Civil War Era black cemetery

There were no wooden markers either Rose and no evidence of such... it was common to forbid slaves to mark graves at all. Well into the 90's there were still funeral homes in SC that would refuse to sell a stone to a black man/woman. I agree with others, there probably wouldn't be any traces today of a wooden marker from prior to 1860. Are you talking about the 1990's or the 1890's? Are you saying that even a free black person couldn't purchase a headstone? If a master is wealthy... why not allow the marking of graves w/ stone, he would do it for his own family and if he truly loved his slaves. Sometimes he did. More often slaves buried their own preferring to do it in their own way with their own customs. Black and white burial customs were different then than they are now. Wealthy people had marble stones, poor did not. Often their graves were just marked by a field stone or the planting of a tree or shrub. The family knew where they were and the distant future wasn't much considered. No they held the same feelings for their slaves as a modern farmer does for his truck & tractors. Some did. If they were lucky the master knew their name. You are talking about that 1 - 3 percent of owners who owned a few hundred slaves. The overwhelming majority of slaveowners could not help but know the names of their 1 to 3 slaves.

I believe your view of master slave relations to be... biased. I know. I believe the same of you. I always feel that you are looking for the worst and presenting it as the normal in regard to slave issues. I don't paint the general relationship of master & slave in so rosy a light. The best will always make the most of a horrid situaution; especially when there is no real hope for a change. Yes, I believe that, too. I just don't believe all or even most slaves considered their lives a "horrid situation".

Rose I have truly studied the Southern attitude about slaves... though I have studied the words of the slaves and their descendents. Then surely you must have read the slaves that spoke kindly of their owners. And forgive me for saying it but, I believe you look at the worst case scenarios and judge all slaveowners by that rule of thumb. Different outlook I assure you. Someone must speak for them. I agree and I believe they are spoken for. Their stories are told by the slave narratives and by their decendents.

Rose