A View From The Other Side

Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.
~Wayne W. Dyer~

Anyone who knows me knows my passion for genealogy and tracing my roots.  To that end, I watch any and all genealogy shows I can.  Last night I was watching "Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr" and had a thought I'd never had before.  What if my ancestors had BEEN slaves instead of OWNING slaves?  Would that make a difference in how I view racial issues in today's world?  I went to bed with some soul searching on my mind.


When I began seriously researching my ancestry about 15 years ago, I never gave it a thought if my ancestors owned slaves, if they fought in any of the major wars in our country, how they supported their families or what kind of people they were.  I did want to know where they came from and when they came to America - or to the Colonies as it turned out to be in most of my lines.  Let me go back a few years to when it first hit me that my ancestors weren't just people who lived a long time ago, but people who were actually part of history and historical happenings.


I was trying hard to find the parents of one of my 3rd Great-Grandfathers.  I knew when he died (1863) but never associated the timing of his death with what was historically happening at the time (Civil War).  It was when my oldest son found where this ancestor was buried that I learned the cause of his death.  He was a soldier in the Confederate Army of Virginia during the Civil War and was wounded in the second battle of Manassas.  Infection from that wound would send him to the hospital where he contracted Typhoid Fever and that is what ultimately killed him.  That's when my interest in the Civil War began and when I learned that it's really my own personal history that makes an impact on how I think and feel.


As I found more and more of my ancestors, I learned that some of them were poor farmers who could not afford to own slaves and some were wealthy plantation owners who most assuredly did own slaves.  I was really ambivalent about it because, frankly, I didn't care.  I didn't judge my ancestors because as I always say, that's God's job not mine and also because that's just the way it was back then.  I suppose I just accepted that it was history and not something that mattered in my personal life.  I chose not to research any slave records because I didn't want to know who owned other human beings and how many of them they owned.


I have accepted slavery as part of our history because, well, it IS part of our history.  I have never and will never justify it or condone it but I do think we need to remember it.  We don't need to use it as an excuse to hate but rather as a reason to always treat others with respect, honor and love.


That all sounds wonderful, doesn't it?  But would I feel the same way if I was descended from slaves?  To be perfectly honest, I don't know.  I would like to think that I would.  I've always been acutely aware that it is possible I could have black ancestors but never once considered that they could have been slaves.  Will my ambivalence subside and give me pause to consider what it must have been like to have been a slave?  It was a pretty eye-opening thought for me - one I'm still pondering this morning.


I'm absolutely, positively certain of one thing:  I will never become angry over what happened in history as it relates to me personally.  I could have ancestors who were hung as witches during the Salem Witch Trials and I wouldn't become angry about it.  I do have an ancestor who was tried for treason during the Revolutionary War (he sided with the British and blew up his neighbor's boats in the harbor) and I'm not angry about that either.  It's all history and can't be changed - and none of it has anything to do with who I am today.


Whatever conclusion I ultimately come to, I can promise you that I will continue to be who I am and will continue to leave it in the past where it belongs.  We cannot change our past nor do we have any control over who our ancestors were or what they did.  We can accept our past, let go of what we can't change and then move forward in our lives and relationships without the chains of grudges and anger holding us back.


I prefer to learn from the past, not relive it.