Finding Your Roots

Shirley, you're looking at the 1839 estate records of Colonel Edmund Pendleton. Good grief. The father of Dr. P.B. Pendleton. The colonel owned at least 49 slaves. Wingfield, $1400. That's what he was worth, huh? Mm-hmm. Mary, $850. There they are. Edmund Pendleton. There they are. What's it like to learn this, to see the name of your enslaved ancestors and to know the name of the people who owned them and their quote/unquote value? Well you know, it's important to know where they were. But the idea that you can put a price on somebody, tells you something. Fourteen hundred dollars. Eight hundred and fifty. Human beings. Okay, oh my god. You know you've taken my breath away here. You really have.