Recently we both read Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave for the first time. As a father and daughter from different generations, neither of us were introduced to this history in school. What follows are reactions to the reading which represent individual perspectives.

Finding Frank: A Search for the Man My Ancestor Enslaved

                One hundred years before Frederick Douglass penned his narrative in 1845, my 8th great-grandfather enslaved a man named Frank – as evident by his 1749 estate inventory list (see image).  I discovered that information during genealogical research, never expecting to find it among my 18th century New England ancestry. “No, no, no, no,” I thought. “This happened in Connecticut 100 years before the Civil War? Before the American Revolution? That’s not…no, no, no!”

I could not wrap my brain around the unequivocal fact that a direct ancestor’s estate records marked human beings as property under the category of ‘creatures’. The truth stared back at me in black and white – the dichotomy overwhelming my senses and leading me to question not only my history but my place within. “How did I not know this part of American history? Why did I never consider that my Northern roots would include a participant in the act of enslavement?” I’ve learned from over a decade of genealogical research that we cannot change the past nor live within it, but as Douglass expressed so exquisitely in his narrative, education, and access to it, informs who we are and who we can become.

 I am not my ancestor. I cannot undo the damage he (and others like him) caused. However, I am here to do better – to be better. I refuse to let the truth go unspoken or history be repeated because the narratives of the enslaved are still being silenced. Nearly two hundred years since Frederick Douglass’s narrative became known there remains powerful “leaders” seeking to silence his voice and that of others. They hide, deny, spin, and gloss over uncomfortable truths while crafting a false narrative. The difference is, I do not trust the narrative they craft. I trust the narratives of those who lived through the experience and the documents that exist to aid historians/researchers/genealogists in telling the stories of those who were silenced.

When people ask why I am so passionate about genealogical research, my answer is always the same: I am a writer who wants to tell the stories of those who came before me. Their lived experiences differed from mine and yet we knew love, grief, pain, and joy. How did the choices made by one or many impact the lives of those yet to come? Frank existed, though the details of that existence remain a mystery. I do not know his age, his marital status, or whether he had children. Was he sold or “bestowed” upon my ancestors’ relations/neighbors? Was he freed or did he make a run for freedom? I may not know the answers regarding Frank or my ancestor who enslaved him, but I won’t stop asking the questions.

I feel this powerful need to find him and tell his story, and yet I wish he had been the one to tell it – just as Frederick Douglass did in 1845. I want to scream his name from the lawn of my ancestor’s front yard (if it still exists) and pledge to never forget. I am cognizant now that my ancestor played a part in the abhorrent act of slavery, and that the aftereffects of those actions continue to reverberate throughout the lives of Black Americans today.

There can be no more hiding, no spinning the truth, no denying, no glossing over, no more allowing these voices to be silenced or their stories go unknown. I will not stop looking for Frank because his life mattered – he mattered!

*****

Kelly Deeny

Unrealized Lessons of History

American slavery was an abomination from beginning to end. The subjugation of human beings as a source of cheap labor and a means to build wealth was deeply ingrained in the roots of this nation. Many of our country’s founders availed themselves of the fruits of others labor in bondage. The enforcement of such bondage extended beyond the lack of freedom but far too often manifested in deprecation, physical abuse, and death. Slavey is an ugly part of our American history, yet it is something we must not flinch from facing and understanding. The history of slavery in our country has much to say to us about humanity.

Lessons of history are important windows that cast light on the state of human development. We benefit as a society through our ability to peer through historical windows and ‘see’ how those who came before conducted their lives and faced issues that challenged the human spirit. Our heraldic past points to challenges that were well met, and we rightly credit the constructive lessons it brings to us. However, the failings of our past can be just as instructive if we are but willing to peer through that window too.

Recent political discourse would have us ignore the ugly and uncomfortable facts of history and deprive our children from those lessons at a time when they are forming the pathways of future conduct. Proactive ignorance of our history will not serve us well. It is particularly troubling when ignorance is adopted as a matter of policy which comes with a poignant irony.

Historical accounts of our slaveholding past as recounted by Frederick Douglass document the lengths to which slaveowners would deny slaves access to education and information in an effort to suppress aspirations of freedom. Present day efforts to excise this aspect of our history from educational curriculum knowingly adopts a shroud of ignorance for the entire affected population and ensures that uncomfortable truths will not be confronted. It is not the slaves of the past who are denied knowledge, but all of us.

Our society will continue to bear the burdens of ignorance until we acknowledge and learn from the history of human failings. The gift that this history gives us in the present day is empowerment to inform the choices we make in our trek through history. For good or ill, our ancestors made decisions in the conduct of their lives which we can choose to consider in our own. Ignorance, particularly willful ignorance, robs us of that choice.

Some have said that the inhumane acts of the past should not be brought forward into present memory or experience since culpability for those acts died long ago with the people who committed them. This argument fails to note that this issue is beyond assigning blame for past deeds, it is about learning from human experience so that we might all move forward together. It is difficult to advance as a society by groping through a haze of ignorance.

*****

Kevin Deeny