RESPONSES FROM READERS
It is with no small irony that I read this article in the same week that I discovered the will of my great-great grandfather signed on April 20, 1864. In it he listed the names of 76 slaves bequeathed to his wife in the event of his death. Like Ann Banks, I have access to a significant amount of written history down to the where they hid the silver with a few pieces in my own drawer. Unlike Karen Orozco Gutierrez and Ann Banks, I live on land passed down through the generations and I imagine many of my black neighbors can trace their ancestors back to some of the names of those slaves.
I have been encouraged by these two women’s collaborative search to share what I have and delve deeper into the other side of that history that I know so little about. There are those close by who could add much more to my understanding of the past if I am brave enough to ask.
"Heritage" contextualized!
Beautifully written and conceived. Because I'm Jewish, and the families on both sides are from eastern Europe, I long ago resigned myself to the reality that Hitler wiped out most of my family and, essentially, I have no past. Not that kind, anyway; and I've never bothered to retrace it: too painful. I made a decision to cast my lot with the future, recognizing that there's no "homeland," just migration for survival, something humans have always done. I have a fierce commitment to humanizing that process as it accelerates because of climate change and globalization. Yet the past you write about is within all of us: the psychological topography passed on through the generations. Respect to both of you for facing that.
Beautiful and powerful work. These last lines really resonate, especially now: “The stories of my slaveholding family had been there all along, waiting for me to become willing to know them. Such willingness comes gradually, slowly - until suddenly, in moments that illuminate the landscape like summer lighting, it’s no longer possible to look away.”
What a wonderful tribute to human courage, compassion, curiosity, and resilience! Thank you for this story by Ann Banks, whose ancestor owned human beings and her journey with Karen Orozco Gutierrez, whose ancestor was owned by Ms. Banks ancestor. May we all be so open to our own truth, and our responsibility to do better.
I am so moved by the connection, this ability you both have to face this ugliness of our history together with such grace and openness.
Researching my mother's family from Laurens, SC, I found my gggrandfather's will listing the names of 13 enslaved persons and their value to the estate. He died in 1864. What hurt my heart was the listing of the people along with household items and farm implements as different families took parts of the estate. Then in 1866 an addendum was filed listing all the inventories and their current value. The Negros were listed as "$0" and everything else was reduced by a major amount. A table originally $2 was now listed as $0.50, or similar. For the last three years I have been studying the global impact of slavery and the impact of this finding in my own life. I would enjoy sharing more with you as I am starting to trace those listed in the will. I have found three formerly enslaved persons in the 1870s census but am not sure from there. I want to trace to current descendants and introduce myself. Your work anticipated what I have been wanting to do, and reading about it in the Smithsonian just met a deep need. This is the time when we, who have inherited such stability on the basis of Jim Crow come to terms with what that means. I have a new compassion for my ancestors who lost their children, society and economy in the Civil War, fighting to maintain such a gross injustice. I also have now a sense of ownership for the evils handed down over time in our nation to people of color, Coming to understand more is my challenge.
The article shows a true “antiracsist” moment of transformation of both women. I loved it. I hope to fill in the connection in both sides of my family to John Brown the abolitionist firebrand, and John Wilkes Booth, the polar opposite militant connected with Confederate spies and saboteurs, on my Mom’s side, and Edman “Ned” Spangler, the stagehand at Fords theater who was convicted as an accessory as an accessory to Booth’s bloody deed. I don’t think he was involved according to the trial transcript but who knows? They grew up together on the Booth mansion in Harford Co, north of Baltimore, the Spanglers as estate helpers and the Booths as the family of Junius a master Shakespearean. They both went into show biz Booth as a mediocre Shakespearean actor and Ned as a stage set carpenter.
Your article made me laugh, it made me cry, and that last line about the lightning really pulled it all together for me. It seems like it's hard for people to accept the past and take responsibility for what ancestors have done. It also seems like there is some tremendous guilt that has been pushed down so much that it's about to explode. The line where Karen reminds you that "you didn't own slaves" brought me to earth again. It reminded me that even though the past is the past, it exists for eternity if we are willing and able to search and scour for it.