My family claims roots back before the founding of this country. They were southerners and, yes, slave-owners. We have copies of the wills, passing the slaves & their progeny from one generation to the next. I don’t consider it a bad mark on myself. I never owned slaves. History is history & we should just acknowledge that which happened & hope that our generation won’t make worse mistakes.
I’d be very interested to see the pictures.
Same here, my family was here from the start, 2nd LT in the revolutionary war and documentation shows the later family also owned slaves, me I am a slave to the goverment, but I never owned anyone nore do I want to.
American historical and familial entanglements can get even more interesting than that. A lot of blacks in this country have ancestors who were white slave owners. In fact, most do. It's hard to find any American blacks who have pure African ancestry.
In my own (black) family, we have an ancestor who was a Brigadier General for the Confederate Army. His father wrote the Crittenden Compromise (an act which would have allowed slavery in certain American states).
That said, I don't condemn my own forefathers for being men of their times, and don't feel the slightest bit of shame about their historical legacies.
Bikkuri, let your friend know that we Americans don't condemn the sons for the sins of their father.