AL-AfricaAmer-L Archives

Archiver > AL-AfricaAmer > 2000-08 > 0965689607


From: "Divine Diva" <>
Subject: [AL-AfricaAmer ] Fw: Slave Research CD Available
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2000 19:06:47 -0400


----- Original Message -----
From: "by way of "Bennie J. McRae, Jr." <>" <>
To: <>
Sent: Saturday, August 05, 2000 9:47 PM
Subject: Fwd: Slave Research CD Available


> From:
> Full-name: AOL News
> Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2000 13:27:13 EDT
> Subject: Slave Research CD Available
> To: undisclosed-recipients:;
>
> Slave Research CD Available
>
> .c The Associated Press
>
> By BRETT MARTEL
>
> NEW ORLEANS (AP) - In her younger days she was a political radical who
> couldn't hold a job, a civil rights lawyer's daughter who was disgusted by
> the oppression of American blacks and intrigued by their stories.
>
> Now 71 and a retired history professor, Gwen Midlo Hall is on a mission to
> shed light on America's slaves and their personal histories through
> thousands of pages of handwritten colonial-era documents salvaged from
> courthouse basements across Louisiana and as far away as France and Spain.
>
> The records, now compiled on a CD-ROM database, cover more than 100,000
> slaves in what is believed to be the largest collection of its kind.
>
> ``I'd use the word tremendous - one of the more useful academic services
> someone could have performed,'' says Donald DeVore, director of the
Amistad
> Research Center, an archives center on black history at Tulane University.
>
> ``We know, for example, that most blacks in America descended from West
> Africa, but because of Gwen's work, some people, if they're lucky enough
to
> find their ancestors, will be able to get very specific,'' DeVore said.
>
> Unlike the English colonies, where slave transactions were kept private
> between buyers and sellers, Louisiana transactions were recorded in detail
> and filed by notaries, often in Spanish or French, Hall said.
>
> In her searches, she has found court transcripts with testimony from
> slaves, documents that recount how slaves either bought or were granted
> their freedom, and even papers listing their birth countries and languages
> they spoke: Creole, French, Spanish, English, African languages and even
> American Indian ones among them.
>
> Many of the slave names Hall came across were Afro-European hybrids, such
> as Jean dit Mamadou. The slave owner called him Jean, but he was known
> among fellow slaves as Mamadou, an Islamic African name for Mohammad.
>
> Her research also uncovered long-buried family secrets of slavery, like
the
> 28-year-old slave named Kit, who a colleague of Hall's discovered was sold
> for $975 by sugar plantation owner Levi Foster to his in-laws in 1818.
>
> The plantation owner was the great-great-grandfather of current Louisiana
> Gov. Mike Foster, who had said publicly he was not aware that his family
> ever owned slaves.
>
> ``He knew his family owned a sugar plantation before the Civil War,'' Hall
> said. ``Who does he think were out there cutting the canes? His
relatives?''
>
> Marsanne Golsby, the governor's spokesman, said the governor believes the
> CD-ROM is a great resource for those whose family histories have been
> obscured, but that he is being unfairly singled out.
>
> ``I don't think anybody wants to know bad things about their family's
past.
> It's human nature,'' Golsby said. ``This was several generations back, and
> the man was born in 1930. There are lots of people in the South who didn't
> know their relatives owned slaves.''
>
>
> Hall's project began in 1984 when she was a professor at Rutgers
> University in New Jersey doing research for her 1992 book, ``Africans in
> Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the 18th
> Century.''
>
> While searching court records in New Roads, La., she found documents
> written by French-speaking notaries detailing the specific African origins
> and ethnicities of slaves.
>
> By the time her book was published, she had collected 3,000 slave names
and
> was determined to expand the project. The National Endowment for the
> Humanities contributed to a total of $300,000 in grants.
>
> Some colonial governments had take their files with them, so Hall traveled
> overseas to continue digging. What she found, she translated and
> transcribed to computer files that the Louisiana State University Press
> released on CD-ROM in March.
>
> ``The data she provided is totally revolutionary and we didn't know it
> existed until she discovered it,'' says Tony Burroughs, who teaches
> genealogy at Chicago State University.
>
> Halls began her search in the twilight of a career shaped by years abroad
> and a youthful radical bent. After dropping out of college at age 20, she
> moved with her first husband to Paris, but her association with political
> activists there led to divorce.
>
> She moved to New York and married the late Harry Haywood Hall, an older,
> black radical who wrote the book ``Black Bolshevik.'' But she said her
> connection to him made it hard for her to find work to support their
> children. She claims to have FBI files proving federal agents advised her
> bosses to fire her and landlords to evict her, something an FBI
spokeswoman
> refused to confirm or deny.
>
> ``I finally decided the only way I could support myself and my two
children
> was to finish college and apply for fellowships,'' Hall said. ``I credit
> the FBI with my career in academia.''
>
> Hall's research into slavery's past has spawned similar efforts in the
South.
>
> Georgia Wise, 51, was helping researchers transcribe 1,500 slave documents
> in Natchez, Miss., for a Web site database when she discovered her family
> had owned slaves.
>
> ``When one sees the names, enslaved people become human, not livestock,
and
> the emotion is often overwhelming,'' Wise said.
>
> Hall suspects that more detailed slave documents exist in Haiti, Cuba and
> Brazil, and she intends to take her project hemisphere-wide.
>
> ``In the 15 years she devoted to this project she probably could have
> written three books,'' DeVore says. ``It's a personal sacrifice she made
> because of her sensitivity to the individual lives of ordinary people.''
>
> On the Net:
>
> Afrigeneas genealogy site: http://www.afrigeneas.com
>
> Amistad Center: http://www.tulane.edu/ 7/8amistad/
>
> AP-NY-08-05-00 1326EDT
>
> Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP
> news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise
> distributed without prior written authority of The Associated Press.
>
>
> Announcement: America Online has added Reuters newswires to News Profiles.
> To add Reuters articles to your daily news delivery, go to KW: <A
> HREF="aol://5862:146">News Profiles</A> and click on "Modify Your News
> Profiles." Then click "Edit" and add Reuters from the list on the left.
>
>
> To edit your profile, go to keyword <A
> HREF="aol://1722:NewsProfiles">NewsProfiles</A>.
> For all of today's news, go to keyword <A HREF="aol://1722:News">News</A>.
>


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.co

This thread: