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Stumpage Reports
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Wednesday, October 22, 2003 :::
That'll Take the Fun Out of It....
I've been going on the last couple days how fun it is to photocopy these old wills and estate papers at work. Today I found out how to take the fun out of it: photocopy an estate file that is over 200 pages.
This guy had a big-ass plantation and apparently it took a couple years to divide everything up and they had to keep the thing functioning in the meantime. This file must have had every receipt, everything sold, etc during those two years. Which brings me to...
...But This Makes It Worth It
In spite of what you may read here, I think I'm a pretty decent writer. When I was writing something for school, or a book review, I sweat over it a lot more than these blog entries. I really admire writers and historians that can take some dead-looking documents and really unpack them and bring them to life. One of the best examples of this is A Midwife's Tale.
I found some stuff in that estate file that just screamed for somebody with some time and talent to unlock. And there are thousands of things like this filed away in archives. Of course, one of the things they were selling as this estate was broken up were human beings. I found little pieces of yellowing paper with notations like: William, sold to Frederick Roper, $410. Jim, sold to Oliver O'Neal, $210. Little Mary, sold to Ezekiel Midgett, $120. I kept thinking, everyone of these scraps of paper represented a family being torn apart. What was the story? What was the scene like when they said their goodbyes (if they had the chance)?
I got chills, to me, things like this are about as close as you can get to the real thing. It really helps bring home exactly what slavery was.
P.S. Reconstructing slave families and how they were split up is harder than hell. The book From Calabar to Carter's Grove does as decent a job as anyone can.
Tom's (Overheard) Spiritual Nugget of the Day:
"If you run into three or more assholes in one day, you better take a look at yourself."
::: posted by tom at 1:02 PM
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