Abstract
This essay reflects current research on “Family, Marriage, and Sexual Morality in Antebellum African America” with conclusions different from those often espoused by scholars and the popular media. The best known and most often recited historical narratives are based upon official documents, objective reports, and expert opinion of lawyers, politicians, journalists, historians, philosophers, and clergy—most of whom were beneficiaries, outsiders, or onlookers to the system of slavery. There is another method to explore differing textures of understanding employed by the writer to reconstruct the ancestors’ history.