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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