AfroCarolina Correspondence #831
A Carolina Wedding
A Carolina Wedding
Up until now my offerings on this blog have featured my journey through the land of my mothers’ people in eastern NC. Well today I greet you from my slightly scattered bedroom in southeast DC with a post about my father’s folks in Johnston County, NC. While this blog centers the importance of physical place, one of the first catalysts into this journey occurred through internet research. Like many, I’ve taken to constructing my family tree on ancestry.com, spending hours bent over my computer, verifying documents and acquainting myself to newly found ancestors, muttering their names like spells.
Through the digital elements of this process, I’ve realized just how deep and far stretching personal lineage can be. The sheer amount of grandmothers, grandfathers, aunties, and uncles that exist and deserve to be documented can be overwhelming (and I haven’t even reached my African-born ancestors yet). So I’ve decided to take my time, visiting my virtual family tree every few weeks. Each time I choose a different branch to dive into, inspecting the clues and tidbits of information in each digital leaf. I almost always find something new; a document I may have overlooked or the appearance of a new name giving way to a patiently waiting ancestor who’s ready to be received.
Rarely do I begin each research session with a plan, and today was no different. But I ended up coming across a golden nugget of my family’s history. This morning I found myself focused on Edith and Alexander Watson who are my fourth great grandparents. They are the great grandparents of my father’s grandmother, Mozell O’neal. Like great grandma Mozell, whose house I frequented during summer breaks & Sunday evening suppers, Edith and Alexander were born in Johnston County, NC. But unlike my great grandma, they were born enslaved.
Now Edith and Alexander aren’t the first enslaved ancestors that I’ve found and placed on my family tree, but they are the first that I’ve been able to find explicit documentation portraying their transition from enslavement to emancipation. In 1854, the couple was married as “residents of [Johnston County], lately slaves but now emancipated” per their marriage license. This discovery, of course, led to tears, then wonderment following a gush of questions.
I wonder what that day felt like for them. Were relatives able to attend and surround them with love? Or were they two brave souls who fought their way to freedom, leaving the plantation and their families behind? What did Edith wear on her wedding day? Were brooms jumped and sticks crossed? What foods did they eat to celebrate their nuptials? I imagine a feast of collards seasoned with ham hock, crispy fried chicken, fresh corn bread, succulent pork chops perhaps gifted by a loving family member who thought the occasion fitting for decadence. The daughters of my great grandma Mozell are known for their cakes and pies, so I know Edith and Alexander had to have had something sweet to round out the celebration. Maybe a red velvet cake or the traditional yellow cake with chocolate icing- a specialty of the O’neal sisters.
“There are moments in our past when I have to wonder how did we celebrate? why, with whom? Not Christmas or Easter or Caldonia’s birthday so much as the first night north of the Mason-Dixon line before Sherman’s March, or dry pants and shoes at a clean table in the Rio Grand Valley, having outwitted the border patrol at La Frontera. When we are illicit, what can we keep deep down, what do we offer the spirits, the trickster, el coyote, who led us from bondage to a liberty so tenuous we sometimes hide for years our right to be?” — If I Can Cook/You Know God Can (Ntozake Shange)
This more intimate glimpse into the lives of my ancestors brought butterflies to my stomach and giddiness to my spirit. To see proof of formerly enslaved ancestors’ lives in between the birth and death certificates is significant and rare. It felt even more significant because the document only listed one marriage in that year. What sacrifices had to be made and what circumstances created the possibility of Alexander and Edith emancipating themselves 12 years before the end of the Civil War? What did that mean within the context of their community?
Obviously I’ve come away with more questions than answers as a result of finding Alexander and Edith’s wedding certificate, but I’m okay with that. It was enough to be able to create weddings and feasts in my imagination with my ancestors. As this journey persists, I’ve found that satisfaction isn’t limited to documents and cold hard facts cementing history through the lens of the same state that enslaved African people for centuries. But rather, I’m finding deeper satisfaction in the hints and blurry images conjured up either in my own mind or through conversations with elders. That’s been where the magic is and where connection with those who have already transitioned in my lineage speak to me the loudest.
*This post was initially published on my former blog “Morning Glory Stories: Black Souther Resistance & History in the Carolinas” on August 31, 2021.