Slave Descendants and the Slave Discussion

Tom Hughes

Sergeant Major
Joined
May 27, 2019
Location
Mississippi
No doubt a lot is going on in our nation currently dealing with America's past institution of slavery and re-visiting the issue once again.
As a student of history, I can read narratives, histories, etc. But I wanted more. I wanted to know more about "the other side".
So, I decided to begin a discussion involving local blacks about their slave descendants, and I was shocked.
Nobody seemed to know anything whatsoever about their descendants nor did they really seem to care other than wanting to change the landscape of reminders of slavery.
I knew that since most slaves couldn't read or write, oral histories became the chief way of communicating their histories and culture to their descendants.
Oral histories was the way Native American indian tribes carried down their traditions as well.
As slave generations passed into the 20th century and the last known slaves died out, so did their stories it seems.
Today, very few, if anyone in the black community, seems to care about their ancestry. This is such a shame.
Just as we research and try to learn more about our history of the Union and Confederate struggles of the civil war, you would think that the descendants of the main issue of the war (slavery) would know more than they do.
I did have a chance to interview a man whose freed family slave was still living in 1935. I have a photo of him with the slave descendant. He, along with other slave descendants were still living in the area on land given to them. But when people like that died, apparently their stories died with them. Unlike their white counterparts, they seemed to want to distance themselves from slavery or discussions of the topic. Probably because of the negative connotations associated with the subject.
I had an interesting encounter with an elderly black man back in the early 1990's in Mississippi. He was in his 80's at the time and grew up on a local plantation. He knew of many herbal remedies to illnesses and myths that you knew had been carried down through oral tradition. But he said none of his children cared about the old ways or his stories.
We could certainly learn from each other and add valuable content to the slave experience in our discussions if we only knew more.
 
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