Whispers from the Dust

1
Whispers from the Dust

• The Freedmen Records and
• African American Family History

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey Douglas
2
The central question
What shall be done with the slaves? W.E.B. Du
Bois, 1901, Atlantic Monthly
W.E.B. DuBois
3
What to do with the slavesduring the war?
The Emancipation Proclamation
provided the moral and legal frame
Signed January 1, 1863
Lincoln "I never, in my life, felt more certain
that I was doing right, than I do in signing this
paper.
4
What to do with the freedmen after the war?

• On March 3, 1865, Lincoln signed into law
• The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned
  Land
• A public institution
• The Freedmans Savings Trust Company
• A private institution

5
The Freedmens Bureauwas directed to
set apart, for the use of loyal . . . freedmen,
such tracts of land within the insurrectionary
states as shall have been abandoned . . . and to
every male citizen . . . there shall be assigned
not more than forty acres of such land.
6
Trampled hopes
General Howard sent the news to Sea Islands,
Georgia. One asked Why, General Howard, why do
you take away our lands?

7
Two freedmen legacies
100 years of discrimination
8
Hawkins WilsonSought help from the Bureau

• I have no other one to apply to but you.
• My name is Hawkins Wilson . . . Who was sold at
  Sheriffs sale and used to belong to Jackson
  Talley

9
Benjamin Manson and Sarah White marriage
certificate
10
Marrow deep

• "In all of us there is a hunger marrow-deep, to
  know our heritage - to know who we are and where
  we have come from.
• Without this enriching knowledge, there is a
  hollow yearning. No matter what our attainments
  in life, there is still a vacuum. An emptiness.
  And the most disquieting loneliness.
• Alex Haley, at a World conference on Family
  History

Alex Haley 1921-1992