It shouldn't matter today who did or didn't own slaves centuries ago. It's not OK today of course, but back then it was perfectly normal and customary.
Even my Unionist GGF, member of the Union League, owned eight slaves, who were confiscated by Alabama, along with the rest of his property. I have nothing from him past 1867, which I hate. All the rest of the little diary is taken up with commercial transactions. In a personal/family tragedy, my uncle let himself get swindled out of the family farm in Berlin (near Holly Pond). Many precious family photos and documents were placed in a leaky outbuilding and were destroyed. I know my GGF sued the "new" state of Alabama twice for compensation, but they successfully defended on the grounds that the confiscation was performed by an illegal, rebel regime...
That is chutzpah right there.I know my GGF sued the "new" state of Alabama twice for compensation, but they successfully defended on the grounds that the confiscation was performed by an illegal, rebel regime...
Post-emancipation relationships between freedmen and former slaveowners were varied widely. Some thought enough of their former owners to take the family name after emancipation. One Alabama freedman, Simon Phillips, stayed on with his former master as a sharecropper until 1886 and later told the WPA, "Sometime we loaned the massa money when he was hard pushed." That astounded me. First, that a sharecropper had enough extra money to lend to anyone, and second, that he thought enough of his former master to lend him money when he was in need. If the former master had been a jerk, Mr. Phillips could well have said, "Well, sorry to hear you need money. That's tough luck."
That is interesting. I think they ran his ancestry on Gates' show. I wonder if he knows. Bet he does...
I watched that episode. What Freeman told Gates was that family tradition was that they had some Native-American ancestors. DNA test showed no Native-American ancestry. Gates hypothesized that freedmen wanted to claim some heritage of a people who had resisted the dominant white culture and Native Americans fit the bill, so some freedmen "adopted" that as part of their heritage. Who would ever know? They never dreamed of anything like DNA testing to confirm or deny the hypothesis.
Well, American blacks are about 25% white on the average, so obviously there was a lot of inter-ethnic sex. Funny thing is that it wasn't really thought about as "rape," any more than "droit du seigneur" was in medieval England...
I am not familiar with the community of Berlin. Was that settled by Germans? (I believe you have said you are of German descent).Even my Unionist GGF, member of the Union League, owned eight slaves, who were confiscated by Alabama, along with the rest of his property. I have nothing from him past 1867, which I hate. All the rest of the little diary is taken up with commercial transactions. In a personal/family tragedy, my uncle let himself get swindled out of the family farm in Berlin (near Holly Pond). Many precious family photos and documents were placed in a leaky outbuilding and were destroyed. I know my GGF sued the "new" state of Alabama twice for compensation, but they successfully defended on the grounds that the confiscation was performed by an illegal, rebel regime...
Edit: Ironically, my GGF had promised his slaves manumission, no matter the outcome of the war. By being confiscated in 1862, they remained slaves for several more years. I'd love to know if they returned to him at the end of the war. He was fairly comfortable, financially...
Since Cullman County was settled by Germans, it's a good bet that Berlin was settled by them. In fact, it's just a crossroads - blink and you miss it. They pronounced it "Ber'-lin." (Interestingly, the Germans pronounce it "Behr-leen'") Yes we are intermixed with the Cullman Germans and I am partially of German descent, but I've got a lot of southern mongrel in me also. I'm about half British (Irish/English), with the rest of it spread around among Scandinavian, French/German, with a sliver of NA, 3.1% Neanderthal and a mysterious 1.5% Ashkenazim Jewish...
In this context such a ban, if enacted, smells unconstitutional (especially if a flag is being placed by a descendent).
Ironic when the Confederate flag becomes a symbol of the Constitution of the United States.
I'm assuming that these are the small hand held types so thats one setting that the confederate flag is probably appropriate.
