Hello Everyone,

At Christmas time I gave my family another dose of our ancestry, as well as
that of my children's paternal lines which include a couple of quite large
slave-owning families in the deep south (originall from VA I am told).  A
small but important portion (Sheltons, Baughs) of mine who ultimately became
my families in the Missouri Ozarks starting from mostly modest resources (and
maybe one or two slaves) in the 1830s, 40s and 50s, descended from families
in Virginia who were slave-owners.   I also number amongst my ancestors slave
owners in New Jersey ( a rather large estate), Maryland, Pennsylvania,
etc...some Quakers in the early part of the 1700s.

The recent programs on slave narratives of the harsh conditions have raised
several questions amongst my children that have been brewing for some time.
I believe that, leaving aside for now the moral arguments regarding the
concept of slavery in general which in history often had no racial dimension,
 education in the U.S. generally leaves children at graduation from high
school across the country with the impression that being a slave was pretty
much a universally harsh and abusive situation, where owners and foremen were
pretty much universally violent, sexually controlled/manipulative, and let
their slaves live in squalor on subsistance rations.

I am actually interested in having a discussion on this issue on the list
about whether this was indeed the case, summarizing whatever literature is
out there on the issue, etc.  Can I tell my children that there is more than
a 5 percent chance that their 4g grandfather who lived at that beautiful
setting right on the James in Powhatan Co., didn't have a foreman beating one
of his 30 slaves if they stopped to scratch their heads in the fields.

Because I have been on this list for several years and recently any sort of
discussion of this nature seems to be anathema...but hope springs eternal.
Perhaps some of you, in lieu of a discussion, have references to historical
works that have attempted (whether in a micro setting or not) to assess the
overall treatment of slaves.  I must say that the sexual and physical
violence/abuse is what is most disconcerting to my own immediate descendants.


FYI, I grew up in California, a good Methodist, and this question has been
sitting in my mind ever since I began researching my ancestry five years ago.
  I knew I had Virginia ancestry, and there were "probably" households with
many slaves...

My best regards,
Janet Baugh Hunter






To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions
at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html