This publish was initially printed on June 4th, 2012
I didn’t ever suppose that genealogical analysis would reveal that I’m descended from slave house owners.
My household’s early American roots are in New York and the higher Midwest—not within the American South. Whereas watching family tree applications that reveal slave-holding ancestors within the traces of white and black People with roots within the South, I’ve breathed a sigh of aid accompanied by the thought–not me!
I’ve not expended a substantial amount of power researching Searing ancestors who settled in Hempstead, Lengthy Island within the 1640s, as a result of my Uncle Emery had already traced the household line. Bored one afternoon and questioning if my ancestor Samuel Searing had left the Hempstead Quaker neighborhood as a result of he fought within the Revolutionary Warfare, I entered the Searing household surname right into a normal web search.
I discovered that my 4x great-grandfather Nathaniel Pearsall–whose daughter Sarah and her husband Samuel Searing are my 3x great-grandparents–is certainly listed for “patriotic service” within the Daughters of the American Revolution database. As an anti-war activist, I want there had by no means been a revolutionary battle–we may all have been Canadians! I’d have been happy to study that my ancestors had been all Quaker pacifists. Nonetheless, I need to admit that I felt a twinge of satisfaction to have the ability to hint my ancestry again to our nation’s beginnings.
Persevering with to comply with up hyperlinks to Searing ancestors, I stumbled upon the wills John and Elizabeth Searing. John was a brother of my 5x great-grandfather, Jonathan Searing.
Within the title of God, Amen, April 22, 1746. I, John Searing, of Hempstead, in Queens County, being very sick. My executors are to pay all my money owed. I order all my negroes to be offered, besides the oldest negro boy; Additionally my wheat, besides sufficient for household use. I go away to my spouse Elizabeth, one mattress and furnishings and a facet saddle, and using 1/2 my farm, till my kids are introduced up…
Within the title of God, Amen, November 27, 1760. I,Elizabeth Searing, of Hempstead, of Queens County, being sick. I go away to my son, John Searing, my negro man and a mattress and three blankets, and so forth. To my daughter, Mary Searing, a negro woman, and she or he is to have clothes and linen of mine a lot as my different two daughters have had. … I go away my granddaughter, Mary Searing, daughter of my son Jacob, a negro woman, and to my daughter Anne lengthy cloak, and the remainder of my apparell to my daughters.
If I’m a daughter of the American revolution, I’m additionally a daughter of Quaker slave-holders. It’s well-known that the Quakers had been among the many most vociferous abolitionist voices in America. Who would have thought that Quakers had additionally owned “negroes.” How did this come about?
Hempstead, Lengthy Island was initially settled within the 1640s by Puritans who discovered the wetlands appropriate for cattle farming. By the 1660s many within the colony had turn out to be Quakers. They’d additionally turn out to be so affluent that they petitioned their Dutch rulers to allow them to import indentured servants to carry out family and farm labor. The Dutch proposed that they import slaves as a substitute. The Hempstead census of 1722 data almost 2000 white individuals and over 300 slaves. In 1723 Queens County had over 6000 whites and greater than 1100 slaves. My slave-owning Northern Quaker family members had loads of firm.*
As early as 1716 and 1718 Lengthy Island Quakers—to their credit score–started to query the morality of proudly owning different human beings. By 1775, there was a powerful motion amongst Quakers to free their slaves. In 1799, New York handed a legislation that will progressively abolish slavery and in 1827,New York abolished slavery.*
The considered releasing their slaves apparently didn’t happen to Jonathan Searing in 1746 or to Elizabeth Searing in 1760. Certainly Jonathan directed that his slaves be offered, which can have resulted within the breakup of households and in poor health therapy for “negroes” he professed to care about. Elizabeth, in giving a “negro woman” to her granddaughter, handed the “values” of slave-holding down her household line.
What does it imply to study that one has ancestors who had been able to treating different human beings as property? I’d have anticipated to really feel guilt and disgrace. And I’m certain I’ll really feel these emotions because the information of my ancestors’ complicity in nice evil sinks into my bones. Nevertheless, what I’m feeling at the moment is readability. I now know simply how deeply I’m rooted within the American land and its historical past.
I now know that my household line holds a combination of fine and evil. My earliest American ancestors left Europe in an effort to apply their very own non secular beliefs freely; I treasure their legacy as I too have refused to let others dictate my faith. My Quaker ancestors had been pacifists, and I too think about a world with out battle. My ancestors resisted slavery; I prefer to suppose that I comply with of their footsteps. However my Quaker ancestors additionally held slaves. This information teaches me that I’m human: I maintain the capability for excellent good and nice evil inside me. I can and should select what I’ll make of the historical past bequeathed to me.
*See “Slavery on Lengthy Island” by Anne Hartell
Replace: I didn’t have the need of direct ancestor Jonathan Searing d. 1785 (brother of John above) once I wrote this weblog, however having discovered it in 2017, I found that he left a Negro woman named Rachel to his granddaughter Elizabeth Searing.
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