meaning to stitch 6 - grim records

 after a lot of dithering i have finally taken a look at the online records on slave ownership - i knew that this would not bring any pleasant surprises and what i have learned is really superficial, but i feel it's a start 

i think i have decided that i want to honour the fact that without the many people who's lives were controlled by my ancestors this family would not be where it is now - their contribution was incalculable and many of them paid a huge price

the records show over 600 slaves were registered as being owned by my family members: Antoine Cantin, his partner Louise (a freed slave herself),  sons Pierre and Jean and daughter Suzette, as well as Benoit Ollier, Pierre's Father in law and Josephine his wife (also a freed slave)

a bit of extra background: Pierre's wife was the daughter of Benoit's first partner, a freed slave, who he did not marry - two of Pierre's children married two their first cousins, Jean's children - this means that Pierre and Jean, both children of a freed slave became slave owners, in a big way - i find this very disturbing

from the historic documents 

• Antoine Cantin - 19 slaves
• Pierre Cantin - plantation owner - 94 slaves
• Jean Cantin - plantation owner - 209 slaves
• Benoit Ollier- plantation owner - 200 slaves

further "personal" slaves were also listed for their daughters and partners, but i am still checking the records for these

the records are fascinating documents - they seem to reveal as much through the information they don't list as  through what is written in them: 

• men's relationships are rarely noted, but women have their children and grandchildren noted 
• many families were listed with no male parent- 
• i found one family where the daughters were listed with their mother's family name but both sons had different family names, no father was noted for any of them 
• more accurate information about identifying features is listed than about ages or place of origin 
• several slaves were listed on the records of more than one family member at the same time
• one family member was listed as owning slaves at least two years after his death

i feel this speaks volumes about the attitude towards the people listed in that they were possessions and not individuals ... no surprises there i guess - but what i find really worrying is that this attitude was still reflected in the behaviour of my own father, generations after slavery had "officially" ceased 

my notes on the records: 

names: for the individuals "born free" i doubt that many of the first names were the ones given at birth, the family names were spelled as the clerk at the time saw fit, some family names were clearly given by french-speaking  traders, owners or other (e.g. Boeuf, Cochon !) 

ages: dates of birth were only recorded if this happened during the period between records, some were copied from earlier documents unchanged, i am sure many were estimated when the individual was acquired as some are given as younger than in earlier documents

occupation or role: many different occupations are listed, but not always legible - the majority of individuals are listed as "Pioche", this translates as "pickaxe", but meanings change so i can not be certain of what it means, but i guess it is equivalent to "general worker" or "main d'oeuvre" - some are listed as "petite bande", many of these were children, but this seems to be a term used only on some records as children (as young as 3 yrs old)  on other records were listed as "pioche"

other personal details: height is recorded in pieds and pouces*, roughly feet and inches, but i am not convinced of their accuracy - information was recorded for some about scarring and tattoos, but this is often difficult to decypher

family relationships: these are completely omitted for many records and seem sketchy where given - fathers are rarely acknowledged or listed with their partners or children - without birth and marriage records it is not possible to achieve any clarity over this, and i doubt that these were maintained accurately for slaves - much more research would be required to check 

* History note: the metric system was developed and introduced in France in the late 18C  after the revolution, many of the french slave owners (including my ancestors) left France before the revolution or well before the metric system became widely used - pied (foot) and pouces (/thumb/inch) were used in France but not standardised as they had been in England, so it is hard to know whether the record keepers (mostly british) and the slave owners of french origin all used standardised "imperial" measures