Slavery and Guilt
Another comment the other day by one of our readers also got me thinking. And when that happens, well . . . you know the rest. (smile)
But this time, there aren’t all that many numbers involved.
What got me thinking was the comment made by someone that no one in their family had ever been engaged in human trafficking.
This isn’t meant as a slam at anyone. But the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that the individual is almost certainly wrong.
Because the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that very few people on earth today can make truthfully make that statement. And outside of a very few isolated populations, I’d guess that number is almost certainly zero.
. . .
Slavery is an evil human practice – but it’s also an incredibly old human practice. Until relatively recently it was allowed, and was often fairly common, in virtually every human society that practiced agriculture (some of the cultures of Pacific Oceania are believed to be the only cultures having agriculture that are exceptions). Slavery occurred on every continent except possibly pre-Colonial Australia (even that appears uncertain) and Antarctica (no human population).
And yes: it appears very likely that all races practiced slavery and/or participated in the slave trade, too. The sole racial exceptions may be from Pacific Oceania, and even that’s not completely certain.
Agriculture is thought to have begun around 10,000 years ago. Allowing a couple of thousand years (I’m being generous – I personally doubt that it took more than a couple of hundred) before slavery developed as a human evil, that means slavery has been around for roughly 8,000 years.
Bottom line: only those societies that never progressed beyond hunter/gatherer – plus possibly a few isolated societies in Pacific Oceania – seem to have never practiced slavery. (Even then, we’re not absolutely sure.) So unless someone can verify that all of his or her ancestors were members of one of that small number of societies, that means you have ancestors from a society that practiced slavery.
And that’s the problem. In any such society, go back far enough and the numbers essentially guarantee you have at least one ancestor that either owned slaves or was otherwise involved in the slave trade.
. . .
OK, the numbers.
A human generation is generally accepted today to be a period of 20 to 30 years. That wasn’t always the case – children were generally born earlier on average in the past than is the case today in much of the world – but for convenience we’ll use 20 years throughout for the length of a generation.
That means a century is 5 generations; a millennium, 50 generations. Since we’re assuming above that slavery began around 8,000 years ago, that means slavery has been around for about 400 human generations.
Ignoring the possibility of consanguineous relationships, the number of ancestors each of us has can be expressed as a by a simple expression: 2 to the Nth power, where N is the number of generations “back” one looks. I’ll represent that as “2^N” here.
So, going back 100 years – to 1915 – means going back 5 generations. In that generation you have 2^5 = 32 ancestors. You can usually check that far back.
In fact, going back even 300 years isn’t easy, but it’s not that bad. That’s the year 1715, and is 15 generations back – which gives that generation 2^15 = 32,768 ancestors. One can probably determine that far back with reasonable certainty whether any of your ancestors ever owned or trafficked in slaves if you are willing to put enough time and energy into the task.
The problem occurs as you continue to look back further.
Looking back 600 years, or the year 1415, and that’s 30 generations back – which works out to 2^30, or 1,073,741,842, ancestors in that generation alone. Even if the records were available, that’s problematic.
It’s estimated that the world population in 1400 was somewhere between 350 and 400 million. That’s far less than the number above. Since every child has 2 parents, either that means everyone alive in 1415 was an ancestor multiple times over – or that something else is in play. (The latter is obviously the case.)
Unfortunately, allowing for the obvious fact that family trees eventually must “fold back” on themselves somewhere in the past doesn’t help much. Even setting the effective number of “unique ancestors” per generation at the low level of 1.5 (e.g., the equivalent of each set of parents being half-siblings – something we would consider today an abomination and an unthinkably high level of consanguinity) only pushes out the problem a few centuries. Even under those conditions, the number of unique ancestors still grows exponentially and can be approximated by 1.5^N – and 1.5^50, which works out to the number of unique ancestors in the year 1015 for 20-year generations, is roughly 637,621,500. Again, that’s far greater than the estimated world population at the time.
So, even the above is actually rather an oversimplification. But I believe it gets the point across – partway.
And that’s only part of the problem. The next is the real “killer”.
For the claim of “no slavery in my family” to be literally true, that means every ancestor in every past generation must neither have owned a slave nor been otherwise involved in the slave trade. Um, I don’t think that’s going to be the case.
Even if only 1 individual in a million on earth was a slave owner at any given time since slavery began, go back far enough and the number of ancestors in a given generation eventually becomes large enough that having a slave-owning or -trading ancestor becomes a virtual certainty. (I’ll pass on providing the mathematical explanation why and a simplified sample calculation unless someone requests it.) Bottom line: somewhere in the past, it’s a virtual guarantee that an ancestor owned a slave or traded in slaves – even if the vast majority did not.
For what it’s worth: by the same analysis, go back far enough and it’s probably equally certain that every one of us has at least one individual in our family tree somewhere who was once a slave, too. So we’re all “victims”, too.
. . .
My point in writing the above wasn’t to make anyone feel bad, or to point fingers. My point is to set the stage for the following.
The whole “guilt about slavery” discussion today is based on the concept of “inherited guilt” – that people living today can be deemed “guilty” for the acts of their ancestors. That concept is specious as hell. Let me say it plainly: the whole concept of “inherited” or “historical” guilt due to the past actions of one’s ancestors is absolute and unadulterated bullsh!t.
Guilt cannot be inherited. A person is guilty for wrongs they themselves commit, or which they have a duty to prevent and willfully (or through negligence) fail to stop. For such failings, a person legitimately can be held accountable.
However, a person cannot legitimately be considered “guilty” of something done before they were born. Even the dullest village idiot understands that.
A person living today had absolutely nothing to do with what happened 100 years ago – because they were not yet born at the time. Regardless of what their ancestors did or did not do, those living today are legitimately “guilty” of absolutely nothing with respect to what happened before they were born. Guilt for those living today is due solely to their own wrongdoings, not those of their ancestors.
Further, the argument is bullsh!t for another reason as well. Go back far enough, and it’s a virtual certainty that each of us has an ancestor that was guilty of the same. I find the hypocrisy in the argument as odious and offensive as the argument’s premise.
. . .
This idiotic concept of “historical” or “inherited” guilt IMO has fueled as many conflicts throughout history – if not more – than has religion. It’s fueled blood feuds (think Hatfields and McCoys). IMO, it’s the real basis for today’s conflict between Palestinians and Israelis (each believes it has has been historically wronged by the other). The same is true for the current tensions in the Balkans and in Central Africa and Asia. Ditto many if not most tribal conflicts throughout history. Today, it forms a big part of the basis for the historical Arab-Persian enmity as well as the India-Pakistan hostilities – more, IMO, than do religious differences. It was a causative factor in most if not all of Europe’s wars.
And yet, some still cling to the inane concept of historical or collective guilt. Humans are sometimes incredibly slow to learn, both individually and as societies.
Regardless of how much we wish otherwise, history cannot be changed; we can’t “fix” the past. The best we can do is remember it, learn from it – and hopefully avoid making the same mistakes yet again.
“… the whole concept of “inherited” or “historical” guilt due to the past actions of one’s ancestors is absolute and unadulterated bullsh!t.”
Amen!
^^^WORD^^^
Since I can trace slave owners and slaves in my ancestry, I suppose I’ll just feel guilt with myself and pay myself restitution for my family’s past.
That’ll do for the whiner-babies right?
I agree totally with your point, but take exception to some of your numbers. You say going back to 1915 gives you five generations – my parents were born in 1917 and 1920, and I still don’t have any grandkids, so in my family at least, that’s only three generations in 100 years. I’ve done some family tree work on my family, and if I go back to the early 1700s (300 years), I have roughly 1,000 ancestors. Of course, that still gives me a million in 1400, a billion in 1100, and a thousand billion ancestors in the year 700. Keep going back, and you’ll see that I’m almost certainly related to Jesus Christ, Mohammed, and Attila the Hun.
Since my grandmother’s parents were first cousins, and I have a similar situation on my father’s side of the family as well, the number of individual ancestors I had in 1700 was far less than the 1,000 quoted above. But as you pointed out, the sheer mass of numbers as you go back means we’re all kin. And as far as the cousin marriages go, you folks best watch out before starting with all the incest jokes. Before cars came along, the number of potential mates, in courting distance and of the proper social class, was very limited. You’ve all got cousins marrying cousins in your family trees. Get over it.
And just for the record, my ancestors just a few generations back owned slaves. Some of them owned a few, some of them owned lots. If you want to blame me for it, you can get over that, too.
Genghis Khan got so much poon (willing and otherwise), there’s a 1/200 chance that you’re his direct descendant.
According to one genealogy search, Erik the Great, a Viking Warrior, was one of my ancestors, but given the way they got around, I’m sure each of them had more kids from different women than a 1980’s Heavy metal Rock Star!
And all in all, I think I’d rather be related to Erik the Red than an 80s Rock Star.
And relative to the number of generations in a century, I think I’d use 3.5 or 4 as the number rather than 5. Like OldCorpsTanker72, my parents were both born in 1916 and my daughter just presented my wife and I with our first grandchild this month.
I’m guessing that Hondo is using that number more for significant historical past than for “modern” history. Before 1900, what was life expectency vs today? Considerably lower.
So, with that, on average over an 8,000 year period, 5 per century is a fair average to work with.
If you just got annoyed by the statistical statistics and fancy schmancy-ness of this, blame Hondo. lol
You mean Jengis Con(said in smug John Kerry voice).
Sear that into your memory
Only so long as you still have the hat.
OCT72: 30+ years may be the average generation interval in your family. That’s close to the norm in developed countries today, and may well have been the case for “high society” for several hundred years.
The current average generation interval for developing nations is in the low 20s. For the greater part of human history, I’m guessing it was probably actually about 20 – so that’s what I used. It also made the calculations easier to follow; people are generally good at counting by 5s. (smile)
As you point out, even using 3 generations per 100 years doesn’t change the basic situation. That’s still 30 generations per millennium – or about 240 generations since slavery began.
2^240 isn’t as big as 2^400. But it’s still a pretty big number. (smile)
Same here. My father was born in 1918. My GG Grandfather served during the Civil War.
So there is a very short distance between me and my ancestors who owned slaves.
Very good point, Hondo.
Something occurred to me while I read this. My ethnic makeup is half-Irish, half-German. But like pretty much all other northern/western/eastern European races, there has to be some Scandie blood in there as well, because it’s almost certain that at least one (if not more) of my ancestors around 800-1000 years ago was the product of a Celtic woman being raped by a Norse Viking raider, quite possibly right after that same Viking murdered her husband or father. Enough of my full-blooded-Irish ancestors were blonde-haired that it’s pretty much a guarantee.
I utterly detest rapists, but I myself am descended from the seed of at least one rapist and the woman he violated. Does that make guilty for the rape of my great-great-great-x573-grandmother? Of course not, no matter what a vitriolic man-hating feminist might claim.
Well, in my family there was talk when I was a kid of a female relative who took up with a Nazi during WW II and got pregnant by him. Some years ago, I embarked upon a thorough review of the matter and, sure enough, I got the Nazi’s name and actually found his son living in Eastern Europe. We have met chatted off and on for quite some time now. The Nazi was a lieutenant with the SS and married the woman. The pregnancy that was whispered about years ago resulted in the fellow I was now chatting with. So, all this means that I carry the guilt of the death camps. Sorry. (Of course, the fact that my Dad was shooting at those Nazi bastards makes no difference.)
As a daughter of a Righteous Gentile who helped hide Jewish people, and did kill nazis who killed for fun. Those who collaborated with the Nazis..after liberation men were taken out of town and got a bullet in the head. Women, branded with the Nazi sign and tossed out of town.
I don’t blame Germans for Hitlers bad. Papa told me a story that I can’t share even though the Nazi commandant is long dead. I can’t imagine what you all went through, but I know what my relatives did and that’s why I’m so grateful to be in America.My papa carried the guilt of not being able to save more…
Interesting piece, Hondo. I began doing genealogical research on my wife’s family a couple of years ago, recording their 200 year trek from the coastal Carolina’s to West Texas. What I have found is that in their cases, most owned slaves to some extent, even the relatively poor dirt farmers.
Many of the less prosperous in her family counted a couple of slaves in their census reports and these slaves were indeed property, passed on in wills to surviving spouses or adult children. So far, the greatest number I have found was 101 slaves owned by a prosperous sea captain who also owned multiple plantations in South Carolina.
My point is that, at least in my wife’s family, slavery was a much broader institution than some would have us believe when they claim that it was just the wealthy plantation owners who had slaves. It appears to me to have been much more widely practiced and was an integral part of the economy of the South.
And Tanker is correct about the reverse funneling effect of genealogy. My wife and I share a grandfather in the Boone clan many generations back and I have found many examples of marriage by first cousins.
I didn’t want to dwell on that, Poetrooper. But yes – go back even 100 years, and travel was much more difficult than it is today. Go back 150 or 200 years, and travel was (by today’s standards) exceptionally difficult, expensive, and time-consuming. People didn’t travel much, and perforce found mates locally. Particularly in older communities, that often if not generally meant they were marrying cousins n-times removed – though n could be a big number – whether they knew it or not.
Though people don’t like to talk or think about it, marriages between relatives were reasonably common then – for the reasons you and OCT72 note above. And go back far enough, and things get even more uncomfortable. Clans within clan-based societies were in general all descended from a single family – and since they were often patrilineal, usually from a single or very small number of males.
Indeed, go back far enough and you run into truly uncomfortable questions. For example: if one believes literally the Biblical story of creation, who did Adam and Even’s children marry? If you espouse evolution, how prevalent was close inbreeding (and breeding with “lower species”) when mankind was living in small bands in caves?
The numbers guarantee it happened. The best current estimate of the total number of humans who have ever lived is approx 110 billion. Go back 37 generations (regardless of interval) and without consanguinity – in more blunt terms, without inbreeding – you exceed that number of ancestors in that single generation alone.
That fact – along with $5 – will get ya a cup of overpriced bad coffee at Starbucks. But dwelling on those facts doesn’t change the reality that Starbucks is here and sells coffee today. And so are we. (smile)
In other words, don’t start on Genealogical research unless you don’t embarrass easily. Who knows what your ancestors were up to (probably make game of thrones look like kindergarten). But it is fun and sometimes amusing…
Hondo’s point, regardless of length of a generation, is dead-on. “…the whole concept of “inherited” or “historical” guilt due to the past actions of one’s ancestors is absolute and unadulterated bullsh!t.”
I got heavy into the research while I was in Afghanistan. A little bit each day.
I found out my ancestry seemed to go out of their way to hook up with others from a different culture and country, before and after they came to the “new world” for fun and adventure.
With all the technology and capability out there today, it is a shame that so many kids don’t have a clue what their heritage is.
Granted, if they go with the hollywood philosophy, it is better NOT to know your ancestry because you might find something done 500 years ago that you’d be embarrassed about…
Despite the disagreement among experts, the possibility of Neanderthal genes in modern humans is an interesting study:
http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/anthropology/science-neanderthal-genes-modern-human-dna-01734.html
And even if your ancestors did not own slaves or participate in the slave trade, odds are are good that they were involved in economic activities involving slavery. All those yankee textile mills? It wasn’t unicorns and leprechauns providing the raw materials…
And remember that the Royal Navy’s slave trade interdiction of the early 1800s was less about altruism than it was about fucking with Spain’s colonial revenues.
There has been extensive research done on my father’s side, since the late 70’s. We have ancestors, Puritans escaping persecution in Europe, shipwrecked off the shores of Elutheria. Also Aficans escaping the slave trade shipwrecked in the same area. They commingled so we have African ancestors. Most of us would be labeled “white” by today’s standards. A generation and a half later, my ancestors sailed up to NC for the tobacco trade, moved west into TN, owned slaves, fought on both sides of the Civil War. Became destitute after the war, moved to TX where they had many children who worked their farm. These are the folks we refer to as the Greatest Generation today. The while tale of that trail of ancestry tells me that anyone looking to lay a guilt trip on me would get a BS flag to the face.
Anyone trying to play the white guilt game on me gets a hearty “FUCK YOU!” until they call me a “racist” which means I WIN and thus I wear the title with pride! BTW, slavery is still practiced in Afreica today, just look at how Sudanese muslims treat Christians!
There are quite a lot of places where slavery is still occurring.
In some places they’ve renamed it to “indentured servant”.
Even “advanced countries” like Japan, France, etc., have slave trades. What you call it is irrelevant, in some cases “authorities” look the other way if it isn’t their own citizens, or if they get a percentage every month.
Interesting, Hondo. Your analysis breaks down a bit, at least locally. Here in the southern end of the PRofMD, we have three counties originally settled by five families, which resulted in family trees that rather resemble telephone poles from all the in-breeding. Worse, upon emancipation, the freed slaves often took the surnames of their former masters, which makes perfect sense but doesn’t exactly help the issue.
So, if you were born here, congrats. You’re a SMIB. And if you weren’t, doesn’t matter how long you’ve lived here, you “ain’t from around hea-ah.”
Doesn’t break down at all, AW1Ed. The number of unique ancestors per generation can easily vary locally. From what you say above, it may well have been just a touch lower in your area in the past that 2 – or even, at times, 1.5. (smile)
Doesn’t matter, though. MD was a slave state, and I’d be willing to wager that most of the “longtime” white residents there were descendents of plantation owners. For longtime black residents, once you’re back far enough in time that their ancestors are in Africa from that point the analysis is just like anywhere else. Go back far enough, and it’s almost a certainty that somewhere in their family tree there’s either a slave owner or a slave trader. Bet on it.
Slavery is a human evil. It’s not unique to any race.
“MD was a slave state, and I’d be willing to wager that most of the “longtime” white residents there were descendents of plantation owners.” Sucker’s bet, Hondo. Sotterly Plantation is right up the road, complete with the original chapel and slave quarters. This part of MD was solidly for the Confederacy back in the day. Ironically, Point Lookout was a POW camp for captured Confederates, who were guarded mostly by black Union soldiers.
I’m going to toss in a bit of history here that does escape notice from the hoity-toity set.
Many immigrants to the US from Europe and England/Ireland/Scotland were bondservants who had a choice between the colonies or debtor’s prison.
In the Roman era, someone who carried a debt load and could not pay it off could sell himself into slavery and work off the debt. It’s the same thing as a bondservant, but the difference is that when the debt was worked off, he received a writ of manumission.
The press gangs of the British navy frequently stopped American ships not far outside their harbors and confiscated American sailors to replenish their own losses.
And last, but certainly not least, it is a fact that the Africans who were exported to the colonies in the Americas were taken prisoner and sold to the slave traffickers by Arab and black African tribes.
The Civil War was started, not just to free the slaves. That is an incomplete concept. The industrial North despised the agrarian South and its ‘free’ labor and wanted to destroy the economy of the South.
Abe Lincoln hated slavery, which impelled him to write the Emancipation Proclamation. He did not, however, want any black Africans as neighbors, period.
Oh, yeah – my great grandfather, his three brothers, their uncle and my grandmother’s uncle all fought on the side of the Union during the Civil War.
I have ABSOLUTELY NOT ONE SHRED OF GUILT about anything.
Good article, Hondo.
This, too, shall pass.
I almost left out this part unintentionally:
If we’re going to talk about slave labor, let’s discuss sweatshops in the USA whose immigrant owners take advantage of immigrants looking for work; the sex trafficking and child trafficking that go on all over the world; and the children who worked the pit mines and steel foundries and mills in the UK during the Industrial Revolution, never mind those in France and the rest of Europe and which is still going on in Africa and SEAsia.
When that is stopped, I will listen to the whining, screaming blowhards, but until then, they can go scratch their asses till they bleed.
Or poor southern sharecroppers the always get overlooked in the history books,
^^^^^^^ Amen ^^^^^^^
I feel rather Dickensian today.
‘Please, sir, can I have some more, sir?’
RE: The Emancipation Proclamation.
First, in my view, it was a cynical political act designed to refocus the war effort and pander to the abolitionists, much like the current administration pandering to homosexuals.
When the EP was published, the federal armies then in the field, and in particular the Army of the Potomac, came damned close to full mutiny. The hue and cry throughout the ranks was that they didn’t enlist to free the n!@@3&$ but to preserve the Union. It wasn’t until a bit later that an officer of the Irish Brigade, who wrote under the pen name “Miles O’Riley” published an article in the newspapers entitled “Sambo’s Right To Be Kilt”. that things began to come under control. The author explained, again cynically but factually, that every black man enlisted into the army was someone else who could catch a bullet in place of a white soldier. If you enlisted enough of them (and the North eventall enlisted over 118K of them, then the odds of white soldiers surviving the war became a whole lot better. The troops pondered this and though they still complained, the mutiny died down.
Two: As to the EP itself, it only freed slaves in states in rebellion and NOT currently under federal control. For example, there were still slave owners who kept their slaves in parts of Louisiana because the state had been brought under control of federal troops. It did nothing to free any slaves in Northern states, or out west. So it was a political act that in actuality did little to help any slaves, since there was no way for the federal government to enforce it in those southern states not under federal control.
Anyway, some more food for thought.
I remember when Denny’s was called Sambo’s.
I think the food was better too…
Oh man, I remember that too. Especially their panckaes with tiger butter. 🙂
We were at a loss when the local Sambo’s changed it’s name. Now it’s called, I believe, Angie’s.
Some outfit produced a “Mockumentary” movie “CSA”, it was a “What if the CSA won?” type of movie, and the “commercials” shown were of places and products that DID exist, here’s one:
It goes on to show “Sambo Axle Grease” where it mentions the Sambo’s restaurant chain as well.
nitpicking… Denny’s was a competitor to Sambo’s. When the restaurant chain was going bankrupt Denny’s bought many of the locations but Sambo’s (which was originally named after the two founders’ first names, Sam and Bo) did not become Denny’s.
Tim, I have to disagree, especially with “cynical.”
As we all know, Lincoln was anti-slavery, not abolitionist. In fact he believed that Congress had no constitutional power to outlaw slavery in any state where it then existed. This is key to understanding how the proclamation was constructed, and why.
Lincoln -unlike our current president- felt that he could not unilaterally change the laws of the nation, but he could take action as the CINC by removing slaves as an economic resource. This explains why slavery wasn’t outlawed per se and why slaves in non-rebellious states weren’t freed. The president had no legal basis for those acts.
In fact, not only was the proclamation not cynical, the proclamation demonstrated Lincoln’s very high degree of respect of constitutional forms.
I understand your point, but I disagree and stand by my view as it being not only cynical, but pandering.
Lincoln issued the Emancipation proclamation not to try and free any slaves, because as you state he was legally incapable of doing that, as it would require changing the law, but to try and bring the abolitionists onboard the war effort in a big way. The federal government, until then, had been losing, and losing badly. Antietam could well be considered a Confederate victory is all facets of their objectives were considered, but because the federal army held the field, Lincoln justified it as a victory and then went about putting together the EP and issuing it the following year.
It was pandering of the worst sort, not unlike this current president’s pandering to homosexuals, muslims and the eco-watermelons.
Lincoln’s administration was being bombarded in the press for failure to crush the rebellion, to win a battle, ANY battle, and the only way that Lincoln could counter that was by riling up the abolitionist folks and their fire & brimstone speechifying and rabble-rousing mob mentality.
And it was cynical, and even dishonest because Lincoln not only couldn’t free any slaves in the north, but he had no power over any areas where federal troops were NOT in control. So the whole idea of actually freeing ANY slaves is moot, because at that point it couldn’t be done.
Respects,
AW1 Tim: the only quibble I have is with your characterizing Lincoln’s issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation as being “cynical”. I don’t think the man was being cynical. “Calculating” and “seizing the opportunity” are IMO more correct.
Although Lincoln was against slavery, Lincoln said himself that his primary purpose was to preserve the Union. He further stated that if doing so required freeing no slaves, he’d do that; if it required freeing all slaves, he’d do that; and if it could be done by freeing some and leaving others enslaved, he’d do that.
IMO, the Emancipation Proclamation was indeed issued for political reasons, and in reality it had little or no effect. And I think Lincoln knew that full well.
But at the time, as you point out below Lincoln needed the political support, or he’d be forced to recognize the Confederacy – and thus destroy the Union. I don’t see his decision as cynical as much as one of last resort. Antietam gave him the opportunity.
Actually the Union Army enlisted 185,000 Blacks. The state that was credited with the most enlisting was Kentucky.
One interesting thing is that states could use men from other states to fill their “quotas” for Federal Service. A recuiting Officer from for instance, New York could recruit men in Pa. It was the same with Negro troops.
Freed Slaves from SC could be recruited by officers from New Jersey put in a USCT regiment and credited toi NJ.
I carry zero guilt over the things I’VE done in my life. I sure don’t/won’t carry any guilt from what my ancestors may have done.
NBC Guy..I feel guilty about only one thing in my life. Warning him not to come home and blow his rapist ass to hell. I THINK ABOUT THAT DECISION EVERY single day and will until I die.
My family came to North Carolina in the early 1600’s. We’ve been here almost 400 years now. The spread out from North Carolina to Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky & Texas. My GG Grandfather and 4 of his brothers served in the 4th Texas Infantry and had a cousin in thr 5th Texas. After the war, he stayed in Virginia with a local girl he met and married in 1864. Our family seems to have a habit of marrying later in life and having kids later as well. For example, my father was born in 1918 (and he’s still around). But regardless, my family owned slaves. I’ve met 2 men while I was in the Navy, (1 Airforce and 1 Navy) who shared my last name and who we agreed were almost certainly descended from slaves my family had owned. We had some interesting, and insightful talks about that period, and got along well. But yeah, my ancestors owned slaves. I didn’t. I refuse to accept any sort of burden of “white guilt” and demand to be judged solely on my own actions. In that vein, I’d also add this: It is a disservice to our ancestors, I’d say almost a crime, to judge them by our morals and standards. An honest and objective evaluation of them can only be made by staying within the acceptable and legal standards of their environment, the times in which they lived. In 1860, slavery was legal. That’s on Congress and the various states, and not on me. While I reject the idea of slavery, my ancestors didn’t and I cannot find fault with them for taking advantage of an institution that was legal, and considered morally acceptable by the overwhelming majority of citizens in these United States at that time. But regardless, those days are gone, no one wants to bring back slavery, but at the same time, we cannot remove the past. We cannot and must not attempt to hide or obfuscate what happened where, when, and by and to whom. It’s a part of us, it’s one portion of the journey that has… Read more »
Dammit Hondo, just when you had me on the edge of my seat, numerically proving that one of my ancestors was almost certainly enslaved…right when I was fixing to ask “how much do I get?”… you wash it all away by saying that inherited guilt is bullshit!
The man just keeps on keeping me down.
I feel no guilt for any generation of my family that may or may not have owned slaves. I feel no guilt over anyone’s family that may or may have not owned slaves. I feel no guilt over anyone’s actions but my own.
Here’s a little input on my family tree and insight from back when traveling distances where a lot tougher. I will keep it fairly modern.
My maternal grandparents came from families that numbered 12 and 9 children respectively. My paternal grandparents came from families that numbered 10 and 11 children respectively. I guess the number of people required to make the family farm a go and the need to stay warm at night during the winter months were mitigating factors in producing large families.
All four of them were born between 1884 and 1893, in an area of rural northern Indiana that consisted of small family farms and all were within 7 miles of each other.
One might think that with all the children produced from those four families they may have been some other marriages between them, but nope. My parents were the only ones who married as “back fence neighbors”
But the times have certainly changed. I can count the actual number of first cousins to me that are still alive with one hand and two fingers.
Good grief, Hondo. Nothing like a semantic game to get the ol’ synapses firing. Basing an argument on the definition of “family” is almost as cool as discussing what the meaning of “is” is.
All I know is that my great-grandfather fought with the Union cavalry during the Civil War, and came home, randy old trooper that he was, to raise 13 children. One of whom was apparently hanged as a horse thief.
This is seriously angsty stuff. Planned Parenthood aside, the thought alone of having a nag-stealin’ varmit in the genetic woodpile is enough to cause night sweats and a persistent rash that might be PTS.
It might even call for a huggie blanket and a nice warm cup of gluten-free, non-fat, shade-grown cocoa.
Do I win?
Win? Valiant effort, but no. But as a consolation prize, you do get one interweb point for correctly using “hanged” instead of the misused term “hung” when describing the demise of your ancestor.
I’da just shot him DRT. Fooking horse thieves.
And for all you Yankees who feel a bit of moral superiority over your ancestors not having slaves:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_New_York
If you think there was no slavery in the North, just Google the term.
Not long ago, a commenter (I forget who) pointed out that his state–New Hampshire–was not a slave state. Thus, he was guilt free. No, there were only a few slaves there, that’s true. But it is also true that Portsmouth was an integral piece of the triangle slave trade. Funny how that works. New Hampshire was not much of a slave state. It only was a slave trader right into the 19th century. (I guess that’s how liberalism got its start.)
I read somewhere the other day, and if I shake this laziness off,I’ll find a link. But there’s somewhere in the area of 20,000,000 (that’s millions right? Just woke up) people in slavery today,like now today. I don’t hear or see many people in America bitching about those people and worried about their rights. They are all concerned with,according to Hondo’s numbers, 15 generations ago and if they can “get what’s coming to me”!
I have family on both sides (as I stated in a previous thread that no one read but was quite funny,shame on y’all!) As I’m sure most people do. Now because I look and identify as white I should be ashamed over something I had no control over ? I am ashamed over a lot I’ve done (ok,no I’m really not but I tell my Mommy I am) but I refuse to be forced to make apologies for something I had no part in nor something that even in my most tequila state I would never do. And there’s not much I haven’t or wouldn’t do in a tequila state.
Just my wooden nickel’s worth.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: per a hard-working friend of mine who came up here from Mexico, the biggest industry in Mexico is not drugs.
It is child pornography. And where does that come from? Child trafficking.
Human trafficking is alive, healthy and kicking.
20 millions may be an understatement if China doesn’t deign to give out numbers.
India is not happy with a close look at its sweatshop garment industry. Wasn’t it in India a little while ago that another factory collapse and a lot of people were killed, because the building was poorly constructed?
Those iPads, tablets and smartphones you guys use to post entries on TAH cost about $6 to make in China, so you paid far too much for your toys. The people who put those things together get a daily wage equivalent to a couple hours of US minimum wage, IF THAT. No, they are not put together with machines. Machines make the parts. People put the parts together.
And that is why I don’t buy Apple products. Though today it’s hard to know where all the tiny parts are made or assembled. I do “try” to make smart purchases. But shit when you see things like “US Military calls for a stop to using Flags made in China”,kinda lets you know common sense is not only dead,it’s parts were outsourced anyway.
I heard someone say it a lot time ago, “all the parts are made in the same places, you just have different companies putting them together differently.”
I don’t buy apple products because the iphone sucks, their computers don’t run all the things I want them to, plus way too many people who use apple products have a Smug cloud following them around. Just like people who drive a Priusssssss.
Priussssssss? From what I’ve seen, I thought that was spelled “Pricks-R-Us”.
PH2 – sorry, but I work in the contract manufacturing industry and anyone who tells you the components cost of an electronic product is $6 and they sell it for $600 is blowing smoke. The typical contract manufacturer works on margins of 5-15%… now Apple makes a healthy profit, but all commercial goods typically have multiple layers of profit. A good safe number is about 50% component cost, a few bucks (literally) assembly labor, and the rest is freight, warehousing, distribution, marketing (a HUGE chunk) and profit.
“I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: per a hard-working friend of mine who came up here from Mexico, the biggest industry in Mexico is not drugs.
It is child pornography. And where does that come from? Child trafficking.”
Your source from a single individual doesn’t correlate to other data like the Mexican oil industry producing around 2.5 million barrels per day. I’ve known you to be rational and logical in many other statements you make, but this is how false stories get started. Discount individuals who make such false claims, it detracts and creates hyperbole around the issue of child pornography and human trafficking.
You’ve also put a subconscious qualifier of “hard-working” to define them as a “good” Mexican. I’m not commenting to be belligerent, merely for people to see how (and what) they are writing. Maybe that will just mark me as too “PC” here.
If you ever have a chance do a DNA test through a reputable company. I did mine through Ancestry.com and they will actually tie you in with people who have shared DNA.
I have Thousands of people who did it that are related to me through blood.
Another think about DNA tests,, there are a few Companies that love to scam African Americans. They do the test but only report the Sub-Saharan portions.
Thats correct, the person will not get any reports of European Ancestory, no matter how prevalent.
A lot of it is because the people requesting the test don’t want to accept it, but it is unethical to play to the ignorance and predjudice of those trying to cherry pick their DNA.
I did mine with ancestry as well. fairly interesting and I even found out I have a small percentage of DNA from arab countries.
So, I can call my people ragheads because I are one. lol
I had 2% North African DNA, as well as 14% Italian/Greek. Also traces of Askenazi Jew and Iberian Peninsula. All a huge surprise as non of my research ( and I have went back hundreds of years) show those places.
I put it down to Roman Legions pushing North.
That whole Roman connection is indeed quite possible. Today, the majority of Britons have a surprisingly high percentage of Roman/Greek DNA. The Greek, of course, coming through the ancestors who settled Syracuse and then Rome, then everywhere else. 🙂
9% of my DNA comes from the planet Riza.
And I aced my entrance exam into the Corp of Space Cadets at the Space Academy.
What does that tell you?
Riza? Do you know Steve?
I don’t look back because that’s not where I’m going. I’ve never owned a slave, and I would never walk by someone that I thought was a slave without attempting to correct the situation. That’s the best I can do, and I refuse to feel guilty for things that happened before I was born.
Hondo: Nicely done. My only quibble (not really a disagreement, I think) would be that while it can be said that the notion of “historical guilt” has been the cause of so much human conflict I think a better term than cause would be “pretext.”
And the reason I say that is that while the notion of “your ancestors murdered my ancestors so you must die” is something that can often be used to motivate the hoi polloi, the real “cause” is usually power and gain, and the historical wrong to be “avenged” is an after-the-fact pretext for fighting.
With both the Israelis and Palestinians, Indians and Pakstanis, etc, the real cause of the conflict is that both disparate groups want control and hegemony over the same patch of dirt. The “historical roots” of the conflict are manufactured pretexts, not really “root causes.”
There are plenty of peoples in the world who have much greater “historical wrongs” between them who get along fine, simply because they’re not fighting over anything NOW. The British did some pretty barbaric things during our history and yet we’re BFFs now. The native Americans could say the very same thing about the US.
We mostly get along not because the historical conflicts have disappeared but because there’s no CURRENT conflict that would justify bringing up the old conflicts to get people riled up.
Hondo, thanks for this analysis. I just had to drop it on a college buddy on Facebook. Because he is from a NY Italian family he thought he could call all us proud southern boys rascists. Math never lies. Idiots never learn.