Descendants Find Honor in Link to Slaves

Janis Minor Forte found her great-grandfather in a jail document: He was listed among the possessions his owner had lost in a bet.

“Needless to say, I let out a holler,” Forte said. The discovery was chilling and exhilarating: “a certain Negro man slave, Walton, about 26 years of age and of black complexion.”

Forte had found another slave in her family tree.

People have been searching for their roots in slavery for decades, and the personal journeys became more popular after the 1977 television miniseries based on Alex Haley’s novel “Roots.” Many people start tracing their lineage with hope of finding an African slave, so that they might find their links to Africa -- the motherland.

The International Society of Sons and Daughters of Slave Ancestry offers research tools such as a slave database, oral histories, old photographs, census data and birth and death certificates.

Several other groups assist in genealogical research, but this Chicago-based organization specializes in slave ancestry, and a proven link to a slave is a requirement for membership.

The organization helps would-be members comb through aged, fragile and incomplete documents that can reveal pieces of a puzzle: A last name. An age. A slave’s price.

Tracing roots to slavery can be difficult. Often, families were split apart at the auction block and slaves were not given last names, or their names were changed.

“It’s a tremendous challenge, but in most cases there is a light at the end of the tunnel,” said Charles Blockson, a black history expert at Temple University in Philadelphia.

Forte, of Chicago, traveled to Eutaw, Ala., for her search. She found the 1856 document that named her great-grandfather, Walton, and his owner, a man named Minor, her maiden name.

Walton had been a farmer who married twice and had at least eight children, she learned from research.

“It lifts him up off of a page; he’s just not another name on a death certificate or a birth certificate,” Forte said. “He becomes a real person.”

Forte, a longtime member of the society, had found slaves in her background before. She began searching at her father’s request. He grew up hearing stories about his own father’s impoverished childhood on a farm in Alabama.

Her great-great-great aunt, Maria Head, used to tell of being stolen from her parents when she was a child in Madagascar.

Forte found the will of Head’s owner, which showed that Maria Head had been purchased in Mobile, Ala., after she arrived on a slave ship from Madagascar.

“I truly believe if we would have been told ... that our ancestors were strong and powerful and great people, there wouldn’t be as many racial issues as there are now,” she said.

Robert Williams of Chicago takes pride in knowing he is related to Benjamin Banneker, a self-taught scientist who helped develop the layout of Washington, D.C., in 1791. Williams learned about his ties to Banneker through government documents, family Bibles, books on Banneker and oral history--stories passed on through generations. He too is a member of the organization.

“It makes you feel good when you know you’re related to someone who had something specific to do with American history,” said Williams, who is Banneker’s fourth grandnephew.

Williams also found an African-born slave in his family -- Banneker’s maternal grandfather.

“If Benjamin Banneker had not been famous then I would not have even known about the African slave,” Williams said. “These people helped build our country and enrich this nation.”

Interest in researching family ties to slavery has increased as the debate on slave reparations grows.

Three federal lawsuits seeking reparations accuse corporations of profiting from the slave trade. The lawsuits are the first of what some expect to be a wave of complaints seeking reparations.

Former schoolteacher Patricia Bearden used to avoid watching films and reading books about slavery. The degradation, sorrow and inhumanity hurt too much. Now, she says, she has the strength to immerse herself in that history.

“I want to know, to keep understanding and get through the hurt and the pain because our people got through it too,” Bearden said. “We’re not moaning and groaning about ‘Oh, look what somebody did to us.’ We want to look at our people in a way that we can celebrate them and honor them so we can feel good in our hearts about them surviving and enduring.”

Bearden’s links to slavery are Margaret and Emmons Parrish, siblings born in the United States who were slaves on a plantation in Pontotoc County, Miss.

Bearden, who is president and a founder of the slave genealogical society, used census data, deeds and court documents to find information on her great-great-grandfather, Emmons Parrish. She traveled to Jackson and Aberdeen, Miss., to find death certificates and land records. She also hired a researcher in Mississippi who helped her find an 1838 estate inventory that listed Emmons and Margaret Parrish as property, along with chairs, a waffle iron and champagne bottles.

Emmons Parrish was valued at $300, Margaret at $450.

The document is stark, cold. “We the undersigned do certify that the above and forgoing list of articles with valuation thereto annexed contains a full and true account of all the goods, chattles and personal estate of David W. Parrish,” it says.

“I’ve gotten past seeing that he was on a bill of sale,” Bearden said. “If I stay in that moment, then I’m not doing myself any good, wallowing in the fact that he was considered a piece of property. I know that he was a human being.”

Bearden continues to trace her roots with the intention of finding a slave ancestor who was born in Africa.

“To find the African is part of you, it’s part of your history and it would dispel that myth that we can’t find our people,” Bearden said. “It would help tell our story more fully because then you could go back to Africa. If I found mine, I’d be as proud as a peacock.”

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On the Net:

Guidelines: www.rootsweb.com/

~ilissdsa