First to own a black slave for life

[L Verge]

I won't belabor this point of how political correctness may be influencing our history, but I recently ran across the story of an interesting man, the third largest slaveholder in South Carolina. William Ellison and his family were great supporters of the Confederacy, and one son left the plantation to join an artillery unit. During the war, the Ellison family changed its tasks from raising the more profitable cotton to producing foodstuffs needed to feed the Confederate armies in the field.

Ellison was one of the richest men in South Carolina, and by 1860, he owned more than sixty slaves, putting him in the top 5% of slaveholders in his state. His claimed wealth was more than $65,000 - higher than 90% of his neighbors. Some historians believe that he was even richer and was hiding some of his assets to avoid taxes. Unfortunately, Ellison invested heavily in Confederate bonds that became worthless after the Confederacy's defeat.

I bet that you have already figured out what my last line will be -- William Ellison was a black man and a former slave. Is it just me, or would history be so much easier to learn from if it were told fairly from all sides of an issue (and I don't mean just the issue of slavery)?

In my readings, I also ran across an interesting question that maybe some of you can help with. We are all certainly familiar with the photograph of the runaway slave, Gordon, whose back is horribly scarred from numerous beatings. Gordon was from Mississippi and escaped by rubbing himself down with onions in order to throw off his scent from dogs that might pursue him. He made it to Union lines in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Union men took that famous photo.

The author that I was reading asked a logical question, however. Where are the photographs of other badly beaten slaves? If we assume that beatings were a way of life on Southern plantations, shouldn't there have been other photos taken of men and women like Gordon once freedom came? However, 150 years after the war, Gordon's is the only portrait regularly reproduced in histories of the Civil War.