Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: raybbr

If you had ancestors here during slavery then they may have owned slaves. People always think of the plantation owners with hundreds of slaves and there were actually few of them. Many others owned slaves though, most businesses of every kind and size owned slaves, 1 or more. Many middle class people owned at least one house slave to help with the cooking and cleaning as soon as they could afford to.

I was sure my family never owned slaves until I did some genealogy work. My mother’s family were fairly poor so she was sure they never owned slaves. Her grandfather made wooden barrels, and paid taxes on one slave. No one in the family had ever talked about it but there he was on the slave tax rolls paying for his one slave that helped him make barrels. We also found a few others in the family tree that listed one slave as household help.


22 posted on 10/05/2015 10:06:13 AM PDT by Tammy8
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies ]


To: Tammy8

ALL of my ancestors came from Poland or Prussia.


25 posted on 10/05/2015 1:39:37 PM PDT by raybbr (Obamacare needs a deatha panel)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson