Posted on 04/27/2015 12:52:50 PM PDT by drewh
Movie star Ben Affleck has another nine slaveholder ancestors from Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia, according to publicly available Census records and genealogy research conducted by Breitbart News.
Last week, Affleck admitted that he successfully pressured Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates to edit his Georgia slaveholding ancestor, Benjamin Cole, out of an episode of the PBS series “Finding Your Roots” that featured his family history.
This brings the number of Affleck’s known slaveholder ancestors to 12, who owned a total of 214 slaves. The relative ease with which Breitbart News was able to find these nine additional slaveholding ancestors of Ben Affleck calls into question the integrity of the genealogical research undertaken on Affleck’s behalf by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, executive producer of the “Finding Your Roots” series.
Gates certainly missed several dramatic reveals, including the fact that when Affleck’s mother, Christopher Ann Boldt traveled to Mississippi in 1965 to support civil rights (not in 1964 as a Freedom Rider, as Gates inaccurately claimed in the episode), dozens of her second and third cousins were living in Mississippi, some quite possibly members of the Democratic political power structure that supported segregation there at the time.
Either he failed to conduct basic genealogical research to discover these additional slaveholding ancestors, or he found them and chose to conceal them from the public, maybe even from Affleck as well.
Both Affleck and Gates have acknowledged, however, that he did disclose to Affleck that Benjamin Cole, his great-great-great grandfather, owned 25 slaves in Georgia, according to the 1850 Census slaveholding schedules.
Though the PBS “internal review” of the Gates-Affleck controversy is still in process, it is hard to see how, with these new revelations, the network can keep the series if Gates continues to be the host and executive producer.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
I have seen documentation that either my 4th or 5th great-grandfather owned a couple of slaves (both had the first name “Thomas”.
My great-grandfather, however, lost everything near the beginning of the Great Depression and died in 1933.
I have 15 first cousins from this great-grandfather, and who knows how many 2nd cousins and 2nds once and twice removed.
So what would be my my monetary obligation to “repay” for the slave-holding sins of my forebears?
Or, will this be held forever as an unpaid debt of me and my progeny?
Just curious how the bill is calculated. . . .
I've consistently read its about 5% of modern-day white americans. The vast majority of white southerners in 1860 did NOT own any slaves, they simply couldn't afford them (a fact that the neo-confederate on this crowd uses to argue that slavery was not a major factor in the civil war, despite the fact that the southern GOVERNMENTS and political elite in the south were overwhelmingly pro-slavery and said so at the time).
Furthermore, of the people who did own slaves, most of them owned no more than 2-4 at best, as house servants. Slave owners with vast plantations and hundreds of slaves were probably about 10-20% of slave owners.
It was an elite class similar to today's billionaires. There are more billionaires in the US than anywhere else in the world. But that doesn't mean the average american is directly related to a billionaire.
But the situation is different with black americans -- most of them DO have at least one ancestor who was a slave. That's because the slavery business was a couple of elites buying and selling hundreds of people.
>> Some of my ancestors had slaves, but I most ashamed of my Great-Great-Grandfather who was a Democratic state rep in the 1860s. <<
Hmmm. Are you sure the RAT State Rep. ancestor wasn't the same person as the "slave owning ancestors"? It would make sense. ;-)
Actually, yes, he was one, but I had few others that owned at most a couple of slaves. My Great-Grandfather was in a Confederate Cavalry unit but didn't own any slaves, he was too dirt poor.
Get over it Afleck, I had an ancestor executed for murdering a king.
Massa Afleck please don’t whip me!!!!
Just tells me his family has been full of rich bastards for generations. Poor folk did not own 200+ slaves.
Children should not be held responsible for the sins of their parents.
Six generations down the line, there is nothing wrong except for those who hold the sins of the ancestors over someone’s head.
I don’t like Afflek but as far as his having owned slaves, I suppose my couple times great Grand Father may well have hauled them across the water for them. Does that embarass me or make me ashamed? Nope!
My grandpa owned slaves. He bought a plot of timber and while cruising it he discovered an old cemetery with nine slaves buried in it. He reported it to the courthouse then built a nice fence around it. It gave him a story to tell for the rest of his life.
He should pay reparations by giving all his money and all future earnings to the descendants of his families slaves. Just sayin’. Mr. Affleck, meet your own petard.
ping
My father's family came to the US after the Civil War, and my mother's mother's grandparents were early 19th-century immmigrants to the North, so none of them owned any slaves.
On my mother's father's side I have a great-great-grandfather who served in a Union unit in Missouri, who had a great-grandfather who owned a few slaves at the time of his death almost 40 years before the Civil War. That man, my fifth great-grandfather, is one of 128 ancestors I have in that generation. His daughter from whom I am descended did not inherit any of her father's slaves. For that I am supposed to feel personally guilty because slavery existed in the US? Actually, I am proud of that ancestor because he fought for American independence in the Revolutionary War. One of his descendants (not a direct ancestor of mine) died in the Union army in 1864 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
History is complex. It's only the agitators and community organizers who want to use it to pit people against each other--for their own gain.
Being a democrat state legislator in the 1860’s and owning slaves are about on a par for me. ;d
Being a democrat office holder TODAY is about 5 or 6 times as bad.
I’m sure glad I’m not held accountable for what my great-great-great-grandfathers (who I know nothing about nor their names) may have done.
It’s hard enough being accountable for what I do myself. Everyday, I pray that I do the right thing and that God will be pleased despite my imperfections.
This is all silliness about Afleck’s ancestors (but deceitful of him to intentionally hide it).
Huh? You’ve made mistakes, that your ancestors should not answer for? Good reasoning. Good sense.... Well, some folks like Benny Affleck- think you should, make reparations to slaves- his effin’ kin actually owned. Are you understanding, the true nature in question?
“Y’all better watch my movies. All of ‘em!”
Looks like Ben Afleck owes Kunta Kinte some reparations
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