If you tell me who your ancestors were, I might be able to tell you
about them, as could many of the other professional scholars on this
list who have studied Virginia all our lives.  We could certainly tell
you about the context of the world in which they lived. Having read
thousands of documents on Virginia history and hundreds or more court
cases, I might even have read about your ancestors.

Respecting your anscestors would not require me to paint over what they
did or did not do.  It would rather require that I honestly assess what
they did and how they lived their lives. You might not like the
assessment. If your ancestor was Thomas Jefferson you might not like it
if I discussed the 85 or so slaves he sold in the 1790s; or the fact
that he enslaved his own children.  If your ancestor shot black soldiers
at Fort Pillow after the surrendered and then mutilated them, or were
officers who watched this happen, you might not like that.  If your
ancestors took an oath the defend the United States and then made war on
the United States and I pointed out that most people consider that to be
treaon, you might not like that.  But this would not be disrespectful. 
It would only indicate that I respect your ancestors enough to take them
seriously, to study them, and understand their world.

How odd it is to think that the purpose of history is to "respect"
rather than understand; to praise, rather than investigate; to worship
ancestors rather than to find out what they did.  

Imagine if this were a German history list and we were studying World
War II; would you be complaining that we were talking about the bombing
of Rotterdam after it declared itself and open city? Would you be
complaining that it is unfair to your ancestors to talk about using
slave labor to build war materials?  Perhaps you would since the
implication of this post is that we should talk about things like the
use of slave labor in Virginia. 

Finally, I should dd that the history of Virginia is a complex history
that includes the 40% of the state and their descendants who were held
as slaves in 1775; it includes the many Virginians who fought to
preserve the Union, such at Generals WInfield Scott and George Thomas
(the Rock of Chickamunga).  They too were Virginians.


Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
     and Public Policy
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, New York   12208-3494

518-445-3386 
[log in to unmask]
>>> [log in to unmask] 02/14/07 7:25 PM >>>
This is a Virginia history list, not a Maryland or Pennsylvania or  
Florida or Nebraska history list. Please respect Virginia history as  
you would that of your own state. And please respect my ancestors  
whom you know nothing about, and I will respect yours whom I know  
nothing about.

___________________
Donald W. Moore
Virginia Beach, Virginia


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