Reply #36: I said above that some of mine were indentured. [View All]

[csziggy]

A family of German Palatines were committed to ten years service. The parents died while still working off their servitude, but the two sons made it. Within a year of becoming free, they were buying land and ended up wealthy planters. Which of course, meant that they became slave owners.

It is weird knowing that my ancestors were slave owners and I just do not understand how someone who had been only marginally better than a slave could own other humans like that. I read their wills and they are leaving the slaves to their heirs the same way they leave their livestock. I'm not sure I want to understand how they could justify this while being 'religious' since so many of my ancestors in those families were ministers.