaps as much as a hundred square miles in Northern Alabama. My Grandfather was born on one of the plantations during the Civil War. The big house still stands. My Grandmother was still fighting the war until she died in the mid 1970s. She taught me that men like Stonewall Jackson, and Bobby Lee were great heroes and Lincoln was a dirty SOB. She also made sure that I understand that I was a part of the master race and that I should not play with the little black children. I don't exactly recall which pejorative she used when referencing black people, but it certainly wasn't "black."

The men of my GGF's extended family were well educated and had to know what they were doing was an abomination, but greed got the best of them. I am neither proud nor ashamed of their wealth, their power or their actions. It wasn't me, and it isn't who I am. A man can't choose his ancestors...

By the way, the prosperity and power came to a screeching halt after the free labor disappeared. By the time my Father was born in 1911, the family didn't have a pot nor a window. My father never owned a home and died at an early age broke and in debt with three children still at home, so he certainly didn't profit from the peculiar institution. Dear old dad was not a very communicative man, but I had the impression that he felt that the Civil War, Yankees and Lincoln had stolen his "birthright" and, because of that, he spent his life in the bottom of a bottle of cheap whiskey crying over what may have been.

His children got over it.