![]() At antebellum estates such as Friendfield Planation, past sins are being revisited amid the celebration.įrances Cheston Train, whose family bought the property in the 1930s and transformed it into a hunting preserve for wealthy Northerners, fights back tears as she reflects on how far the country has come since Robinson labored in the mosquito-infested rice fields along the Sampit River. When Michelle Obama moves into the White House-a mansion built partially by slaves-she will embark upon a life her great-great-grandfather never could have envisioned for her. She has said she knew little about her family tree before the campaign, but census reports, property records and other historical documents show that her paternal ancestors bore witness to one of the most shameful chapters in American history. Obama aides declined to discuss the report or allow Michelle Obama to be interviewed about her ancestry. However, in his now-famous speech on race during the primary, Barack Obama stated he was "married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners." She said the center signed a confidentiality agreement and is not allowed to disclose the findings publicly. Genealogists at Lowcountry Africana, a research center at the University of South Florida in Tampa, scoured documents to put together a 120-page report, according to project director Toni Carrier. Her older brother, Craig, also received an Ivy League education.īarack Obama's campaign hired genealogists to research the family's roots at the onset of his presidential bid, but aides have largely kept the findings secret. Robinson would be the last illiterate branch of Michelle Obama's family tree.Ĭensus records show each generation of Robinsons became more educated than the last, with Michelle Obama eventually earning degrees from Princeton University and Harvard Law School. He could neither read nor write, according to the 1880 census. Records show he remained on the estate after the war, working as a sharecropper and living in the old slave quarters with his wife, Louiser, and their children. Their documented passage begins with Jim Robinson, Obama's great-great-grandfather, who was born around 1850 and lived as a slave, at least until the Civil War, on the sprawling rice plantation. The last tenants abandoned the hovels about three decades ago, and even they would have struggled to imagine a distant daughter of the plantation one day calling the White House home.īut a historical line can be drawn from these Low Country cabins to Michelle Obama, charting an American family's improbable journey through slavery, segregation, the civil rights movement and a historic presidential election. More than 200 slaves lived in the whitewashed shacks in the early 1800s, and some of their descendants remained here for more than a century after the Civil War. GEORGETOWN, S.C.-Tiny wooden cabins line the dirt road once known as Slave Street as it winds its way through Friendfield Plantation.
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