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The founder of the Washington Post owned Oatlands Plantation, which slaves entirely built.
This blew up, so to share a bit more: Oatlands reveals the complicated history of slavery in the U.S. Councilor Carter at one point enslaved over 500 people, a wealthy and powerful landowner. But he came to view slavery as wrong.
So he went about what is probably the biggest private emancipation in American history, beginning in 1791. By the time he died all but 17 had been freed.
Unfortunate plot twist, none of Carter's ten kids agreed with dad! They all thought slavery was a-Okay. So they, you know, bought and sold a bunch of people.
The point being: many folks seem to think of slavery as an old institution gradually arcing down in popularity, but that's totally false, which is all the more reason the war had to happen. America's slave population grew from around 700k in 1790 to 4 million in 1860.
So if you are an American whose family tree goes back to white Southerners in 1860, you probably have slaveowners in your history. The sheer number of ancestors you are talking about at that stage makes it almost a certainty.
The rare exceptions are people who are descended from the poor, sharecroppers, or the merchant class. But the point is that America's history of enslavement is not something that should be used to dunk, as it is far more all encompassing than just Beto's great great whatever.
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