Confronting Slavery in Your Family History
There are probably over 30 million descendants of enslaved Africans and African Americans alive in the US today. It has been estimated that there are 15 million descendants of US slave holders alive today. If you know or suspect that one or more of your ancestors were slaves, slave holders or slave traders, we hope this part of our website is helpful to you. It is intended to offer ideas and support for researching your family’s possible connection to slavery, and for responding if or when you find a connection.
We have found the process of confronting this part of our family history to be transformational, and hope your journey is one of growth, self-discovery, and a greater sense of connection with your family and the world.
Some of our thoughts are for anyone on this journey, and some are specific to people with African heritage, or people with European heritage, people whose ancestors were enslaved, or people whose ancestors enslaved others.
(Though there were certainly exceptions, the vast majority of slave holders were of European heritage/white, and the vast majority of slaves were of African, African/European, and African/Native heritage. It is not our intention here to address every possible scenario, but we do understand other situations existed and we encourage anyone with a history of slavery in their family, whatever the connection, to try to learn about it, to reflect on what it means to you, to reflect on what you might do with information you find.)
Whatever your situation we hope you find something helpful in what we offer here.
Find support
We have found it crucial to find support as we undertake this process, whether it is a relative or a friend, perhaps someone else interested in family history, or just someone who cares about you and is willing to listen and be encouraging. There are not a lot of people who are ready to talk about slavery, much less a direct family connection to slavery, and it can be a very lonely process if you don’t have someone with whom you can share thoughts, discoveries, hopes and fears.
Because confronting slavery in our family history can be an emotionally charged experience, it can be especially helpful if the people you look to for support are able to accept tears and other expressions of emotion without judgment or interference. Being listened to well can be very helpful for clearing the mind.
Make Time for Reflection
It helps to take time at different stages of the journey to reflect on our thoughts, feelings, motivations, and expectations, whether we talk with a friend, or write in a journal, or find a quiet time and place to do some thinking and soul searching.
Getting Started
If you suspect slavery may be in your family history, either slave holders or enslaved people, here are some steps you can take to get started. Start asking family members about your family history. Be ready to listen to whatever they have to say. Take detailed notes. Consider recording conversations and perhaps doing a more formal interview. StoryCorp has some very good tips for interviewing. Many families have at least one person who has started doing genealogical research, and often when you start asking questions you will be directed to them. If you are lucky, you will be able to talk to those we sometimes call the ‘keepers,’ family elders who keep the stories of times past. Do what you can to learn and record all the treasures they are ready to share. They will be gone from us too soon.
If your family doesn’t usually talk about family history, you may want to start by asking general, open-ended questions, like ‘What do you know about our family history?’ or ‘How far back do you know about our family?’ Just listen and follow along to begin with. You never know what you might hear. If you’ve already heard lots of general information, or you sense it would help someone get started, you could ask more specific questions like ‘Do you know anything about your great grandfather Jones?’
Listen for stories and ancestors that your family members feel pride in and share that pride as best you can. Be patient if you find yourself hearing those same stories again and again.
After plenty of listening, approach the topic of slavery gently, if it hasn’t already come up. Feelings of shame, guilt, anger, embarrassment, or grief can make a family connection to slavery hard to talk about. Historically there were strong codes of silence that were enforced by social out-casting and in some cases charges of liable if people discussed family connections between the enslaved and enslaver. Although these threats may not currently exist or have milder consequences, patterns of silence may have origins in these fears.
Among African American families there is a wide range of awareness and knowledge about slavery, and about family connections to slavery. Some families have a strong and full oral history, some know nothing at all, with many families somewhere in between. There may be feelings of deep pride about ancestors having survived, and sometimes having accomplished great things, under circumstances beyond our comprehension. There may be feelings of rage or shame.
It has been our experience in Coming to the Table that white families with connections to slavery rarely have much awareness of that connection. It seems that feelings of shame and guilt have led to patterns of silence and denial within white families, so that if any information has passed forward to living descendants, it is usually minimal, and distorted by a sort of ancestor mythology. (For example, stories passed forward from families who included very wealthy plantation owners often include themes of greatness, being special, and a deep sense of family pride, without any awareness of or sensitivity to how the wealth was generated.) Many white descendants of slaveholders hear nothing from their elders about slavery, and when they ask, hear some version of ‘Well, yes, our family owned slaves, but they were very good to their slaves.’ It takes real commitment to persist in the research, to uncover whatever remains of the truth.
Regardless of your heritage, reach for compassion within yourself, whatever reactions you encounter in others, or in your own heart.
For genealogical research beyond talking with family members, check out our pages on genealogy for resources and suggestions.
Also you may find inspiration, encouragement and ideas by reading stories on our web site about others who have begun confronting their family’s connection to slavery.
When You Have Evidence
If you have found evidence that one or more ancestors were slaves, slave holders or slave traders, we suggest you spend some time in reflection with a supportive friend or family member, or writing in a journal. Here are some questions you may find helpful:
• How do you feel about what you are learning? Try to accept and talk about whatever feelings you have, rather than deny them. There may be a complex mixture of emotions. As a point of reference, common feelings are fear, shame, embarrassment, anger, and grief. With time, support, reflection and healing, these can give way to feelings of interest, pride, compassion, and understanding.
• What are your hopes and fears?
• What do you find most challenging? Why?
• Where do you feel pride in your family?
• How can you use this information to grow as a person? To connect with family members and others? To help bring healing to yourself, your family, your community?
• What are some good ways to approach sharing what you have learned with your family? Who might be most receptive? Who might have a harder time? How can you be thoughtful about others in this process?
Share What You Find
Sharing what you have learned with nuclear and extended family members can lead to deeper relationships, greater understanding of self and other family members, pride, healing, more information, and positive action. It can also lead to upset and conflict, so tread thoughtfully. Sometimes new information can be offered to extended family members in family newsletters, on family websites, or at reunions. Other times it may make most sense to share with select relatives, one-on-one. Consider consulting with the most level headed family members about how to proceed.
Making information available on the internet can provide valuable information to others who are also searching, and can provide an opportunity for others to contact you with new information. Consider sharing what you have learned on general and African American genealogical websites (like surname forums; see our genealogy pages for links to popular sites), and sites devoted to history of the area in which your family lived. This makes it accessible to people who are searching on the internet for information on the same people or area. Sharing your discoveries on the internet may lead to contact with kin from long-lost branches on the family tree. It may even lead to contact with descendants from the ‘other side’ of your family’s connection to slavery.
White families in particular need to be aware that any information about the people your family enslaved, especially names, are extremely valuable to African Americans researching their ancestors. Because slaves were not recorded by name on census records or slave schedules, were rarely issued birth, death or marriage certificates, and could be sold at any point to a completely different area, African Americans usually run into what amounts to a genealogical brick wall anytime they look for pre-emancipation information about ancestors. This is often a source of grief, frustration and anger for many, so sharing what you have learned can be a very, very important act of repairing some of the damage done by slavery.
Finding and Contacting ‘Linked Descendants’
There is a special focus in Coming to the Table on relationships between linked descendants, (one’s ancestor enslaved the other’s ancestor), and the stories around those connections. Many of our community members have such relationships, and tend to consider a warm, respectful relationship with a linked descendant an act of repairing the harms of slavery and creating a new legacy. We in Coming to the Table have a special interest in repair, but contact between linked descendants does not have to include such an interest. For example, some linked descendants may be only interested in sharing genealogical information and oral histories. If you are interested in contributing to repair, connecting with a linked descendant may offer wonderful and interesting possibilities!
If you are interested in finding and contacting one or more linked descendants, we offer these suggestions to help you proceed thoughtfully.
Spend time again in reflection about your hopes, fears and motivations. There is no way to know ahead of time if you will succeed, and if you do, how you will be received. The experience of most white people involved in Coming to the Table has been a welcome and appreciative response from African Americans. A cool or even hostile response has been reported more often by African Americans reaching out to white descendants, though many have been warmly received as well. How well things go will depend partly on how well you have prepared yourself mentally and emotionally. Here are some questions to consider:
• Why do you want to find a ‘linked descendant?’ What do you hope for?
• What fears do you have about finding someone?
• If a ‘linked descendant’ were to contact you, how would you feel and how would you want to respond?
Once you are ready to begin looking, you can visit our genealogy support pages for ideas about how to proceed. This type of research is somewhat different than looking for long-dead ancestors.
If you have found someone you think may be connected to your family, and you are considering making contact, these questions may help you further clarify your motivations, goals, hopes, and fears:
• Why do you, or don’t you, want to reach out?
• How would you feel about getting an enthusiastic response? A hostile response? A suspicious response? No response? An immediate response? A long wait?
• What information are you ready to share with them? If you don’t feel ready to share everything, what would you not share and why?
• Are you ready to listen, accept them exactly where they are, pass no judgments, and not take rejection personally?
• What are your fantasies about what kind of person they are, how they will feel about your contacting them, how they will respond, or where this will lead? Try to work through these so you can go forward with no assumptions, ready to experience what really lies ahead.
• Is a blood relationship part of the information you have uncovered? If so, how do you feel about that? If not, how would you feel if they offered such information?
When you feel ready to proceed, here are some ideas for making contact.
If you have an address for someone you want to reach out to, write an email or a letter introducing yourself, explaining your reason for contacting them, spelling out what you believe is or may be your connection, and sharing at least some of the information you have gathered in your research. Tell them a little about yourself and your family, and consider including a picture or two. Be honest, do not try to pretend you are someone other than who you are. Give them a sense of your intent, and perhaps give them some options for how to respond (email, phone call, snail mail), including an invitation to take whatever time they need to talk with their family and think about a response. Perhaps include a statement that you will follow up with a phone call, if you have a number.
You may discover that you are connected through slavery to someone in your local community, especially if you are living in the same area where your ancestors lived. This of course makes a face-to-face meeting much more possible, sooner rather than later. You may even find you are connected with someone you already know! This was the case with at least one of our Coming to the Table community members who lived in an isolated rural area. Of course, discovering this kind of connection with someone you already know can involve special challenges.
If you are from a white family and are reaching out to descendants of people enslaved by your family, be ready to listen at least as much as you talk, to counter a common tendency of white people who often do not listen well to African Americans. We don’t recommend that you include an apology or request for forgiveness for the actions of your ancestors in any initial contact. Even without words of apology, if you ‘come to the table’ needing forgiveness and communicate that in your actions and tone of voice, you can be in effect adding a burden rather than contributing to repair.
If you have sent an initial email or letter and don’t get a reply within a couple of weeks, you may decide to re-send, or to follow up with a phone call, if you have a number to try. Phoning is trickier, because you may be putting someone in an uncomfortable position by calling. Give some thought to timing. Be sure you can stay on the phone for a while without interruption, in case you reach someone. If you reach someone who is not interested in family history, or not interested in talking with you, ask if they know of someone else who might talk with you. Talk through with someone how you want to introduce yourself to get a conversation going.
Once you make contact – congratulations! Be ready to go with the flow. Plan to allow time for a relationship to develop, and be aware that an ongoing relationship is a possibility, not necessarily an outcome. There are many factors involved in developing a relationship, or not. You may lose contact, or you may become friends, and even claim one another as family. You may not ‘click,’ or you may find you have much in common, historically and/or in the present. Genealogy is a passion for many people, and exchanging information with someone you contact can be good way to begin a relationship.
As things progress, talk with your trusted supporters or write in your journal about how things are going, how you are feeling, and what your motivations may be for things you want to say or do. Be prepared to follow up on offers and commitments. A genuine tone of respect, interest, and acknowledgment of what happened in the past can do much to bring repair and healing, whereas confused motivations and lack of follow-through can bring more pain.
Be aware that you may be treated with suspicion at first. Trust may take time to build. Then again, you may be welcomed with eager enthusiasm and considered family from the get go. Be ready for either, or neither one. Focus on building a relationship at a pace that seems to work for both of you.
One issue is worth special attention here. Some linked descendants are also related by blood. Part of the painful history of slavery is the fact that enslavers held the power, and many used that power to force enslaved women sexually. While there were occasional cases of genuine relationship, even marriage, force was far more common. Understandably, this can be an additional point of pain for descendants. At the same time, for some people a blood connection is reason (or more reason) to consider one another family.
Regardless of your situation, we offer you encouragement and appreciation for all your efforts!
Share Your Story With Us!
We want to hear your story. Contact us about connecting with ‘linked descendants.’Please be sensitive about any needs in your family or theirs for confidentiality. We may want to feature your story on our website, but won’t do so without permission from those involved.
A Final Note
The aftermath of slavery has left many white and black people feeling estranged from one other, fearful and distrustful of ‘the other’ who seems to be so different. The courageous choice to confront this painful history and reach across the divide can be transformative for everyone involved, and can help create a new legacy of honesty, healing and genuine connection.
We are delighted you have found Coming to the Table and look forward to hearing about your experience!
