But not all slave owners were nasty and mean. . .Some were just plain blind, thoughtless, ignorant... you name it.. 

 Just reading the wills of some "small time" planters (owned less than 20 slaves) reveals how devastating slavery was to families.  One will I just transcribed splits up married couples, parents and very young children, siblings etc. It's difficult to reconcile the man who writes the will, with the same man who earlier risked scorn by his neighbors when he stood up for one of his slaves who had been unfairly tried in the local court. (Nice man, huh?)  The will doesn't just separate family members by a few miles, it orders all of the men (8) and most of the children(6) to be sold at auction in Richmond, while the women (4)are left to the planter's daughters. 

It doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to guess at what the slaves went through emotionally.

Joanne



Anita Wills <[log in to unmask]> wrote: I don't understand how you can come to conclusions about slavery when you 
only read the WPA narratives. You are skipping the narratives of Frederick 
Douglass, and others who escaped and described the horrors of slavery. My 
ancestors recollections are just as valuable as the ones you are quoting. 
She was talking to family, as was her son (my Great Grandfather), who was 
also a slave. She described the ship that they were brought over here on  
(which was a Dutch ship), and going to an Island in the Caribbean.  My 
Great-Grandfather described being hoisted up in a barn and whipped as a 
child. He also described how he felt when they were sold away from their 
mother, by their white father.  By the way, my ancestor lived until 1912, 
and her son died in 1938. They both lived the remaining years of their lives 
in Pennsylvania. Their stories are now memorialized in writing by various 
family members.

So it was not 150 years ago.


Anita

>From: [log in to unmask]
>Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history         
>      
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Slavery and Unanswered Questions
>Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:47:09 EDT
>
>I don't understand how an ancestry with individuals who lived 150 years ago
>per se gives anyone any particular knowledge or expertise that can be 
>brought
>to  bear in this discussion.
>
>
>
>************************************** See what's free at 
>http://www.aol.com.

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