Why would you assume they probably did, since most white families did not?

Slightly off topic, and maybe this has been mentioned at GC before and I missed it, but did anyone else hear that Obama is distantly related to Dick Chaney and Harry Truman?

A quarter of white families in states allowing slavery owned at least 1 slave. That doesn't mean a whole lot though since there have been quite a few generations in between slavery and now, so your ancestors cover a lot of families back in the days of slavery.

What's your source for information? And what time frame are you covering? What is the percentage of black/mixed race slaveholders at the time? I've seen the 25% figure banded about in research, but have had trouble sometimes pinning down the specifics of the statement. ( And 25% still means 75% of families DID NOT own even one slave.)

You can't really make a blanket statement like that and have it be accurate. As a basis of comparison, the percentage of New England slaveholders in 1760 is basically the same as southern slaveholders in 1860. If you talked about slavery in 1760 the percentages overall would differ from slavery in 1860. Heck, if you want to have fun with technicalities you could point out that 100% of all slaveholders after the Emancipation Proclamation lived in states of the Union. It's interesting that you specify your percentage as being those who owned at least 1 slave - I've seen percentages as low as 3.7 for southern slaveholders with 50 or more slaves, depending on the year.

Ultimately, getting back to the political aspect of all this, McCain could no more chose his ancestors than you or I. Whether or not his family, or Obama's, owned slaves tells us NOTHING about the candidates and their views on any racial issue of today.

I had seen that number in this thread and repeated it. I was just explaining the logic that the fact that x% of families had a slave doesn't mean that x% of people now have ancestors who had slaves.

It was me, here in post #16. I got the info here. I'll admit that I haven't compared this to the census records themselves, which I can only find on a county by county basis.

No. Very few people owned slaves...

According to this data: http://www.civil-war.net/census.asp?census=Total

8% did.

Furthermore, what does it matter whether or not his family owned slaves? He's not his ancestors. No one is.

Edit: I know my ancestors did, the German side came over in the late 1880's and the English side were Quakers (vehemently opposed to slavery)

I don't care what the percentage is...I am still stuck on the fact that millions were hauled here in the first place and God only knows how many died from those shores to these shores...this is why I even hate discussing this type of stuff because it's always someone trying to minimalize the impact that the Slave trade had...I don't care if it was 1% ...there are still issues that have gone on for 400+ years we still haven't resolved yet.

For instance....James Byrd wasn't that long ago and THIS just happened again in TEXAS

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...0,977683.story

Some behaviors just won't die...just people.

I don't know that anyone here is trying to minimalize the effect of the slave trade. Even the people who say that a low percentage of whites owned slaves would admit (I would hope) that some of these whites owned large numbers of slaves. Plus, 8% is still 8% too many...

Racism is still rampant today, absolutely. When I was asking my questions, I wasn't making a judgment on the slavery, or excusing anyone's conduct, I was asking it more as a general question about whether the actions of a person's ancestors would affect the perception of that person today.

DS, I don't think anyone is trying to minimize it. I know I'm not and wouldn't.

Some of us have been responding to a specific question:It's not minimizing the extent of slavery to say that a specific claim is not accurate.

I agree that we haven't resolved all of these issues yet. I'd add that we won't unless we are honest about the history, which means both not minimizing and not making claims that aren't true historically.

And that is fine too because you also have to be aware that even though 8% may have owned Africans, that a LARGE percent of the populace still regarded my ancestors less than human and treated them as such which is why I still get pissy when we talk about attitudes today....make sure you read that link I left.

Sure. I would certainly acknowledge that. But that's not the specific statement we were responding to. There's no need to read more into our responses than what we actually said -- that most white families did not own slaves.

This is off-topic, but I was reading an article a few weeks ago about how the great-niece of Heimrich Himmler fell in love with an Israeli Jew who lost family in the Holocaust. She waited for almost a year to tell her BF who her family was; eventually their marriage couldn't survive the various problems something like that brings up. We're obviously a few more generations removed from slavery than the Holocaust, but I thought I'd just throw that out there.

Exactly my point DS. People.....f#$k the stats, I never stated that all whites owned slaves. To say a small percentage did is bull too. I am just not shocked if I ran into someone whose ancestors did have slaves, whether they be Black, White, American Indian, etc. I never said that made McCain or Obama a bad person. If Nat Turner was related to me, does that mean I am a bad person, no.

Thank you for bringing this up. African Americans aren't the only ones in the world who have been tortured and killed, but you don't see these other races and nationalities constantly up in arms that someone somewhere owes them something.

And we should remember, many people in this country came here after in the 1900s. They didn't own slaves.

Whoa-
O.k. who the hell said someone owed them anything? I don't look for handouts. Since you want to take it there, how about SOME, not all in this country, like to sweep slavery under the rug like it is something that happened one day and ended the next. I would never compare the enslavement of African Americans to the Holocaust. One doesn't trump the other.