Chapter 2 Mulattos: The Children of Slave Owners

As I write I am on a bus on the way to Cincinnati, OH. In the midst of the Covid Pandemic and the George Floyd riots I feel uneasy and a bit on edge, but I am excited, overall, that progress is being made for my Black brothers and sisters and the nation as a whole. It is a beautiful day, and the suburbs of Ohio area beautified by the suns rays:

My ultimate destination is Atlanta, GA where I'll be staying for at least the summer. My goal is to spend the next few years working and gaining experiences through a PhD program at GSU. I also plan to take trips to and from Mississippi to visit the places my ancestors lived and died in. Some time in our lives we all realize how precious it is. These revelations, more often than not, come times of hardship and confusion. I wonder when Eugene and Ludia Thornton(My great-grandparents) had their revelations. Was it when they were moving from farm to farm to find a place they belonged in Attala County, or when their daughter Nellie Thornton was killed in a car accident years later, or maybe when my grandfather had to flee to Chicago under the threat of death unable to return even for his father's funeral. Life may have been hard for them, but I'm sure they found little bursts of happiness during their lives. Through marriage, spending time together, family dinners, and successful businesses. Maybe we'll never know what they really felt and went through.

    

    Mulatto is not in any way, shape, or form an endearing term. Mulattos often referred to those with a Negro and Caucasian parent or those with light skin and "white" features. In the early 1800s Mulattos were often the result of a slave owner raping one of their slaves. The slave owner would usually be male, and the slave female. Both of Ludia Thornton's parents were mulattos. Her father's name was Jim Brister(Born in 1849). Her mother's name was Martha Land(Born in 1856). Both of Ludia's parents were born slaves, and their slave owners were their biological fathers. Jim Brister's father was named Samuel Brister. The mother was an unnamed slave. At the time of the 1860 census, which was to include slaves, Jim himself was a 12 year old slave and his mother was a 28 year old unnamed slave. It s the same case with Martha Land. Her father was a slave owner named Silas W. Land. On the very same page of the 1860 census. Silas owned 8 slaves in 1860. One was a 2 year old Martha Land. Unlike Jim, we could not determine which slave was Martha's Mother. There are only two grown women in the group, and both were of age to have had Martha. One was 26 and one was 23. Both of them were unnamed. The 1860 Census is below:

 

Chapter 1 Ancestral Ignorance: A walk through Time

Growing up I never paid much attention to where my family and I came from, or who we came from to be honest. We were to busy trying to stay financially afloat to worry about the past. We only wanted to make sure that we had a future. My mother, Tina Thornton(Born in 1979) had my older sister at the tender age of 15, and yours truly at the age of 16. My two younger sisters came as as she reached adulthood. We were all born in Michigan City. A small city in Indiana right on the bottom right edge of Lake Michigan. Life was great at certain points growing up, but could go spiraling out of control with the smallest change. My mother would always make sure that we had a place to stay, the problem was making sure that our food would last until the end of the month. If it didn't my mother usually managed to find a way to get money to, as I said, keep us afloat. Where was my father. If what I heard was correct, he was in the same city as I was minding his business. I can recall a memory of when my mother took me to see him when I was a toddler, and I recall there being mountains of toys at his house. I remember begging to play with them over and over only. My childish enthusiasm was met with an annoyed no every time. I could bore you with stories of the sad, stereotypical life of a black male 90's kid, but at this point it's gotten boring to me too. The crack baby jokes, the homeless shelters, the bullying and suspensions...we'll save that for a different blog. 

    

    No this blog is about my ancestry. I just wanted to make sure I properly introduced myself and my childhood lifestyle. My name is E-Lexus Thornton and I'm 24 years old. You may refer to me as Lost_Son24. I am a lost son indeed. I started my journey looking forward not knowing or caring what was behind me. However, Maya Angelou, bless her soul, once said, "If you don't know where you've come from, then you don't know where you're going." Maya Angelou, as well as people like James Baldwin and Malcolm X, is someone I consider to be an eloquent giant(Someone is who is a professional at speaking). It wasn't until the age of 16 in my junior year of high school that I became interested in my history. At this point, though immature and naive, I was on my way to making something of myself. I had started bettering my grades and building a way to college. Up to this point the main person my mother loved to bring up from the past was my grandfather James Thornton(Born March 27th, 1917). 

    

    My grandfather was born in Attala County, Mississippi. The town or village that he was raised in no longer exists. My mother said that my grandfather was raised at a place called Mitchel Mills near the Zilpha Creek. Try as I might, I could not find anything about Mitchell Mills through an internet search, but I found Zilpha Creek in the furthest North point in Attala County. The closest city existing to it is called Kosciusko, MS. It is noteworthy that James Meredith, Civil Rights hero and war hero, and Oprah Winfrey, billionaire TV show host, were born in Kosciusko. My grandfather grew up on a farm with his many siblings of which he was the second youngest. In this time and place it was the norm for a young woman to marry an older man and bare several children that can help with the farm. In their case I believe instead of owning the farm that they lived on, they were sharecroppers who were tenants of the owner. In other words, they would work the land for the owner for a share of the crops. It is important to note that this may not be fact, only speculation on my part. I've also heard a version of the story where my grandfather's family rented/owned the land they stayed on, and farmed in the traditional sense. Either version could be true. I tracked down the area my ancestors lived to what is now Vaiden, Mississippi on County Rd. 3122. This is what I found there on Google Maps:

My grandfather had at least 7 siblings, and they all farmed this land together. Their mother was named Ludia Thornton(Born in 1881) and their father was Eugene(James) Thornton(1875). Both of my great grandparents were born in Mississippi, but not necessarily in this area. Both of their parents were slaves at birth and both of their male grandparents were slave owners. In the next chapter we'll discuss their lives, and what their parents were like. The goal is to trace my family back to their place of origin which is presumably West Africa. I don't want to think of this as just a family tree, but also a tree of life which becomes more and more familiar as I walk through time.