• Bridging the Gap

by Susan Hutchison

” Full stop. My heart raced. I tried to absorb something of the human meaning of this discovery. I had seen slave names in property lists before, and it was always unsettling. This time there was a whole new dimension in the form of living people – Henry’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren – kinfolk I would soon meet.”

In August of 2010 I traveled from relatively cool and mossy Seattle to the humid, cricket-buzzing heat of southeastern Mississippi for a family reunion I will never forget.

I am white, and this was a black family reunion. No, I was not marrying into the family. These were my cousins. My great-great grandfather, William Trotter, was the father – and slaveholder – of Henry Trotter, the man whose descendants were gathering from across the country.

This was obviously not your typical reunion situation, and deserves a little background to put it in context. Several years earlier, inspired by my involvement with descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings (Thomas and Martha Jefferson are my 6X great-grandparents), I co-founded a racial reconciliation program called Coming to the Table, which brings together descendants of slaves and slaveholders who are committed to dialogue and healing. The name was inspired by a line from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous March on Washington speech – “I have a dream that one day… the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

The remarkable people I met through Coming to the Table and the hopeful nature of our relationships inspired me to want to search for other “linked descendants,” people to whom I was “related by slavery.” It felt like a small but meaningful attempt to foster some healing of the racial dysfunction we Americans have inherited from our history of slavery.

William Trotter seemed like a logical starting point for my quest. I knew that he’d lived in Clarke County, Mississippi, had enslaved around 40 people, and that he’d self-published a disturbing 200-page defense of slavery just before the Civil War. Dave Pettee, a Coming to the Table friend and cousin, helped me tremendously with research, going so far as to meet me in Mississippi to see what records we might find in the county courthouse. Dave is a skilled genealogist, and had done exactly this kind of research before.

Within a few months, I was in contact with three descendants of Henry Trotter. One of these cousins, Gary, was a family historian, and had stumbled upon Henry’s misfiled death certificate – which listed William as Henry’s father – in the Mississippi State Archives. Another cousin, Mamie was, ironically, the housekeeper for the still-standing William Trotter house. Maceo was on the reunion organizing committee, and invited me to attend the next reunion and to be part of a presentation about our shared family history. I was honored to be invited, and eager to meet these new relatives.

Months passed, we exchanged some calls and emails, and at last it was reunion time. Dave joined me in Mississippi again. We arrived a day early for more research in the county courthouse.

On our earlier visit we found documents with names of people enslaved by the Trotter family, but Henry was not among them. This time we looked for Henry, and found him. He was in an inventory of personal property that began with a list of 33 names of enslaved men, women and children.

“one negro woman Mourning appraised at $300

one woman Amy and child Joe $600

one woman Rachel, Susan, Mary and Mahala $1050…”

The sixteenth line read “one boy, Henry $500.”

Full stop. My heart raced. I tried to absorb something of the human meaning of this discovery. I had seen slave names in property lists before, and it was always unsettling. This time there was a whole new dimension in the form of living people – Henry’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren – kinfolk I would soon meet.

***

The reunion began Friday night with a reception at a community center outside of Laurel, Mississippi. Dave and I got what felt like a few skeptical looks as we walked across the parking lot and through the doors into the meeting hall. Even though I’d heard that word had gotten around that I was coming, I wasn’t sure if everyone knew who I was, and why I was there.

Lucy, one of the organizers who had encouraged me to come, walked over to greet us warmly right away, and directed us to the registration table where we met Delores, the main reunion organizer.

Delores welcomed me with a big smile and a hug, then immediately pulled out the reunion t-shirt to show me. She had worked with a friend to come up with the design and was eager to see if I would like it. The words “Bridging the Gap” were printed in gold, on a black shirt. Above, a black hand and a white hand reached out toward one another, a burst of light in the center where their fingers touched, the two sides of an incomplete bridge comprising the source of each arm. I was stunned and deeply moved.

After giving Delores some booklets I’d prepared about our shared family history, I settled into meeting people and visiting. I talked with Barbara, a cousin about my age from South Carolina. Barbara was sweet, warm and friendly, and I found myself relaxing more and more as we talked. I also visited with Gene, an outgoing retired Army officer and Trotter family historian from Colorado.

The next morning there was nothing scheduled. Dave and I drove out into the country to see where the William Trotter farm had been. The countryside was tranquil and beautiful, with emerald green pines and rolling, grassy hills. The intense August heat and the buzzing of crickets fueled my imagination, as I tried to conjure up some sense of what life was like on this land so many years ago.

How could such benign beauty be connected to such painful history? Would my new cousins and I be able to transform the legacy of that painful history into something positive?

***

It was time for the banquet. Soon I would share with the group what I had learned about William Trotter, our common ancestor. I could do this only because I had learned from many descendants of people who had been enslaved how meaningful it was for them when white descendants of slaveholders shared this kind of genealogical information and fully acknowledged the history of slavery, rather than avoid or deny it. I had learned that many descendants of slaves feel cut off from their roots due to the genealogical ‘brick wall’ of slavery – no names in census records; no records of births, deaths, or marriages; private slaveholder family and business records rarely accessible.

While some descendants of slaves, understandably, do not want to learn about their family’s connections to slavery and face the pain of that past, I felt it was important to accept the invitation that had been extended to me, and to talk about what I had found. I only hoped that my sharing might provide some small measure of healing and repair.

The evening program began with an opening prayer. I was nervous and found it hard to focus on the program. Suddenly, ahead of schedule, I was called to the microphone.

As I began to talk, fifty solemn faces watched me intently. I let them know that I might get a little emotional as I talked, but that they didn’t need to worry about me or take care of me – this was just part of facing the truth and part of the healing.

I talked about William Trotter and his family for several minutes, referring to notes, pausing too long, feeling awkward and trying not to blow it.

Then came the hardest part – telling them about finding Henry listed as personal property – a boy, valued at $500. The words almost stopped in my throat, but managed to force their way out.

A few minutes later I was done. This was not a time for smiles and applause, and there was no way to know if my offering brought pain or healing, or both. I could only hope.

As I returned to my seat, Gene was called up and took my place at the microphone. He reflected briefly on the Lord’s Prayer, particularly the phrase, “Thy will be done,” by way of encouraging people not to let the information that I had shared trouble them. He went on to talk about the eleven children and 56 grandchildren of Henry and Salina Trotter, including one daughter who died in 1990 at the age of 112, and one granddaughter who bore 22 children.

After the program, several people made a point of coming over to offer appreciation or encouragement in one way or another. While I didn’t want anyone to feel they had to reassure me, I have to admit I felt relief with every positive word.

With the banquet presentation behind me I could relax. At the Sunday picnic I listened to Kevin and Eric tell stories of snakes and jobs, laughed with Corine, one of the family elders, and visited with Gloria, a poet from New Orleans who had lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. I ate delicious barbeque, and tried pig’s feet for the first time (and probably the last).

After a long, easy afternoon, everyone gathered for a group picture. Dave and I started saying goodbyes, and as we began making our way to the car, several people intercepted us for some last minute pictures.

I drove away from Laurel feeling happy, blessed, and confident that it had been the right decision to reach out, accept the hand that had been extended, and begin to bridge the gap.

• A Case Study in Researching Southern Slaveholding Ancestry

By Rev. David Pettee, with help from Susan Hutchison
(Note: This is the text of a handout used by Coming to the Table. The original is available as downloadable PDF file on the Resources page of the CTTT website.)

Feeling confident from my success in researching my own slaveholding ancestors (see “A Case Study in Researching Northern Slaveholding Ancestry”) I offered to help my friend Susan research a slaveholding ancestor, William Trotter, who had lived in antebellum eastern Mississippi. Susan had begun researching on her own, after finding a brief slavery-related reference to William in a book on Trotter genealogy. She was inexperienced with genealogical research, but simple Google searches using various combinations of Trotter’s names (first, middle, last), town, county and state, “slave,” and “slavery” had yielded:
• reference to a 200-plus page “history and defense” of slavery written by Trotter, available on microfiche via interlibrary loan (the text has since been made available online – a good example of the ongoing explosion of material being made available on the web),
• 1850 and 1860 Slave Schedules for Trotter’s county, listing him as enslaving 16 people in 1850 and 45 in 1860,
• a brief description, photo, and address of Trotter’s large house, which still stands,
• genealogical forum postings by a descendant of Trotter’s brother, a reply to which yielded some important genealogical information to round out the beginnings of our research base.

Susan had to travel for business to Jackson, MS, which is only two hours from Trotter’s home, close enough for a research side-trip. I offered to do what research I could from home, and to use a soon-to-expire airline voucher to join her in Mississippi to help “on the ground.” Not having the advantages associated with living in Mississippi, I knew that preparation before our visit was essential.

I searched the web for local history and genealogical sites and for more Trotter-related postings at ancestry.com and rootsweb.com. I found gold in the web site of a county resident who has amassed an amazing collection of deeds, cemetery records, newspapers, obituaries, census records, and most importantly, indices to Chancery Court records. (The Chancery is where all the official county records are now kept, such as land deeds, wills, inventories, tax records, etc.). The site is an incredible labor of love. I found numerous references to Trotter using the site’s search engine. I also found gold at mymississippigenealogy.com.

These resources allowed me to compile a substantial list of documents to search for in the Chancery at the county courthouse, as well as the location of the family burial plot with Trotter’s grave. I expected that wills and inventories would provide more detail about slavery in the Trotter family, and hoped they would list names of slaves, to help us make connections with living descendants.

Meanwhile, Susan used the Trotter house address and a reverse lookup feature on whitepages.com to find a phone number for the current owner of the home. She had a wonderful conversation with Sarah, the owner/resident, who was open to a visit and happened to know that descendants of Trotter slaves lived in the area. She also referred Susan to Joanne, another Trotter descendant who had visited years before and spent days in the courthouse copying Trotter records. Joanne shared information and lore about Trotter and his family, and the disappointing news that all the photocopies from several days at the courthouse had been burned in a house fire before anyone had had a chance to read through them. She remembered finding documents indicating that Trotter had given each of his several children two slaves.

To try and locate living descendants of Trotter slaves, Susan searched for Trotters in the area using whitepages.com and peoplefinder.com. She composed a letter introducing herself and her connection to William Trotter and sent it to three of the several addresses from her search. Two of the three letters she sent came back undeliverable. She made calls to some of the phone numbers, which led to some new information, but nothing that definitively connected anyone to William Trotter or those enslaved by him. (It later became clear that the people she found were almost certainly descendants of two different people enslaved by William.)

Our visit to Mississippi was a combination of disappointment and great success. A bomb scare closed the county courthouse for half of the one day we were in town. The realtor who’d last sold the house shared a copy of Trotter’s military portrait, and a copy of his business card (he was an attorney).

The most exciting moment came at the end of our visit to Trotter’s house (which has been beautifully restored). Our hostess, Sarah, was more welcoming and gracious than we could have hoped for. After giving us a tour of the house, serving us lunch and sweet tea, and hearing more from us about Coming to the Table, she mentioned that her housekeeper of 20 years was a descendant of a Trotter slave. We were stunned! She promised to talk to Mamie about us when she came to work in a couple of days. We picked our jaws up off the floor and reluctantly drove away.

Our search in the courthouse cut short by the bomb scare, we had to work fast. We had hoped to find a will and probate inventory for Trotter, who died in 1862. Instead we found documentation that he died “intestate” (without a legal will). A big disappointment, and not what we were expecting from a lawyer! We did however find several documents referring to “renting” slaves out, as well as other slavery related records.

Two discoveries were particularly powerful and chilling. One was a probate document for Trotter’s sister. It listed three “lots” of people who had been enslaved by Trotter’s sister, with first names and “valuations,” the groupings carefully arranged so that they each carried the same value. The document described a drawing of lots by the deceased’s three surviving siblings, indicating which sibling would inherit which group of people.

Another short document in the probate records included the names of two people, Rhoada and Handy, who had been given by Trotter to his youngest child, Susan’s great grandmother, when she was an infant or toddler.

About three weeks after our visit, I checked the message boards one last time to see if there were old messages worth reviewing, now that we had a good understanding of the Trotter family. There was a new message from a William Trotter descendant, with a link to an African American Trotter family website. I called Susan with the news and she quickly made contact with the man who had posted the query. Maceo was thrilled to hear from her, and referred her to Gary, one of the family historians. Phone calls with Gary yielded the information that William Trotter was listed as the father on the death certificate of the emancipated ancestor of this Trotter line.

Several months, phone calls and emails later, Susan traveled back to Mississippi. She had a wonderful conversation with Gary and met his family, and enjoyed a delicious meal and delightful visit in Mamie’s home with a dozen newfound cousins. She has been invited to the next family reunion and plans to attend. Their relationships have just begun.

(Note: See “Bridging the Gap” for the story of the Trotter Family Reunion.)

• A Case Study in Researching Northern Slaveholding Ancestry

By Rev. David Pettee
(Note: This is the text of a handout used by Coming to the Table, edited slightly for this site. The original is available as downloadable PDF file on the Resources page of the CTTT website.)

Although I have been a ‘keeper’ of the family history since my grandfather died in 1985, I am an amateur genealogist. Over the years, I have utilized the services of professional genealogists with excellent results. After my grandfather died, I inherited all of the records and genealogy charts that he had inherited from his father and his grandfather before him. In 1997, I purchased genealogical software and spent many hours typing in every bit of information I could extract, as well as the fruits of my own genealogical labors borne of the emergence of the Internet.

Most of my ancestry is deeply rooted in New England and I grew up learning about Pilgrims, Puritans and minutemen. Not slavery. The possibility that I could have ancestors who held enslaved Africans never even occurred to me because I was taught that slavery was a Southern institution. The only time I ever recall hearing mention about my ancestors and race was in the recounting of our Quaker forebears from Pennsylvania, who were bitterly opposed to slavery.

In February 2006, I upgraded my Ancestry.com subscription. Checking the searchable Rhode Island 1774 Census records, I typed in the name of a maternal ancestor who lived in Newport, RI around the time of the Revolutionary War. I found Edward Simmons where I expected he would be, but was surprised to read that the census enumerator had reported that four black people were in his home.
Still not appreciating what I was reading, I made a trip to the Newport Historical Society to examine a copy of the original handwritten census record. Two of the black people in his home were boys, under the age of ten. I innocently asked the historian what was the likely reason that there were black people in my ancestor’s home. He gave me a puzzled look. “Slaves, of course. If you had the means, you held one or two.” I was shocked. I asked him to assist me in locating a researcher I might hire to help me uncover more of this particular history. I was unable to find anyone who felt proficient enough to assist me. Others warned me that I wouldn’t find much, claiming that this embarrassing story had been intentionally lost or removed from history.

So, my search to recover the history of slaves in my family began in earnest. I spoke with every person I could find who worked at a historical society, archive, or clerk’s office, asking for suggestions about primary sources that might have the information I was seeking. I was fortunate. All the records were in Rhode Island. I could research on day trips from my home in Massachusetts.

Over time, I pursued every primary source I could find from 1765 to 1803, when Edward Simmons died. One of the very first suggestions I received was to consider researching Early American Newspapers, Series I, 1690-1876, available through my membership with the New England Historic and Genealogical Society. In just a few minutes of research, I found that Edward Simmons had placed a descriptive ad for a runaway slave in the Newport Mercury in June 1768.

I spent time at the Rhode Island Archives reviewing the slaves recorded in his home in the 1782 Rhode Island Census and the 1790 and 1800 Federal Censuses. I found further record of his involvement with slavery at the Rhode Island Historical Society in The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles, and in an obscure physician record in the “Guide to Manuscripts at the Rhode Island Historical Society Relating to People of Color.”

All told, I came to learn that Edward Simmons enslaved people for more than thirty years.

Further research of my collateral lines revealed that Edward Simmons was not unique among my Rhode Island ancestors. In time, through the review of wills, personal inventories and Rhode Island court records, I was able to recover 11 other family members who, combined, enslaved 27 Africans and Native Americans. I would later find, through their wills, three Massachusetts ancestors who were slaveholders.

As I learned about the involvement of New England in the slave trade, I began to suspect that another Newport ancestor, John Robinson (the father-in-law of Edward Simmons) had sailed in the transatlantic slave trade. The gravestone of his daughter Mary (wife of Edward Simmons) in the Newport Burial Ground indicated she was “daughter of Capt. John Robinson” suggesting he was a person of some prominence. I wasn’t surprised when I found his name in the manifest of the slave ship Greyhound in the collections of the Newport Historical Society, having sold 99 barrels of molasses to a Newport rum distillery.

I found Robinson’s name in the “shipping news” of pre-colonial newspapers, as he left and arrived at the ports of Newport, Providence, Boston and Charleston. Most unexpectedly, in Boston Commissioners Reports, I found a horrific reference to his arrival in Boston Harbor in 1739 aboard the schooner Mermaid, the ship full of sick Africans.

John Robinson was referenced several times in the book Documents Illustrative of the History of the Slave Trade in America, Volume III, New England and the Middle Colonies. A review of a Rhode Island Vice-Admiralty court case at the Rhode Island Archives matched a 1745 voyage recorded in the Transatlantic Slave Trade database, confirming that he made several voyages to Africa.
Initially, I found the confirmation of his role in the slave trade very difficult to accept emotionally. I began to seek out support of others engaged in this same journey of reckoning. My good fortune continued when, searching online, I found Katrina Browne. Katrina was finishing a film, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North, which follows nine descendants of the DeWolf family of Bristol, Rhode Island on a trip from Bristol, to Ghana and then to Cuba, learning about the transatlantic slave trade and the depth and complicity of their family’s role in it. Katrina helped me keep pushing forward, and urged me to share with others on similar journeys how hard all this information was to digest and accept. Through Katrina, I met other DeWolf family members who pointed me towards Coming to the Table. I sought guidance there for the next project I had in mind.

I had decided to accept the challenge from an African American historian to seek accountability by using the same genealogical tools to try to locate a living descendant of one of the Africans enslaved by Edward Simmons. For me, accountability meant being willing to represent my family by being honest about our shared history, sharing everything I found, and expecting nothing in return.

Despite being told again by several well-meaning historians that this search was essentially impossible, I pushed ahead. By following a trail of land deeds, using probate records and researching local newspapers, in less than six months I was successful in locating a living descendant of someone enslaved by my family two hundred years before. An article detailing my research was published in New England Ancestors, a magazine of the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

In closing, now almost four years removed from when I first recovered the forgotten history of enslaved Africans in my family, I have released the irrational fear of African Americans I once held. Growing up in the Boston area in the 1970’s during the era of forced busing, the African American community was portrayed by the media as negative, threatening and dangerous. My emotional discomfort had significantly prevented me from being able to deeply engage with others around addressing the living aftermath of slavery. Learning about the real history of slavery, particularly the complicity of the North, further served to root out much of the misinformation that came through my public school education. To keep moving forward in my genealogical pilgrimage, it was evident that I had to deeply challenge many long held assumptions that were a direct consequence of the segregation in the Northern community in which I was raised. In addition, I came to realize that until I was willing to reckon with the destructive role that my family had played, my ability to be an ally in racial justice work was impaired. Coming to the Table has afforded me the incredible privilege to meet so many other people who have also dared to ‘cross the bridge’ and work together in community to build a new and life affirming legacy.

Postscript: Since first writing this article I have conducted further research, resulting in the documentation of 40 New England slaveholding ancestors. My research had not been particularly systematic, so I set out to visit archives in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island to view every will, inventory and probate of my New England ancestors from 1638 to 1800. What struck me most about my New England slaveholding ancestors was how ordinary so many were. Most were yeoman who managed small farms. In conversation with local historians and genealogists, the large number of slaveholding ancestors at first glance seems exceptional. I’m not sure this is true. I was simply willing to look, no longer willing to remain in denial that slavery played such a critical role in the establishment of colonial New England.

• Confronting Slavery in Your Family’s History

By Susan Hutchison
(Note: This is the text of a handout used by Coming to the Table, edited slightly for this site. The original is available as downloadable PDF file on the Resources page of the CTTT website.)

If you know or suspect that some of your ancestors were slaves, slave holders or slave traders, we hope this article is helpful to you. It is intended to offer ideas and support for researching your family’s possible connection to slavery, and for responding if or when you find a connection.

We have found the process of confronting this part of our family history to be transformational, and hope your journey is one of growth, self-discovery, and finding a greater sense of connection with your family and the world.

Some of our thoughts are for anyone on this journey, and some are specific to people whose ancestors were enslaved, or people whose ancestors enslaved others.

Whatever your situation, we hope you find something helpful in what we offer here. For more suggestions and for stories about others confronting slavery in their family’s history, visit the Coming to the Table website at www.comingtothetable.org.

Find support. We have found it crucial to find support as we undertake this process, whether it is a relative or a friend, perhaps someone else interested in family history, or just someone who cares about you and is willing to listen and be encouraging. There are not a lot of people who are ready to talk about slavery, much less a direct family connection to slavery, and it can be a very lonely process if you don’t have someone with whom you can share thoughts, discoveries, hopes and fears. Being listened to without judgment can be very helpful for clearing the mind.

Make time for reflection. It will help to take time now and then to reflect on your thoughts, feelings, motivations, and expectations, whether you talk with a friend, write in a journal, or find a quiet time and place to do some thinking and soul searching.

Get started. Use the CTTT genealogy guides, resource list, and case studies, available on their website, for ideas on how to get started researching your family history.

Approach the issue of slavery gently. When asking family members what they know about your family history, listen for pride in particular stories and ancestors and share that pride as best you can. After plenty of listening, if the topic of slavery hasn’t already come up, approach it gently. Feelings of shame, guilt, anger, embarrassment, fear or grief can make a family connection to slavery hard to talk about.

Be aware. Among African American descendants of slaves there is a wide range of knowledge about slavery, and about family connections to slavery. Some families have a strong and full oral history, some know nothing at all, with many families somewhere in between. There may be feelings of deep pride about ancestors having survived, and sometimes having accomplished great things, under circumstances beyond our comprehension. There may be feelings of rage or shame.

White descendants of slaveholders rarely have much awareness of that part of their family history. Feelings of shame, guilt or fear can be behind patterns of silence and denial within white families. If any information has passed forward to living descendants, it is usually minimal, and is often distorted by a sort of ancestor mythology.

When you have evidence. If you find evidence, whether from oral history or documentation, that one or more ancestors were slaves, slave holders or slave traders, we suggest you spend some time in reflection with a supportive friend or family member, or writing in a journal. Here are some questions you may find helpful:

• How do you feel about what you are learning?
• What do you find most challenging? Why?
• Where do you feel pride in your family?
• What are your hopes and fears?
• How can you use this information to grow as a person?
• How can you share what you have learned with your family? Who might be receptive? Who might have a harder time?

Share what you find. Sharing what you have learned with nuclear and extended family members can lead to deeper relationships, greater understanding of self and other family members, healing, more information, and positive action. It can also lead to upset and conflict, so tread thoughtfully.

Making information available on the internet can provide valuable information to others who are also searching, and may lead to contact with kin from long-lost branches on the family tree. It may even lead to contact with descendants from the ‘other side’ of your family’s connection to slavery. Share what you have learned on general and African American genealogical web sites, and sites devoted to history of the area in which your family lived.

White families in particular need to be aware that any information about the people your family enslaved, especially names, are extremely valuable to African Americans researching enslaved ancestors. Because slaves were not recorded by name on census records or slave schedules, were rarely issued birth, death or marriage certificates, and could be sold at any point to a completely different area, African Americans usually run into what amounts to a genealogical brick wall when they look for pre-emancipation information about ancestors. This is often a source of grief, frustration and anger for many, so sharing what you have learned can be a very important act of repairing some of the damage done by slavery.

Connecting with “linked” descendants. If you would like ideas or support related to contact with a descendant of people enslaved by your ancestors or a descendant of people who enslaved your ancestors, please see the CTTT guide “Contacting ‘Linked Descendants,’”, (available as a blog posting here, and on the CTTT website Resources page), or feel free to contact Coming to the Table at cttt@emu.edu or 877-540-2888.

• Descendants of Slaveholders Reckon With Family History

Ghosts of the Masters: Descendants of Slaveholders Reckon With Family History is a book-in-progress by Dave Pettee and Susan Hutchison. We have interviewed over 100 white descendants of slaveholders (and 25 descendants of slaves who have had contact with a white ‘linked’ descendant – someone whose ancestor enslaved theirs) to hear their stories and perspectives related to this challenging family  history.

Most descendants of slaveholders either don’t know about their family’s connections to slavery because of the silence of previous generations, or they don’t talk about it out of fear or shame. We hope to lift the veil of silence, and draw more members of this hidden group out of the shadows to talk about their family histories, and to support one another along a journey of honest and compassionate reckoning.

White descendants of slaveholders are in a unique position in relation to our country’s painful history. We can play an important role in helping other white Americans come more fully to the ‘table of brotherhood’ by facing the truth with integrity, building relationships within and across “racial” lines, healing from the psychic/spiritual wounds of separation and false superiority, and acting to right the wrongs that remain with us today.

“I have a dream that one day…. the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”   

– Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., March on Washington, August 1963

“The heirs of slaveholders are not responsible for the past; but in a better world, they would be accountable for that past. They would make an effort to deal with the slave story, talk about it, and try to come to terms with it.” 

– Edward Ball, author of Slaves in the Family

• Contacting ‘Linked Descendants’

by Susan Hutchison
(Note: This is the text of a handout used by Coming to the Table, edited slightly for this site. The original is available as downloadable PDF file on the Resources page of the CTTT website.)

Many Coming to the Table community members have a relationship with one or more ‘linked descendants’ (one’s ancestor enslaved the other’s ancestor), and tend to consider a respectful relationship with a linked descendant an act of repairing the harms of slavery and creating a new legacy.

If you are interested in finding and contacting one or more linked descendants, we offer these suggestions to help you proceed.

There is no way to know ahead of time if you will succeed, and if you do, how you will be received. The experience of most white people involved in Coming to the Table has been a welcome and appreciative response from African Americans. A cool or hostile response has been reported more often by African Americans reaching out to white descendants. How well things go will depend partly on how well you have prepared yourself mentally and emotionally. Read our handout “Confronting Slavery in Your Family’s History,” and spend some time in reflection about your hopes, fears and motivations.

Once you are ready to begin looking, read our handout “Researching Slaveholding and Slave Trading Ancestry,” particularly point number 10, for ideas about how to proceed. This type of research is somewhat different than looking for long-dead ancestors.

If you have found someone you think may be connected to your family and are considering making contact, these questions may help you further clarify your goals, hopes, and fears:

• How would you feel about getting an enthusiastic response? A hostile response? A suspicious response? No response? An immediate response? A long wait?
• What information are you ready to share with them?
• Are you ready to listen, accept them exactly where they are, pass no judgments, and not take rejection personally?
• What are your fantasies about the people you may contact? Try to work through these so you can go forward with no assumptions, ready to live into the experience with an open heart.
• Is a blood relationship part of the information you have uncovered? If so, how do you feel about that? If not, how would you feel if they offered such information? Many of us are finding we have “unexpected cousins.” You are not alone! We are all far more connected than most of us realize.

When you feel ready to proceed, here are some ideas for making contact.

If you have an address for someone you want to reach out to, write an email or a letter introducing yourself, explaining your reason for contacting them, spelling out what you believe is or may be your connection, and sharing at least some of the information you have gathered in your research. Tell them a little about yourself and your family. Be honest, not pretending you are someone you are not. Give them a sense of your intent, and give them some options for how to respond (email, phone call, snail mail), including an invitation to take whatever time they need to talk with their family and think about a response.

You may discover that you are connected through slavery to someone in your local community, especially if you are living in the same area where your ancestors lived. This of course makes a face-to-face meeting much more possible, sooner rather than later, and may pose additional challenges.

If you are from a white family and are reaching out to descendants of people enslaved by your family, be ready to listen at least as much as you talk since white people often do not listen well to African Americans. We recommend that you do not include an apology or request for forgiveness for the actions of your ancestors in any initial contact. Even without words of apology, if you ‘come to the table’ needing forgiveness and communicate that in your actions and tone of voice, you can be adding a burden rather than contributing to repair.

If you have sent an initial email or letter and don’t get a reply within a couple of weeks, you may decide to re-send, or to follow up with a phone call, if you have a number to try. Phoning is trickier, because you may be putting someone in an uncomfortable position by calling. Give some thought to timing. Be sure you can stay on the phone for a while without interruption, in case you reach someone. If you reach someone who is not interested in family history, or not interested in talking with you, ask if they know of someone else who might talk with you. Talk through with someone ahead of time how you want to introduce yourself to get a conversation going.

Once you make contact, be ready to go with the flow. Plan to allow time for a relationship to develop, and be aware that an ongoing relationship is a possibility, not necessarily an outcome.

As things progress, talk with your trusted supporters or write in your journal about how things are going, how you are feeling, and what your motivations may be for things you want to say or do. Be prepared to follow up on offers and commitments. A genuine tone of respect, interest, and acknowledgment of what happened in the past can do much to bring repair and healing, whereas confused motivations and lack of follow-through can bring more pain.

Be aware that you may be treated with suspicion at first. Trust takes time to build. You may, though, be welcomed with eager enthusiasm and considered family from the get go. Be ready for either, or neither one. Focus on building a relationship at a pace that seems to work for both of you.

One issue is worth special attention here. Some linked descendants are also related by blood. Part of the painful history of slavery is the fact that enslavers held power, and many used that power to force enslaved women sexually. While there were occasional cases of genuine relationship, even marriage, force was far more common. Understandably, this can be an additional point of pain for descendants. At the same time, for some people a blood connection is reason (or more reason) to consider one another family.

• Researching Slaveholding and Slave Trading Ancestry

by Rev. Dave Pettee
(Note: This is the text of a handout used by Coming to the Table, edited slightly for this site. The original is available as downloadable PDF file on the Resources page of the CTTT website.)

This article offers suggestions for researching slave holding and slave trading ancestry. Edward Ball, a white descendant of the wealthy Ball family of SC and author of Slaves In the Family comments, “The heirs of slave holders are not responsible for the past; but in a better world, they would be accountable for that past. They would make an effort to deal with the slave story, talk about it, and try to come to terms with it.” Ball also suggests that there are perhaps as many fifteen million living white Americans who can trace their roots to the long-gone master class.

The opportunity for personal reckoning that becomes possible in researching slave holding and slave trading ancestry is considerable. The research itself, however, can be a challenging endeavor. While more and more people are choosing to explore this neglected dimension of their family history, many report difficulty in knowing exactly where to start. There are no guides available to help people uncover this kind of history. Some curators and historians are reluctant to support this sort of research because they are personally or professionally uncomfortable acknowledging the history and aftermath of slavery in their communities. Perhaps most significantly, those of us who suspect we have this heritage may fear becoming emotionally burdened or overwhelmed by what we might find.

Below are ten tips that will hopefully make your genealogical journey more successful.

1. Get support. Try to avoid taking on this challenge alone! Sharing in the wisdom of others will give you new ideas and the moral support to keep digging. Use the social networking available through this web site to develop your community.

2. Try. Do not be discouraged by people who claim that this kind of research is impossible. While few descendants of slave holders and slave traders have inherited specific information, public and private primary source records often reveal a detailed and complex story. Finding reference to slavery in Northern records can be challenging because of the overall smaller number of slaves and slave holders and because the institution of slavery was less organized than in the South. Finding records in the South can be hit or miss due to the extensive burning of Southern homes, courthouses and other structures during the Civil War. Documents in both the North and the South were sometimes intentionally mutilated to hide references and complicity with slavery.

3. Visit. If possible, plan to visit the place where your slave holding ancestors lived. Having a direct encounter with the land, the property, or the community can be a powerful part of the reckoning process and can lead to new discoveries.

4. Prepare. If you are able to visit, do as much preparation in advance as possible. The Internet is an extraordinary tool, with vast and unexpected information available at your fingertips. If you need assistance, consider contacting a local genealogical society. Try to develop a research strategy. Talk to as many older relatives or ‘keepers’ of family lore as you can. A good list of questions for conducting oral interviews is available at about.com. Consider digitally recording each conversation for posterity and for your later reference – it will likely take hearing the information several times for you to digest all of it. Make sure all the places you wish to visit will be open when you are there and make appointments as necessary. Learn in advance what is expected of you. Always treat local historians and curators with respect. They are the local culture carriers who you will contact time and time again. Thank them repeatedly for their help! A small donation to show your appreciation is always welcome.

5. Take a class. If you are relatively new to genealogical research, consider taking a class to learn about basic techniques and resources. State, county and local genealogical organizations are an excellent place to begin.

6. Research. Public records worth researching include the slave schedules that were added to the Federal Census in 1850 and 1860. The slave holder’s name, state and sometimes county was recorded. However, slaves were not recorded by name, only by age, sex, and color (typically B for black, and M for “mulatto”). State census records, wills, probate records, personal estates, inventories, sheriffs sales, county clerk of court deeds, manumission records, county tax
 records, administrator records and judgments are the other more common public documents most likely to record slaves. Check with local historical societies, county clerks, family members, and the Internet for manuscripts, letters, account books, plantation records, family Bibles and other private records. Prominent families often hired historians to prepare family genealogies, and many were the subject of books – both likely to be found with Internet searches. Be creative in your research, seeking any records in the time period when your ancestors enslaved others.

7. Organize. As you research, keep track of all the resources and records that you have examined and ruled out. You will want to avoid covering the same ground twice. It is quite easy to forget what you have already reviewed. Take careful notes and make copies if it is permissible. Consider an investment in genealogical software to help you organize what you find, copy photographs, and view and print information in different formats, such as pedigree charts, family group records, descendant charts, fan charts and ahnentafels. (Ahnentafel is a word frequently used by genealogists and is a German word that literally translated means “ancestor table.” Using a strict numbering scheme, it is essentially a list of all the known ancestors of a person and includes the name of each ancestor as well as dates and places of birth, marriage, and death.) Charts are available on line through accessgenealogy.com. In addition to helping you make sense of what you gather, these tools will help you share your discoveries with other people.

8. Learn. Take time to become familiar with the history of slavery in the region where your ancestor lived. Local histories are worth reading, but be aware that most have been written by white historians with biases and blind spots around slavery and the lives of African Americans. Look for African American resources, which will likely offer important counter narratives and fill in crucial information gaps.

9. Share. As you learn about your history, be sure to share what you find with others. In particular, with any slavery-related private family records, wills, inventories, probate records, account books, or manuscripts you discover, please seriously consider writing for publication, and/or donate copies, transcripts or original material to local historical societies or African American genealogy sites where others who need what you have discovered may find it.

10. Search for a “linked descendant.” If you want to locate a living descendant of someone your family enslaved, you may want to read our handout “Contacting ‘Linked Descendants’” before starting your research. Once you are ready to research, a simple straightforward way to start is to search on http://www.peoplefinder.com, http://www.whitepages.com or similar sites for your ancestor’s surname if the name was not terribly common. (Some emancipated slaves were given or took their enslaver’s surname, and some of their descendants may still carry the name.) You can search nationally, or zero in your ancestor’s area, depending on how common the name and how numerous the results. Another strategy is to track African Americans living in the same area as your slave holding ancestor using the 1870 Federal Census, the first census that included the names of African Americans. Let’s say, for example, in the 1850 slave schedule you find a boy age 10, enslaved by Jeremiah Simmons. He may be still be recorded with Simmons in the 1860 slave schedule, now age 20, and in the 1870 Census he may appear with the surname of Simmons, age 30, living in the same county/state. You may then be able to follow a trail of names, ages and relationships through later census records and other public records, forward in time to the relatively recent past.