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The Metoyer family ("famille de couleur libre" - free family of color), from Cane River/Natchitoches, Louisiana is perhaps the most famous black family to own its own people. They were conservative black slave owners who fought for their right to own their people. The Louisiana plantation, Melrose - once called Yucca plantation - sits today a proud reminder of this amazing family and the Metoyer legacy.
Why is this history of black slave owners so important? Because it forces academia to look at the truth of the South's slavery issue, the truth to the Civil War - a truth history books have covered up.
It is important for me, a descendent to white slave owners, to know that my ancestors' habits were not against the black man - just as the habits of the Metoyer family were not against their own people, but were a necessary means to tame the southern landscape, to prosper for the sake of family, a survival.