Did you know there were Irish slaveholders and overseers in the United States? We tend to think of them as having been mostly of English extraction. In Ireland, the idea is apparently quite controversial, as the Irish tend to think of themselves as having been the oppressed, not the oppressors.
Martine Brennan, an Irish public historian, has pulled back the veil on this part of Ireland’s history in her website Enslavement to Citizenship, where she has been documenting Irish-descended slaveholders in South Carolina after discovering that her own DNA links her to many African American cousins without any documented history in her family that might explain it. Her focus is on bringing to light the African Americans held in slavery by these Irish people so that their descendants might find them.
Recently she invited three other researchers, including me, to present on the topic of Irish Slaveholders in South Carolina and Georgia in a free, virtual, transatlantic seminar held on March 29th. The presentations, which were recorded, were:
“Irish Slaveholders in South Carolina 1670-1865,” including the Harlston, McKenna and Lynch families, by Martine Brennan, M.A. (Ireland)
“Payne-ful Business: Charleston’s Journey to Truth,” by Margaret Seidler, a Payne family descendant and author of the book of the same name.
“Researching the Descendants of Maj. Pierce Butler’s Enslaved People,” by Brian Sheffey, director of the International African American Museum (Charleston) Center for Family History and co-owner of Genealogy Adventures Live!, a TV show and research service.
“Rev. James Shannon: Slavery’s True Believer,” by Stacy Ashmore Cole, creator of the They Had Names: African Americans in Early Records of Liberty County, Georgia website. James Shannon arrived in Liberty County, Georgia, in 1820 as a young teacher and became not only the president of the University of Missouri but one of slavery’s loudest advocates. He took enslaved people with deep roots in Liberty County with him to Lousiana, Kentucky, and Missouri. The presentation explores the influences his early experiences in Liberty County had on his thinking.
You can find the recordings of all of the presentations on Martine’s website: https://www.enslavement-to-citizenship.com/#/. It was an honor to be in the company of all three of these dedicated researchers.
I’d also like to recommend two wonderful podcasts.
Bernice Alexander Bennett had a highly successful genealogy podcast called Research at the National Archives and Beyond for many years on Blog Talk Radio. It was my absolute favorite podcast. I think I’ve listened to most of the episodes. She took a break after publishing her “Black Homesteaders of the South,” which documented that Black families living in the South had managed to use the Homestead Act of 1862 to obtain land. but has recently started up the podcast again, renamed as Ancestor’s Footprints. My favorite so far is “Written in the Waters – A Memoir with Tara Roberts,” about the author’s experience (and book about) diving with Black scuba divers searching for slave shipwrecks. You can find the podcast on most podcast services; the link above is to Apple Podcasts.
Off the Deaton Path is by Stan Deaton, Ph.D., the Senior Historian at the Georgia Historical Society. I became hooked on this podcast last year and have listened to most of the backlist episodes. Many, but not all, of the podcasts have a Georgia connection; they usually revolve around an interview with a book author. One of my favorites is the May 2, 2024 episode interviewing Michael Thurmond about his new book “James Oglethorpe, Father of Georgia: A Founder’s Journey from Slave Trader to Abolitionist.” When I first started listening to this podcast, I was expecting a “standard” look at history from a Georgia Historical Society-associated podcast. I should have remembered that the Georgia Historical Society has shown itself to be truly “committed to teaching the full story of American history” (from its website). Dr. Deaton is a refreshing and original voice taking a hard look at our past. He’s a wonderful interviewer and always draws interesting perspectives from his guests. It’s been such an encouragement to hear him speak his mind so freely, and of course he knows so much about Georgia history.
I’m always so happy to see new episodes from both of these podcasts! (And, as always, I don’t profit if you click on any of the links above.)
I’m still working on preparing books of various record sets on the website, starting with estate inventories. I hope to have the first one available for download (free, always free) soon. I’m also still finishing up going through the antebellu Bryan County deed books looking for records that name African Americans and am putting those on the website in batches as I find them.
Enjoy your weekend!