His word would have been good, as always, but the Union troops destroyed the shipyard and drove off the blacks when they arrived. ( The "slaves" tried to defend the shipyard - all the men had guns - but G-G-Grandpa called upon them to surrender to an overwhelming force.) The damn yankees wouldn't let the blacks be rehired by the family as freedmen and they were moved off the island at union gunpoint.
Not all slaveowners were Simon Legrees!
BTW I'm 1/8 black, but not on that side of the family...
My ancestors were slaves as well. Being Irish, they were forced to serve the English and had nothing but rotten potatoes to eat. Thank God they found a way to America. We aren't seek reparations, by the way.
The same happened in many areas of the South. White farmer owners who were approached by (their) former slaves to establish some kind of share cropping arrangement were "firmly discouraged", to put it diplomatically, by occupying Federal forces. Among the tactic used where to lean on the white farmers, and, with the add of Negro quislings, to holding the "guilty" ex-slave up to ridicule and pressure from his peers.
The reason given for this is fear that the ex-slave owners will seduce -- through fair means or foul-- the helpless Negro back into slavery. The actual reason ,of course, had to do with money (keep the defeated out of commerical competition) and a powder base (Negroes may have counted only as 3/5 but there were an awful lot of blacks in the South.)
Slavery was not an institution of our making; it was foisted upon us by our colonial sponsors who left us to deal with it as best we could.
We have our squabbles, like any family; but when needs be we come together as we always have for 400 years and fight-side-by-side just as we are today against the Islomofacists who want to kill or convert all of us.
On St. Patricks day we're all Irish, and on Junteenth we're all freedmen. So fire up the grill, put the beans on to soak, blanch the collard greens, cool down the beer, dust off the jazz albums and lets celebrate what a great nation we live in.
Your story will never be believed any more than the Inquisition report that came out today. ALL slaveholders were Snidely Whiplash, don't you know that? History is not about what happened, it's about who gets to write the history books.
The fact that the Irish were used to build the railroads because they were expendable and the blacks were not is conveniently overlooked. The fact that the black literacy rate and illegitimacy rates were admirable before the 1950s is also dropped down the memory hole. Those people didn't have time for Post-Traumatic Slavery Disorder, they were too busy making a living and a better life for their kids.
Thanks for your story. It goes a long way toward explaining why blacks and whites actually get along better in the south than in the north. We've always lived together, the damn Yankees simply wouldn't let them move to the north.