For the earlier part of Mann Page Ciesemier’s life, race had never been much of an issue. He was raised in the predominately white suburb of Wheaton, Il., where all but one of his friends was white. He’d always known that his mother’s family had roots in Virginia, and when he was in his early teens, he said he got up the nerve to ask his mother: “Did our family own slaves?” She answered sternly: “Yes, but we were kind!” That was the end of the matter until decades later when he met an old medicine man who would start him on a journey that would help him discover his African-American relatives. This is Mann Page Ciesemier’s essay:
Fifteen years ago, I put together a management retreat that took my coworkers and me from Chicago to Phoenix for charity work. Initially, our plan was to work in an impoverished black community. But not many blacks in Phoenix needed our help so we turned our attention to a group of Native Americans.
At the end of the retreat, a medicine man said to me, "Your ancestors will appear to you." I thought, "OK." I told him that there were rumors that my family had descended from Pocahontas. But he didn't respond. When I returned home, I started to study Native American culture.
Paige_book_by_james_godman12 About seven years later, my mother died and my father brought me a couple of shoe boxes stuffed with letters and old books regarding our roots in Virginia. As I was growing up my mother never talked much about Virginia. Once, I asked her if our family had owned slaves and she told me sternly, "Yes, but we were kind." That was the end of the matter.
After she died, I began to research my family's history. I found white slave owners who had been influenced greatly by their slaves. I began to recall the manner in which my mother and grandfather would sometimes speak. This dialect would appear again while I read aloud, 100-year-old letters from my ancestors. My grandfather spoke in an ancient, "native" Virginia dialect that dates to the days of Shakespeare. He also spoke in a casual Southern style, and was fluent in a dialect that stemmed from slaves, called Black English. My mother spoke it also. When she would tuck me in at night, she would say: 'Your mama done love you; you da bessus boy dat ever did was.'
From my mother's archives, I began to learn more about my ancestry and, among other things, plantation culture. I read about how the slaves could not only name trees but generations of trees. The Dsc_0024_2 same is true in Native American culture. There were other similarities in both cultures and it didn't take me long to realize that the medicine man's prophecy had come true. My ancestors indeed were appearing to me. But they weren't red. They were black.
As I searched my family tree, I traveled to Virginia in 2002 and eventually became a board member of my family's Page-Nelson Society. About a year later, a man approached the society looking for proof of ancestry of slaves freed in the 1804 legal will of a white slave owner named Capt. Thomas Nelson, an ancestral cousin. I had heard about his descendants.
As the story went, Nelson, who had fought Native Americans during the frontier wars, once rescued three Native American children who were hiding in a hollowed tree. He "adopted" the children, but legally they were considered property, or slaves. One of the children was Jane Spurlock. We believe that when Nelson's wife died and when Jane grew into a woman, he had six children with her. As they reached adulthood, those children were freed and given an education. When Nelson died, they and their mother were provided for.
After the Civil War, Nelson’s descendents who passed for white moved to New Jersey. The white family members married whites and evolved into the white branch of the family. Those who could not pass for white (who looked more Native American) married African Americans and evolved into the black branch of the family, the Nelson-Spurlocks, of King William County, Va.
Three years ago, I met my Nelson-Spurlock kin at a wreathe-laying ceremony at the Nelson family cemetery in Yorktown, Va. It was a cordial reunion. They came hoping to join our Society so that we could work together to find proof that we were relatives. They are associate members because so far the only proof we have comes from the similarities in the many stories and letters that have been passed down over the years---on both sides of the family. I also count the fact that we all have the same deep dimples when we smile. There were lots of smiles.
Since our meeting I have kept in touch with several members of my Nelson-Spurlock family. But this has not been an easy reunion. There, understandably, are a handful of folk from both family groups who have been reluctant to welcome one another. Skin color sometimes can get in the way of family members seeing one another as blood. But those of us who are committed to accepting one another, are indeed so.
I dearly value my family's place in my life. Years ago when the medicine man said that my ancestors would appear to me, I had no idea that, in doing so, they also would reveal who I am.
Photos courtesy of Mann Page Ciesemier. The letter was written in the fall of 1900 from Ciesemier's great granduncle and his brother to their mother. The second photo is of Ciesemier and members of the Nelson-Spurlock family.
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