Rose.
Mary.
Rhoda.
Say their names.
Recently, I discovered I am a direct descendant of slaveholders.
It started when I stumbled across a slave schedule from the 1850 US census. There were only two listed, but there they were. Written in black ink on white paper. No names. Simply their ages – 24 and 8.
I decided to dig deeper and found a document my great aunt had sent me years ago, documenting our family ancestry. She’s devoted much of her life to recording our family history on my mother’s side, and I never really bothered to look closely at what she sent me. But it’s always been there — the records of our past — waiting for me to reckon with the truth. I found multiple ancestors who enslaved others. Some enslaved a few, others enslaved dozens. I don’t know much about these ancestors, the people they enslaved, or their stories, but I feel I have only begun to scratch the surface of this aspect of our past.
I always figured with a lineage that can be traced to places like Tennessee, Missouri, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and Georgia it was likely someone somewhere down the line owned humans. But to see it right there in front of me was…gut-wrenching.
I wrestle with my own origins. I am what you would consider a white woman, but my skin darkens in the summer sun and I have long, straight, dark hair and the dark eyes and high cheekbones of my Native ancestors. Since my ancestors were forced to assimilate into white American culture, much of that aspect of my heritage is lost to time, and therefore generations of my family grew up and were raised in white society, myself included. I’ve long struggled with how to connect to my Native ancestry while accepting that doesn’t make up all of me and where I come from.
My mother’s maternal great-grandparents immigrated from Germany and Prussia. Somewhere in recent lineage is a woman from Spain.
On her father’s side, we can trace our ancestry right down to the Mayflower landing at Plymouth.
My paternal great-grandmother was half Irish, half Indian. My 3rd great grandfather was born on a Delaware Indian reservation in Ohio. We don’t know much of anything about his parents or anyone before him. They are lost to history.
My surname can be traced all the way back to France during William the Conqueror’s time in 1066.
To say my family represents that stereotypical “melting pot” of America is an understatement. We literally come from everywhere. We are the living descendants of immigrants, Native Ameircans, people escaping religious persecution and pioneers, all searching for a better way of life. We have ancestors who fought in the French and Indian War (both on the French/Indian side and the British side), the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and for both the Union and the Confederacy during the Civil War. And now, we can say for certain, we are also the descendants of enslavers.
When white Americans learn of the atrocities of American slavery in our history books or from movies and documentaries, we’d all like to think, “well that couldn’t have been my family.” Or if we know of ancestors who enslaved others, we brush it off. “Well, sure, but so did lots of other people.” Or we assume our ancestors must have been benevolent masters. Kind and gentle, not wanting to enslave others but that was just the world they lived in. They “didn’t know any better.” We’d like to think if we lived back then, we would have been harsh abolitionists, standing up to the lions of injustice to rid the world of slavery. The truth is, we’ll never know. We can only speculate.
So what am I supposed to do with this information now? I can’t hide from it. I refuse to hide from it. Do I attempt to find out who those were that my ancestors enslaved? Try to find their descendants and ask for forgiveness on behalf of those who lived so long ago? Do I just accept it and move on with my life, leaving those countless souls to disappear into history? I may never know who those people were or what happened to them, so do I even dare try? And what might I find out if I do keep digging? I am at a point of uncertainty. I only know that I must sit with this new knowledge. I must absorb it, wrestle with it, allow myself to feel whatever it makes me feel. And then find a way to reckon with it.
I am a descendant of so many good people who did not own other humans. The majority of my ancestors did not enslave other people. They did what they could to get by in America, whether they were considered citizens or not. They fought in wars, created homesteads, traveled thousands of miles, whether by choice or forced removal. They knew people like Chief John Ross and Daniel Boone. They overcame so many hardships so that I could sit here today and read about them and the lives they lived.
But the truth is, I cannot accept part of my family’s history and not accept the other part. I am a descendant of countless people who did the best they could with what they’d been given – and I am also the descendant of people who chose a way of life that is unacceptable by modern standards. I have to live with that, I have to reckon with that. And then I have to find a way to continue on and leave a legacy that will maybe, somehow, no matter how small, repair some of the damages done by my ancestors. I have to try.
In a time when so many want to deny aspects of our history, I find myself drawn closer and closer to the uncomfortable truths of our past. American history is our collective story, and one we cannot be afraid to shy away from. While I cannot take responsibility for the actions of those who lived so long ago, long before my time, I can do my part in today’s world to ensure we don’t repeat the mistakes of past generations. I can tell their story and the stories of those they enslaved. True healing will not happen in this country until we all accept those ugly truths of our past. Let us fight today to reconcile with the past, so we may move forward toward a more inclusive, just, and equitable society. We owe our ancestors, and ourselves, that much.
Rose.
Mary.
Rhoda.
These are the names of three enslaved women, each given to a daughter of a deceased ancestor in his last will and testament. I don’t know if there were more. And I don’t know anything else about these women. But I will do all I can to find out. And I will continue to say their names.