ATLAS OF THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE : ANCESTRY WORSHIP BOOK RECOMMENDATION

This big, impressive hardback book is quite the accomplishment for the authors. Eltis is the a the Robert W. Woodruff Professor History and Principal Investigator for the electronic Slave Trade Database Project, at Emory University.  Richardson is the director of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, and professor of economic history, University of Hull, England and also is on the advisory board for the Slave Trade database 

The book contains old art that depicted slavery (as the artist imagined it), maps of the slave trade word of the Atlantic including routes and numbers of slaves transported from place to place (or region to region), quotes from journals of slavers, and discussion of the roles various ethnicity-nationals played in the trade; the Portuguese - who dominated Africa to South American, the Spanish who moved slaves from Central and West-Central Africa to the Caribbean, the Dutch who moved slaves from Dutch owned Africa to Dutch owned plantations of Spanish America - and from there, British slave trafficking and how it changed over the years ... and an overall history with details and specifics.

Consider that fewer slaves died on the way to Brazil as the length of the voyage was shorter but there were also other factors such as, possibly, that the slaves taken started out in better health, or - perhaps - this is my notion - that the slavers became more careful to take those who were healthier as they had more money to gain with an alive shipload of humans than not.

So, you may be wondering how this book might benefit you and your ancestral research into genealogy.

Many people who know or suspect they have African slave heritage go with DNA testing to get information about the ethnic group or groups they have lineage with. But maybe the testing could lead to a discovery that is more unusual.

According to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. this book is a "gold mine" of information.

For instance on page 216  (Map 143 New England, 166-1802) it says:

Relatively few slaves (some 10,000) reached New England directly from Africa. Most came from areas west of modern Nigeria. Ninety percent arrived in Boston - and Newport owned vessels. More African captives reached New England through inter-colonial trafficking or as the residual of a larger group of slaves sold from New England Transatlantic vessels in the West Indies.

EMORY SLAVE INDEXES

Excerpt: The Slave Voyages site now provides resources detailing more than 36,000 Slave trading Voyages between Africa and the New World, another 11,400 intra-American Voyages from one part of the Americas to another, and data on some 92,000 Africans forced to make those journeys. 

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SLAVE VOYAGES ORG - TWO DATBASES : TRANS-ATLANTIC and INTRA-AMERICAN

SLAVE VOYAGES ORG  TRANSATLANTIC - era 1514-1866  - INTRA-AMERICAN

year -name of vessel - where captives were purchased - where ship landed - numbers of slaves alive on ship at arrival - name of captain.

**************************************************

Slavery As It Exists In America.
Slavery As It Exists in England

source: Library of Congress -Washington DC -Prints and Photographs Division

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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UNDERGROUND RAILROAD QUILT CODES

SMITHSONIAN FOLK LIFE MAGAZINE : UNDERGROUND RAILROAD QUILT CODES 

Did slaves and Underground Railroad participants set out quilts that were maps to freedom, signals that it was a good time to leave, or that a particular house was a safe house on the way to Ohio Territory?

Patterns:

Bow Tie - Dress in disguise to appear of higher status.

Bear Paw - Follow an animal trail through the mountains to find water and food.

Log Cabin - Seek shelter now, the people here are safe to speak with.

Drunkards Path - Zig Zag as you go along incase you are being stalked by houndes.

Double Wedding Ring - It's now safe to remove chains and shackles. 

 *** This article suggests that the book about the codes, a popular book that I read years ago, is controversial... 

Well, I believe it.  I loved this book!

TRAVELS WITH GEORGE : ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY BOOK REVIEW

Nathaniel Philbrick*** is adept at writing about the early inhabitants of the colonies and key figures in the foundation of the United States. This book is about George Washington, who took office in 1789 and was our first President after a successful Revolutionary War campaign. It's about his family, his wife Martha, and slavery, as well as other aspects of the man's personality and character. 

What Philbrick did was travel the route that Washington himself did: New England to South Carolina and a small area of Georgia. He went to some of the places where Washington's presence was well known enough to enjoy tours and reenactments today. He talked to people.  As he says on page 6, "But this wasn't going to be the same kind of carefree ramble enjoyed by Harry and Bess (Truman)  in the 1950's. We were, after all, following the travels of a slaveholder at a time when Confederate monuments were being removed across the South.  The country's political divide seemed to be widening by the day.  And yet I didn't want this trip to be about what separates us.  I wanted to find out how Washington attempted to bind us together into a lasting union of states.  Acknowledging and even delving into his weaknesses and failings, especially when it came to slavery, I wanted to know what Washington got right - what tools he and his generation had left us to begin to build a better nation.

Oh, and a little independent research on my part; our first three presidents, Washington, Jefferson, and Madison all spoke with English accents. They didn't just speak with that accent, they had that accent because they were British, and their thoughts had to be influenced by a certain mentality of that ethnic heritage, that political system - the King - even as they wanted different for a new nation.

(I try to think of my own ancestors who were in Europe in 1800.  I often wonder what they heard of the American Revolution and what they thought of it.)

There are a few passages in this book that I thought were especially telling or valuable which I will be excerpting. In particular the way Washington dealt with his slaves and those who were brought into the marriage by his wife Martha, called "dower slaves," was especially telling. Laws of inheritance at the time prevented him from decisions on Martha's.

As I have been, rather than do one extremely long session of excerpts, I will play it forward and readers who are interested in more can bring up all posts by clicking on the label or using the search feature...  Try the words George Washington.  This book is a recommended read for those of you who like to learn more about American History, especially as it might pertain to your own genealogy research.

Oh, and as a P.S.  The author and his wife took their dog with them on their travels.  Washington loved his dogs.  Page 23:  "Not only had he almost single-handedly developed what we call today the American fox-hound, but he had a great affection for his dogs, giving them names like Sweet Lips, Drunkard, and True Love.

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*** In the past I reviewed his book about the Mayflower.

 

MIXED RACE SLAVE OWNERS IN BARBADOS and THE REPARATIONS CONTROVERSY : BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH FAMILY HERITAGE

I feel, based on what I learned over the years through genealogy that the question of Reparations for the bad deeds of ancestors is at best complicated and unworkable.  To be fair I believe that DNA tests as well as genealogies of all would be necessary and math would have to be applied. That's because you cannot know by looking at a person if they are Black or have Black ancestry, and even when this seems quite apparent, you cannot know other details such as how long the family line has lived in, say, the United States, or had citizensip.

I currently have a friend who was born in Britain, whose mother took the family to New York but who still has a grandmother in England, who comes from this Island - sugar plantation - heritage of slavery. However, she now has American citizenship as do her children. So I ask you, how would we figure out just how much money, if any, she is owed?  Would she, because she is visibly Black, also get California money? The fact is it would probably cost as much to do this type of program fairly as the payout, and to me that is unworkable.

In this article, by Sue Reid for Daily Mail, discusses the slave owning heritage and mixed race ancestors of the family of actor Benedict Cumberbatch, not only is there a reveal about race but also that historically there have been payouts that benefited the family.

DAILY MAIL : REPARATIONS DEBATE by Sue Reid

I first encountered the historical reality that went against assumptions - and even classroom learning - when in a genealogy search for a client I found that his ancestors were both those who were marched during the Trail of Tears as well as those who forced the marching. His early ancestors had mixed race families with Native Americans and on census some children in some families were listed as B - Black - but they were actually part Cherokee. Also, a few of his cousins a few times removed married Cherokee and moved from the settlers to the tribe so very likely today those relatives are members of the tribe. There were also Native American slave holders in the area. Though most people who owned slaves had one or two and those slaves lived in with the family (yes, believe it or not) this particular Native American had a couple dozen slaves farming for him. 

There are no absolutes when it comes to history and as a genealogist I'm concerned that the documents lead to history, not a reworking of it.

Like the author of this article, I too believe that at least in some of the mixed race unions, in which marriage was not legally possible, there was love or at least the possibility of love. That said, the role of women in general was so not equal to that of the men, and genealogy has reinforced my feminism. (As an example as President, Thomas Jefferson had to obey the law, and the law forbid him to marry Sally Hemings.)

This article, especially considering that it was published by Daily Mail, which is a a tabloid rather than a hard news venue, does an excellent job of showing why there is controversy.

***

All that said, being against Reparations does not mean that I'm against giving a hand up to those who need it. This is best done in a quiet and personal way.  One should not assume, however, that a person needs help simply because they are a certain race, or that they do not need it because they are a certain race.

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THE LAST SLAVE SHIP (CLOTILDA) by BEN RAINES : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BOOK REVIEW

Subtitled, The True Story of How Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants, and an Extraordinary Reckoning by Ben Raines

Fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed, a ship full of slaves did indeed arrive in Mobile, Alabama. These Africans had faces decorated by scarification in Africa which would set them apart from other Black people already in the slave states. The voyage to Africa - Dohomey - and back was the work of businessmen who were also enjoying the prospect of flaunting the law and winning a bet as well hoping to enjoy wealth from the sell of humans. The descendants of these slaves founded their own town, Africatown, and as communities go, are close, bound by the history of their ancestors. The discovery of the ship was also an adventure, and takes up a good portion of the book.

The sailship Clotilda was built in 1855, and the voyage occurred in 1860, so while slavery was not yet outlawed, bringing more slaves in was.  It was captained by it's previous owner.  The eight-six foot two-masted schooner was not at all the type of ship best used for transporting slaves.  Usually a slave ship held between 500 to 1000 humans.  However - and I know this sounds ironic - but British and American authorities were on the seas looking for illegal slavers - and so this ship was not likely to catch their attention yet there were risks involved of arrest and the loss of their investments.

Page 29 "By the 1850's. thirty-six ships that Britain had assigned to its West African Squadron had captured sixteen hundred slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans en route to the United States. ... in May of 1860, just as he (Foster) was outfitting the Clotilda for its slaving run, U.S. revenue cutters around Key West intercepted three ships headed to port with 1,432 enslaved Africans on board." Page 30 "The outlay of $35,000 often brings $500,000." Page 32 ..."March 3, 1860, Foster kissed his wife goodbye and made the short walk from the boardinghouse (where they lived)...A heavy bag slung over his shoulder hid twenty-seven pounds of gold...

False papers ready, the ship was cleared for a run to St. Thomas...

Page 40 The Kingdom of Dahomey (West Africa) was "well known as one of the most violent and ruthless societies in human history... built on war."

Basically, this tribe of West African people waged war on others just to collect humans they could sell into slavery as a central part of their economy.  Page 40 "Historians estimate the Kingdom of Dahomey may have been responsible for capturing and deporting about 30 % of all the Africans sold in bondage worldwide between 1660 and the 1880's." The British had tried to negotiate with their King that this slave trade be stopped but was not successful.

Once the deals had been made, the ship did not depart immediately. The slaves were taken to Ouidah, and locked up in the barracoon*** for three weeks. This sea port had been build to accommodate the slave trades with forts that had been built by the French, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, and English, and the newly captured were treated as good as cattle.  The slaves were young adults for the most part. 125 were selected but in the last moments, they Clotilda sailed away with fifteen left on shore, the abandonment costly, because it appeared they might be caught.  Most of these people had never seen the ocean or been on a ship. When they arrived in Alabama they also came into a foreign environment of swamps full of cane plants that grew 30 to 40 feet high, spiders, flies, and mosquitoes, and reptiles. They were held for eleven days, being kept a secret.  The secret could not be kept for long for the departure had been in the national newspapers and the return too. The men faced legal ramifications, which were not severe.

The slaves were sold, and the friendships formed in the months in which they had been held together were maintained.  Some of these people were interviewed and the content of those interviews still exists.

During the Civil war Page 117 "The last battle of the war was fought around the abandoned city of Blakeley, just on the other side of the swamp from the Meaher's sawmill and shipyard at Magazine Point.  You could hear the booming of cannons, which thundered for several days, from Meaher's front poerch, softening up the Confederate lines before the inevitable Union assault....  Sixteen thousand Union troops, including five thousand men in all African- American United States Colored Troops infantry regiments, fought four thousand Confederates for seven days.  In the final battle, the African-American infantry companies joined together, forming the entire right flank of the Union forces.  The African-American troops, comprised of the formerly enslaved and free men alike, suffered the highest casualties at Blakeley, but also won the final, decisive battle."

This book is about adventure and survival.  There is a lot to learn about this time and place in American history from it. 

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*** A Spanish word that means barracks

HUNTINGTON LIBRARY DOCUMENTS : SALT WORKERS IN WEST VIRGINIA and SLAVERY

LA TIMES LEGACY OF INDUSTRY FUELED BY SLAVERY : SALT WORKERS WEST VIRGINIA by Makeda Easter - an excellent article.


Excerpt:  Inside the cramped and dusty attic overlooking the pale green Kanawha River in the Appalachian Mountains, stacks of 100 year old business records - deposit books, letters from customers, employee records - balanced precariously on cabinets, lined shelves and sat scattered across the wooden floor.

***

The Huntington has acquired at auction documents of the slave trade and Underground Rail Road.  This acquisition is exciting to me as a genealogist.

HUNTINGTON ORG:   This link tells more about the salt works acquisition as well as another important slavery acquisition.


Excerpt: The first group of materials includes the papers of Zachariah Taylor Shugart... a Quaker abolitionist who operated an Underground Railroad stop at his farm in Cass County, Michigan. The centerpiece of the collection is an account ledger which contains the names of 137 men and women who passed through Shugart's farm while trying to reach freedom in Canada...

...

The second collection is the archive of some 2,000 letters and accounts documenting the history of the Dickinson and Shrewsbury saltworks, a major operation founded in 1808 in what is now Kanawha County, West Virginia...

FREEDMAN BANK RECORDS - USEFULNESS

The Freedman Bank Records are sometimes useful to genealogy researchers and are available through FamilySearch, some online library collections, and other genealogy databases.    

Here is my experience with them:

First, after emancipation from slavery, citizens who had been enslaved were allowed to own bank accounts for the first time. However, at this time not all ex-slaves had names they liked. Some continued to use a surname of their latest slave-owner, for example, but they were free to rename themselves. As a result, a number of relatives might choose different surnames. And some would rename themselves first and last. And some tried on a surname and didn't like it and changed it again. Changing names did not require a legal process.

Came the day that an African American client of mine, who really only needed his mother's death certificate, and learned the oral history he had been given was not correct when he read it, asked me to go a little further. Sure, that his mother's name was highly unusual, I gave it a search in Freedman Bank and because the name was so unusual, I was lead to that his mother had been named after her ex-slave grandmother. (From there I proofed as much as possible.)  This was perhaps the fastest genealogy search I ever had that lead to the enslaved ancestor.

Another factor to consider is that the Freedman Bank didn't last too long.  According to FamilySearch, The Freedman's Savings and Trust company failed in 1874 and many lost their savings.

Additionally, I found surnames that were German or otherwise not distinctly African-American or of English origins in this database. Some people who were not ex-slaves or African American did deposit in Freedman Bank. The decision to have an account was probably as easy as that they lived near a branch or believed in the cause.  So these are BANK RECORDS and not everyone in the database was ever a slave.

And consider that ex-slaves may have deposited in one place and then moved.

Overall, I don't think this database is helpful to most people but it can't be skipped in case it is!

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