It's begun..... Florida

[raging moderate]

38. Yes, and so did my Methodist Abolitionist ancestors.

Last edited Fri Mar 24, 2023, 03:47 PM - Edit history (4)

They lived in New York State, Vermont, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota. Some of them were Methodist ministers, and a few were Methodist circuit preachers. A few years ago, I was thrilled to learn that the Ku Klux Klan is still mad at my ancestors! Suddenly, there was a diatribe online against the "northern Methodist circuit preachers" who supposedly started the Civil War by opposing slavery.

My great-grandmother's older brother George joined the Union to go free the slaves when he was almost 16, as a drummer boy because he was not old enough to be a full soldier. At age 16, still a drummer boy, he was wounded and captured by the confederates, who spent the next 3 years slowly torturing him to death. He was a wonderful older brother, sweet and protective and considerate. His prison camp was liberated before he died, but the doctors told him it was too late and they could not save him. As he lay dying, this wonderful boy made a little tray for his little sister's birthday! I can still read the words: "To Nellie... from her brother. Prepared by G(eorge) S. Barnes. Remember me."

By the way, my great-grandparents sometimes had Black houseguests. And they never had servants; they did all their own hard, dirty labor themselves, so they did not identify with the white plantation-owner sissies. My great-grandparents waited on those Black people themselves, and they were proud and happy to do it! They knew what those slaveholders were like.