{"id":48563,"date":"2016-08-05T23:30:03","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T23:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=48563"},"modified":"2016-12-11T23:20:04","modified_gmt":"2016-12-11T23:20:04","slug":"putting-the-past-behind-them-slave-descendant-unites-with-plantation-owner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=48563","title":{"rendered":"Putting The Past Behind Them: Slave Descendant Unites With Plantation Owner"},"content":{"rendered":"

Putting The Past Behind Them: Slave Descendant Unites With Plantation Owner<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Growing Wisconsin<\/a>
\n2016-07-13<\/p>\n

Lynne Hayes<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The dinner was historic on many levels. On one side of the table sat Nkrumah Steward, 44, the ancestor of a slave. On the other side of the table sat Robert Adams, the ancestor of the man who owned that slave.<\/p>\n

This was a meeting of two men who shared a complicated past, one that forever ties them together by blood and circumstance.<\/p>\n

If it weren\u2019t for Steward\u2019s fascination with genealogy and his desire to complete a family tree, the two men might never have met.<\/p>\n

Digging Into His Past<\/strong><\/p>\n

Over the last 20 years, Nkrumah Steward, of Canton, Michigan<\/a>, an IT Technician for Coca-Cola, has questioned relatives, plowed through archival papers, and hunted down details through online genealogy sites to piece together his family tree.<\/p>\n

He was fortunate to have known his great-grandfather, James Henry, who he knew was the first to be born a free man on his mother, Linda\u2019s, side. Steward had always been curious as to why James Henry looked so \u201cwhite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through his research, Steward came to learn why. Not only was he descended from slaves, but the line began with a union between his 4th great grandmother, Sarah, a house slave<\/a>, and, Joel Robert Adams, the slave owner of a South Carolina<\/a> plantation known as Wavering Place<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Steward\u2019s maternal family tree branched out like this: Sarah and her master, Joel Robert Adams, had Louisa in 1835; Louisa had Octavia. Octavia\u2019s son, James Henry, was the first to be born free. James Henry later fathered Steward\u2019s grandfather, J.D.; and J.D. fathered Steward\u2019s mother, Linda.<\/p>\n

Though he was born free, James Henry\u2019s mixed blood made life complicated. He was allowed only to attend a black college; but when he moved from South Carolina to Detroit, Michigan<\/a>, he \u201cpassed\u201d for white<\/a> and was able to get jobs he would never have had as a black man…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Putting The Past Behind Them: Slave Descendant Unites With Plantation Owner Growing Wisconsin 2016-07-13 Lynne Hayes The dinner was historic on many levels. On one side of the table sat Nkrumah Steward, 44, the ancestor of a slave. On the other side of the table sat Robert Adams, the ancestor of the man who owned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,8,6462,6940,20],"tags":[24695,24694,24692,24690,24691,1449,24693],"class_list":["post-48563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-slavery","category-usa","tag-growing-wisconsin","tag-joel-robert-adams","tag-lynne-hayes","tag-nkrumah-steward","tag-robert-adams","tag-south-carolina","tag-wavering-place"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48563"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50551,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48563\/revisions\/50551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}