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We just discovered a new way to uncover family history . . . neighbor’s gossip. My husband has a great uncle who was hung for rape. A Coles. He looked black, his siblings looked white. (Some of the Coles in this family look purely native, but not these kids.) The family never really discussed it. We wondered if it was an execution or a lynching. I had intentions of going to Richmond to research it. If it were a legal execution there should be transcripts from the trial still around.
This weekend we came across an old lady who knew the story, she was from another family in town who had talked about it for a long time. The story was that he was accused of telling a white lady that her perfume smelled good. The lady denied it up and down, said he never said a word to her. It was someone else who claimed he witnessed it. They took him out and lynched him. Before he died, he told them they were killing an innocent man, and he was putting a curse on them. Boydton was going to go down in poverty, and never amount to anything. Take a drive through Boydton and you’ll see he got that right. (His brother and sister left town, said they were done being colored, moved to NY and nobody ever heard from them again.)
There’s another story she told that bothers me even more. There was a boy a lot like my son, who was mixed race, but mostly white looking. He was left orphaned and his natural father took him into his home as a “yard boy” as they called them. He started to complain to his white family that there was a white girl that kept coming down to the creek and flirting with him. They told him to ignore her. He kept ignoring her and she ripped her clothes and claimed he raped her. He ran home and told them what had happened. They rushed to get him onto a train out of town, but not in time. Some men ripped him out of the train and hung him.
We have Boyds in the family. Belonged to the Boyds at one time. But that’s from another yard boy’s line.
Hello well I can say that I have heard of such stories around , old family stories from the mid west. It appears that every generation has its fair share of crap to deal with, but it really didn’t do much good to keep hearing about it.
Once one of my white cousins came to visit (by that I mean my grandads nephew) he had all kinds of crap to share none of it helpful in any way.
To say the least I don’t have anything to say to that group of people, they persecuted my grandmother in a very real way then come back to bad mouth her to her grandchildren, wonderful people. Iam sure they only relate to themselves, perhaps opening old wounds really doesn’t do our history or our people much good. Tom.
Hello well I can say that I have heard of such stories around , old family stories from the mid west. It appears that every generation has its fair share of crap to deal with, but it really didn’t do much good to keep hearing about it.
Once one of my white cousins came to visit (by that I mean my grandads nephew) he had all kinds of crap to share none of it helpful in any way.
To say the least I don’t have anything to say to that group of people, they persecuted my grandmother in a very real way then come back to bad mouth her to her grandchildren, wonderful people. Iam sure they only relate to themselves, perhaps opening old wounds really doesn’t do our history or our people much good. Tom.
Hello well I can say that I have heard of such stories around , old family stories from the mid west. It appears that every generation has its fair share of crap to deal with, but it really didn’t do much good to keep hearing about it.
Once one of my white cousins came to visit (by that I mean my grandads nephew) he had all kinds of crap to share none of it helpful in any way.
To say the least I don’t have anything to say to that group of people, they persecuted my grandmother in a very real way then come back to bad mouth her to her grandchildren, wonderful people. Iam sure they only relate to themselves, perhaps opening old wounds really doesn’t do our history or our people much good. Tom.
Hahahaha. That’s a good one. Itconani said the board was eating his posts.
I think it’s time for a new board. This one’s so old, probably none of the techies even remember how to fix it. I should just try and reindex it later on tonight. Maybe that will help.
I was told that my grandfather’s brother was lynched for flirting with a white woman. My grandfather (Aron Townes) was sent to jail for having a relationship with a white woman….they claimed he raped her but they were involved.
Erica:mad:
We will never go forward as a people unless we stop harping on what tragedies our ancestors had to go through. Oh I’ve heard my horror stories too not just my indian relations but my white relations too. The thing is we need to start with each of us and heal the wounds done to our people and remerge stronger. This is what our ancestors want us to do or we would have never been told who we are or lead to find them(our ancestors). We are the First People and need to bind together for our very survival this is what our ancestors did and what they lead us to do.
Linda
Actually in remembering what tragedies our ancestors went through helps to keep their memory alive. This is part of oral tradition and there is nothing wrong with it.
Collins,
I agree. Hence the holidays we have; hence the memorials our nation’s capitol has; hence the history classes (slowly being retold correctly) children must master in order to graduate.
Deirdre
I agree with you too Collins….just forgetting about the past is not going to help…..we all need to remember so history does not repeat itself! However, we should not dwell on the past either.
Erica Lewis
I think we are all pretty much in agreement. I think all Linda(Quest) meant was not to let our anger at the ugliness of the past keep us from moving on to the future. Remembering the past and it’s truths can be a good thing if it teaches us to avoid the same mistakes…… it can be a bad thing if it is used to fuel the anger that divides us. In general knowing and accepting the truth is always the better path.
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