Archive for November, 2009
Monday, November 30th, 2009
5th Grade Class at Gateview Elementary in Portland, TN
On November 20th I had the honor of delivering a presentation about my book The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation to the entire fifth grade class at Gateview Elementary School in Portland, Tennessee. More than 100 students attended. Prior to my visit the students had studied the Civil War, which tied into my program. The students were very attentive and had many questions. Following the presentation many of the students expressed an interest in tracing their genealogy.
Tags:Civil War, Gateview Elementary School, Genealogy & DNA, history, Portland Tennessee, Tennessee history
Posted in Book Tour & Reviews, Civil War, Current Events, Genealogy & DNA, Interviews, Introduction & Personal, Plantation Life, Research | Comments Closed
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
In 1847 an enslaved African American, Dred Scott, went to trial to sue for his freedom. This case, which later became known as Dred Scott v. Sanford, impacted the citizenship of all African Americans throughout the United States.
Dred Scott was born a slave in Southampton County, Virginia and was owned by Peter Blow. Peter Blow was the great-nephew of Colonel Michael Blow who owned my ancestors before they were brought to Wessyngton Plantation by Joseph Washington.
Scott was taken to Alabama by the Blow family and later to St. Louis. After Peter Blow’s death in 1832, Scott was bought by an army surgeon Dr. John Emerson who took him to Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory.
Scott’s stay in Illinois and Wisconsin, where slavery was prohibited, gave him the legal standing to make a claim for his freedom. The abolitionists encouraged him to sue for his freedom. The case and appeals took ten years. In March 1857, the United States Supreme Court declared that all blacks, slaves as well as free blacks, were not, and could never become, citizens of the United States.
The decision was a victory for southern slaveholders, while northerners were outraged at its outcome. The Dred Scott case influenced the nomination of Abraham Lincoln to the Republican Party and his election that led to the South’s secession from the Union and ultimately the freedom of all African Americans.
Peter Blow’s sons, who had grown up with Dred Scott, helped him pay the legal fees for his lengthy case. After the Supreme Court’s decision, they purchased Scott and his wife and then emancipated them.
Dred Scott died nine months later—a free man.
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Tags:Abraham Lincoln, Blow Family, Civil War, Confederate States, Declaration of Independence, Dr. John Emerson, Dred Scott, Dred Scott Decision, Frederick Douglass, Free Territory, Joseph Washington, Michael Blow, Missouri Compromise, Peter Blow, Runaway Slave Law, Scott vs. Sanford, Slave Laws, Southampton County Virginia, St. Louis, Supreme Court, Union Army
Posted in Civil War, Current Events, Genealogy & DNA, Interviews, Introduction & Personal, Plantation Life, Research | Comments Closed
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
On Tuesday November 4, 2008, President Barack Obama reflected on the life of Mrs. Ann Nixon Cooper: “she’s seen throughout her century in America─the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told we can’t; and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes, we can.”
Empowered and energized by this history-making presidential campaign, Mrs. Cooper told her story in her own voice. A Century and Some Change is the portrait of an American who lived a rewarding and culturally rich life.
Mrs. Cooper was raised in Nashville in the home of her aunt-in-law Joyce Washington Nixon, who was born a slave at Wessyngton Plantation during the last days of the Civil War. I had the honor of interviewing Mrs. Cooper and recording her memories in my book The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation, which she mentioned in her book.
A Century and Some Change: My Life Before the President Called My Name will be released on January 5, 2010 by Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. Mrs. Cooper passed away on December 21st at her home, nineteen days short of her 108th birthday.
Order A Century and Some Change by clicking the icon of her book cover
Tags:A Century and Some Change, Acceptance Speech, Al Cooper, Albert Berry Cooper II, Allen Berry, Andrew Young, Ann Nixon Cooper, Atlanta Georgia, Atria, Atria Books, Barack Obama, Before the President Called My Name, Berry Family, Bessie Dozier, Book: A Century and Some Change, CNN, Cooper Family, Coretta Scott King, Don Lemon, Elmwood, First Lady Obama, Frank Berry, George Washington, Granville Washington, Irene Nixon, Irene Washington, James Dozier, Jerry Nixon, John Baker Jr., Joyce Cooper Bobo, Joyce Washington Nixon, Karen Grigsby Bates, Martin Luther King Jr., Meharry, Michelle Obama, Nashville Tennessee, Nixon Family, Obama family, President Barack Obama, President Obama, President Washington, Presidential campaign, Presidential Election, Simon & Schuster, Stories of My Family's Journey to Freedom, W. W. Berry, Washington family, Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation, Wessyngton Plantation, Yes We Can
Posted in Book Tour & Reviews, Civil War, Current Events, Interviews, Introduction & Personal, Plantation Life, Research | Comments Closed
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Surnames of Wessyngton Slaves
Slaves were usually known by their first names, especially on small farms with few slaves. Plantation owners rarely recorded their slaves with surnames unless they had several individuals with the same first names. For that reason the use of surnames by slaves was far more common on large plantations where more people were likely to have the same given names.
Due to Wessyngton Plantation having such a large enslaved population many African Americans are listed with their previous owners’ surnames as early as the 1820s.
Slave bills of sale and other documents in the Washington Family Papers collection details the origins of many of these African American families.
The list above documents the names African Americans on Wessyngton Plantation who used surnames prior to emancipation and the date of their arrival on the plantation.
Tags:African American History, African American Surnames, African Slavery, Day Names, Given Names, Naming Patterns, Naming Practices, Plantation Records, plantation slavery, Slave Bills of Sale, Slave Names, Slave Surnames, slave trade, Tennessee slavery, United States slavery, Virginia Slavery
Posted in Civil War, Current Events, Genealogy & DNA, Interviews, Introduction & Personal, Plantation Life, Research | Comments Closed
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
Meet the Authors event, International Black Genealogy Summit
I just returned from a very exciting event—The first International Black Genealogy Summit held in Ft. Wayne, Indiana on October 29-31, 2009. Several hundred people participated. Throughout the conference I shared my research experience with genealogists. It was wonderful to speak with many people who had already read my book. The give and take of ideas illustrates that we are just at the beginning of a long and interesting journey to learn about our roots.
At the Meet the Authors event everyone could talk to the authors of books related to African American genealogy. The authors posed together for this photo. (L-R) Tony Burroughs who wrote Black Roots: A Beginners Guide To Tracing the African American Family Tree; myself; Tim Pinnick, author of Finding and Using African American Newspapers; and (Seated) Frazine Taylor, with her book Researching African American Genealogy in Alabama.
Tags:African American Genealogy, African American Newspapers, Alabama Genealogy, Black Roots, DNA Testing, family history, family research, family tree, Frazine Taylor, Genealogical Research, Genealogy and DNA, International Black Genealogy Summit, Tim Pinnick, Tony Burroughs
Posted in Book Tour & Reviews, Current Events, Genealogy & DNA, Interviews, Introduction & Personal, Plantation Life, Research | Comments Closed
Friday, November 6th, 2009
White Sharecroppers on Wessyngton Plantation
After the Civil War several former Wessyngton slaves remained on the plantation. Others moved to Nashville, to the north, surrounding counties and some purchased their own farms.
When the former slaves left the area many white farmers and African Americans came to Wessyngton Plantation and became sharecroppers and resided in the former slave cabins.
Under the sharecropping system, the landowner received two thirds of the crop and the tenant or sharecropper only received one third of the crop. The sharecropper was provided a house, mules, land, seed and fetilizer. They raised crops of tobacco, corn, wheat and rye.
African American and white sharecroppers continued farming on Wessyngton Plantation until the property was sold by the Washington family in 1983 nearly 200 years after the plantation was founded.
Tags:Add new tag, Plantation, Sharecrop, Sharecropping, Slave cabins, Slave Housing, Tenant Farmers, Tenant Housing, Tobacco Production
Posted in Civil War, Genealogy & DNA, Interviews, Plantation Life, Research | Comments Closed
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
Archaeological Dig at Wessyngton Slave Cabin Site
In 1991, I had an opportunity that few historians or genealogists ever have; to literally walk in your ancestors’ footsteps. In 1989 I was approached by the president of the Bloomington-Normal black history Project and director of the Midwestern archaeological research Center, about the potential investigations of the salve cabin area on Wessyngton Plantation to get an interpretation of slave life there. Similar digs have been conducted at the Hermitage, Mt. Vernon, and Monticello.
The actual digging at Wessyngton did not start until 1991. The thought of actually walking in my ancestors’ footsteps and holding objects they used in their everyday lives one hundred years earlier was surreal to me. Three sections of the slave cabin area were selected for exploration. One site was where the cabin of my great-great-grandparents Emanuel and Henny Washington once stood.
The dig yielded fragments of pottery and dishes used by my ancestors as well as coins and arrowheads made by Native Americans.
The photograph above shows the site of the archaeological dig on Wessyngton Plantation where my ancestors once lived.
Tags:African American History, African Slavery, Arrowheads, black history, Black History Month, Civil War, Monticello, Mt. Vernon, Native Americans, Plantation Archaeology, plantation slavery, Slave Cabin, Slave Housing, Slave Life, Tennessee slavery, The Hermitage
Posted in Civil War, Genealogy & DNA, Interviews, Introduction & Personal, Plantation Life, Research | Comments Closed
