AFRICAN AMERICAN FAMILY RECORD CIRCA 1880 SHOWING PROGRESS IN FREEDOM

I love the Before and After the Civil War of the African American farm family illustrated in this chart, which is held by the Library of Congress Collection.  It was produced by Krebs Lithographing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio.  It's a chromolithograph and is circa about 1880, about fifteen years after the slaves were freed.

BEECH

Image From Graphics Fairy

 

HEADRIGHT LAND GRANTS BEGAN IN THE COLONIES WITH THE VIRGINIA COMPANY

What was the incentive for a person to leave Europe and immigrate to a new country across the Atlantic Ocean? Transportation was on a wooden sail ship - small - called a bark (a bark had three or more masts) and rugged.  One might not survive the trip or leave family behind, never to be seen again.

Often it was the promise of land by HEADRIGHT or of employment.  Back in Europe those who were not in line to inherit, because they were not first sons, thought the idea of owning land despite the risks was the only way to get ahead.  But what if you were already here and experiencing a labor shortage?  You could import a laborer and become entitled to land!  Head in the term headright refers to ONE PERSON and that person might come as an indentured servant or as a laborer.  Many American Ancestors came this way.  The system spread from 1618 in Jamestown, Virginia  - from The Virginia Colony (which was the same as the Virginia Company) to other states such as Maryland, Georgia, and the Carolinas. For those who imported a laborer, the grants away usually fifty (50) acres per HEAD.

The system, which spread also to the Plymouth Colony, is controversial also because the indentured servant might spend about seven years paying off their voyage costs to the person who imported them, but then slaves were also brought in this way.  In a future post we'll look at the implications of that practice.

If you're searching for Colonial American Ancestors, consider learning the history of the region you find them and also look for documentation of land ownership or grants.

HERE is a link to AMERICAN HISTORY CENTRAL

Excerpt: 

1. In 1618, the Virginia Company approved the “Charter of Orders, Lawes, and Privileges” that implemented the Headright System. The system provided an incentive to wealthy investors to send more workers to Jamestown and the Virginia Colony.
2. Most of the workers the investors paid for were indentured servants or enslaved people.
3. The investor retained ownership of the land they received for each worker.
4. The system contributed to the growth of the population in the colonies, especially Virginia, along with the expansion of the lower class and chattel slavery.
5. The Headright System was modified in 1699 so investors could not receive land for indentured servants or slaves.

FARMSTEAD

 

INTERNET ARCHIVE presents an ONLINE RED BOOK of American State, County, and Town Sources

Ok, it's twenty years old and things have probably changed but this RED BOOK should give you some idea of what's available and you can always run searches for new addresses and contact information.

Internet Archive : RED BOOK (2004) Red book : American state, county & town sources

Excerpt: provides updated county and town listings within the same overall state-by-state organization ... information on records and holdings for every county in the United States, as well as excellent maps from renowned mapmaker William Dollarhide ... The availability of census records such as federal, state, and territorial census reports is covered in detail ... Vital records are also discussed, including when and where they were kept and how"--from publisher description

INTERNATIONAL GUILD OF KNOT TYERS

Tall ships need knots.  You might instead want to make an animal or a doll.  Went to a tall ships festival and learned about THE INTERNATIONAL GUILD OF KNOT TYERS.

Here's how to learn more. https://www.igkt.net

Excerpt: We have about a thousand members world-wide, from all walks of life, including academics, surgeons, sailors, sportsmen and women, scouters, magicians, farmers, miners and accountants.  Membership is open to anyone interested in knotting (whether expert of simply hoping to learn from others).

and https://igktna.org  NORTH AMERICA

Excerpt:  The purpose is to promote the art, craft, and science of knotting, its study and practice.

THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS by ISABEL WILKERSON : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BOOK REVIEW

 

This is a wonderful book, a collection of stories - mini memoirs almost - of three African-American  people from the Southern states who migrated to the Northern or Western Cities.  One leaves Mississippi for Chicago in 1937.  Another who left Florida for Harlem in 1945.  Another who left Louisiana in 1953 and traveled to San Diego and Los Angeles.  It's a story of how being in a different cultural environment made them change too. 

Other Black people were not always helpful or understanding of the new comers.

Excerpt page 287 :  In the receiving cities of the North and West, the newcomers like Ida Mae had to worry about acceptance or rejection not only from whites they encountered but from the colored people who arrived ahead of them, who could at times be the most sneeringly judgmental of all.

The northern-born colored people and the long-standing migrants, who were still trying to keep their footing in the New World, often resented the arrival of the unwashed masses pouring in from the very places some of the old-timers had left.  As often happens with immigrant groups, some of the old timers would have preferred to shut the door after they got there to protect their own uncertain standing.

The small colony of colored people already in the New World had made a place for themselves as an almost invisible minority by the time the migration began.  Many were the descendants of slaves the North had kept before Abolition or slaves who fled the south on the Underground Railroad or were among the trickle of pioneers who had migrated from the South in the decades after the Civil war.

A good portion were in the servant class - waiters, janitors, elevator operators, maids, and butlers to the wealthiest white families in the city.  But some had managed to create a solid though tenuous middle class of Pullman porters, postal workers, ministers, and businessmen who were anxious to keep the status and gains they had won.  The color line restricted them to the oldest housing in the least desirable section of town no matter what their class, but they had tried to make the best of it and had created a world within a world for themselves.

***

Some of these people, even in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles experienced being unwelcome and a different version of outright prejudice.

When writing our family history stories, we need to include the testimonials of relatives as those stories are told, even if what we hear or learn makes us uncomfortable.  We are here not to rewrite history but to be as accurate as we can.  Our references to documents must be titled as they are titled in the archive. When or if we come across conflicting stories, we can include them both, and let the reader know there are conflicting stories - opinions - or viewpoints that differ.  Research can add to or prove or dismiss a story, but I say that telling it as it was told to you helps us also understand that person's life, as they lived it.

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FOURTH OF JULY 1876

This image is held by the Library of Congress.  It is identified this way.  The flag that has waved one hundred years - A scene on the morning of the fourth day of July 1876. ( In Washington D.C.) Fabronius; E.P. and L. Restein's oilchrome, Philadephia : National Chromo Co publication  Philadelphia. A chromolithograph by Dominque C. Fabronius.

Ancestry Worship - Genealogy