Looking back

In reading the first section of Tim Wise's, White Like Me, I got to thinking about my own genes and how they resulted in me, the 6ft 4in white man from central New Jersey. I knew that my fathers side of the family were primarily german jews, who migrated to America late in the 19th century. If Wiggins doesn't strike you as a particularly German or Jewish last name, thats because it isn't, Wiggins is in fact my fathers, step fathers last name. My grandfather by blood died in a plane crash when my dad was very young, and so when his mother remarried, he acquired a new last name (Wiggins) which has English roots. On my mothers, mothers side, I have ancestors dating all the way back in American history to the May Flower, prior to that however little is known, just that they hailed from Scotland and England. Following their arrival, they took up residents in New England and stayed put for the most part. On her fathers side little is known except that they were ranchers and farmers in the midwest, relatively poor, and that their are traces of Cherokee blood mixed in with what my grandfathers guesses was predominantly Irish heritage.

This is the condensed version of what I knew prior to last night when I gave my mom and call and decided to ask her a question which I was sure she had looked into (she being the one of had pieced together almost everything there is to know about my ancestors). I asked whether or not our family had owned slaves, a question which I was surprised didn't catch her off guard in the least bit. She Started with my fathers family and explained that since his ancestors by blood had migrated from Germany after the civil war, they had not owned, bought, or sold any slaves in the United States, anything that happened in Germany was beyond her knowledge. Her family however had arrived with the first settlers, and therefore were in fact directly involved in American slavery. On her fathers side, little is know, but judging from what few records have survived and the simple fact of where they lived, it is likely that they owned slaves at one point. My mother added that if they did, it was no more than one or two because her fathers side of the family had little in the way of wealth. Her mothers side of the family on the other hand were of upper middle class standing. That being said, there is no evidence to her knowledge that they did in fact own slaves, which is to an extent supported by the fact that they never strayed far from the New England area. That being said, she does know for certain that two of her mothers relatives were sea captains of moderate success in the time before the slave trade was outlawed.  This has lead her to believe that they were involved (at least) in the transportation of slaves, this however has yet to be investigated in the ports logs.

I have to say that I am not surprised in the least to discover these things, my ancestors have been in America long before it even became its own country and slavery was a huge part of what spurred its swift growth. While I wish that I could say they were not implicated in such a barbaric, and morally bankrupt institution, I don't feel the slightest bit of residual guilt or fault. Their choices are not mine, in the same way their culture, society, economy, and morals and not mine. The only thing I regret is that slavery existed at all, that being said, it makes perfect sense to me why and how it did. To be burdened by such distant history is pointless and irrelevant, what is important is that I remember it, learn from it, and use it to shape the future of the world as a whole.