Bill,   Thanks for an explanation to a puzzling post.

                                               Anne

At 04:03 PM 2/12/02 -0500, you wrote:
>In a message dated 2/12/2002 1:23:59 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>[log in to unmask] writes:
>
>
> > That made the one shelf in the huge space attractive. When I
> > started going through those records, they dated to just after the close of
> > the Civil War.  They were all neatly folded and bound into stacks.....bonds
> > placing orphaned black children  with white families  to be cared for,
> > taught a trade, and  educated  through an elementary level.   Many of the
> > children were very young. The white families who took them in had to put up
> > bonds with the court to guarantee  delivery of the obligations to the
> > orphans.
> >
> > It was a very sobering experience to  read these bonds and think  about all
> > the young black children left homeless by the war.   How was it different
> > than the young white children left homeless by the war?   It led me through
> > some very interesting thought processes.  Many people  were left homeless;
> >
>
>Orphans? This is an example of what I am talking about of the difference
>between memorizing facts and thinking about those facts. Large numbers of
>oprhaned black children taken in by their white neighbors? Frankly, I think
>that what you are looking at are indenture/apprentcie bonds which may have
>been an end run around the aboiliishment of slavery and the reinstitution of
>involuntary servitude. Large number of black adults did not suddenlt die at
>or beforew the end of the war. Large numbers were freed and became an
>economic burden to their former masters who had been getting the labor free
>previoulsy. These freed slaves were left without a means of providing for
>their families and placed the children under an indenture so they could at
>least be fed. The willing white families again got unpaid labor. This is what
>I think your facts mean. I would have to look at the record further, but it
>sure seems that way to me.
>
>Bill Russell
>
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Anne Pemberton
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