skeletons

My grandfather, Sam Brice -- that's him sitting in the foreground with his feet tucked under -- was born in 1889, and looks to have been slightly less than 10 years old when this family picture was taken, dating it to shortly before 1900.

His father, Timothy Brice, is seated at center beside his dour-looking wife Mary, surrounded by their ten children and, on the other side of the white picket fence holding the clan's first and at this date only grandchild, the inevitable "Aunt" Ellen. This was, after all, Brooks County in Southern Georgia.

I've never known any but the barest facts about my great-grandfather, that he was born in 1838 and looked a lot like me. He probably fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War like his brother David, who was one year older and was killed at Gettysburg in 1863, but I have no hard evidence of that. A bigger question has to do with inheritance. Why did Timothy's father, Francis Brice, choose to pass over his three older surviving sons at his death in 1878 and bestow the inheritance on his youngest boy, Mitchell?

Timothy's family looks moderately prosperous, but Mitchell, after inheriting his father's plantation in 1878, became a local baron of the type for which the south is famous. He added to the lands he inherited, and in time also augmented his empire with a large sawmill and general store. Slavery was gone by the time Tallokas Plantations fell to him, but black labor was governed by peculiarly southern laws and rules which historian Douglas Blackmon calls "Slavery by Another Name."

He became rich, acquired extensive holdings in local banks, and became a director of at least one of them. He was Chairman of the Board of Brooks County Commissioners and developed an English gentleman's habits, acquring a taste for fine horses which he raised on his property and raced successfully in Atlanta, New Orleans, St. Louis, and New York as well is in local venues.

How did this extended family come to be what they were, and where did the opportunity for them to develop lands and businesses originate? The answers lie in some of American history's greatest high crimes and misdemeanors.

Timothy Brice's grandfather, my great-great-great grandfather Joseph Brice and wife Martha emigrated from England shortly before the turn of the 19th century, settled initially in Pennsylvania, then moved to southern North Carolina, where Francis was born in 1804. In 1833 Francis and his wife made the overland trek to southern Georgia in a covered wagon, and there he acquired the land that would become the family seat and source of great fortune.

From whom he acquired it, or under what terms I have no idea. But I do know that this happened two years after President Andrew Jackson began enforcing the Indian Removal Act, forcing the former Cherokee owners of that area to move west, to present-day Oklahoma. In doing so, he ignored a Supreme Court decision declaring the act illegal.

Lots of Americans have skeletons in their closets, and many of these, perhaps most of them, are non-caucasian. It's difficult to notice this after a while, however, because when the skin comes off and the flesh falls away, we all tend to look the same.

Eram quod es; Eris quod sum.

See also geneologytrails.com, and scroll down to "Brice."

Click on the image for a larger view.

DB
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