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| Fannie Adkins/Atkins daughter #1 was likely born within a few years of her mother Fannie (born abt 1780) becoming able to get pregnant, ... encouraged and perhaps even sexually forced by her owner in the Adkins family and likely separated after age six years. It was financially projected for her (Fannie) to generate 10 to 15 new slaves during child bearing years projected to be at least from 1795 to 1835 if she lived that long, ... and more valued as a good milk cow for White infants and even new-born slave babies of deceased mothers. In the best of circumstances for her infant and other offspring under six years, ... Fannie would have been employed as a cook with access and observation to sufficient nutrition for nurture of herself and babies. On the other hand, if Fannie was groomed to be a body-servant to Lucy Adkins, her duties would have given her access to privileges as a house-slave, such as food leftovers and regular access to infant offspring, ... which were rarely if ever, extended to field hands. In those worst of cases, more often than not, she would have been a field hand working six days a week from sun-up to sun-down and utterly indifferent to the plight of her offspring more or less being nurtured by a feeble slave no longer able to work. Unknown Adkins Offspring, going backwards in our search for ancestry we can conclude that Fannie Adkins we know certainly had a mother at one time or another, and she was perhaps 20 years of age when giving birth to our known ancestor. So, who was she other than that of a slave? Was she loveable? Did her eyes light up when given the respect of human existence? At what age, if ever, did she come to Christ? Did she ever suffer? If so, why and by whose hand? We are curious to know if she was the one who brought the Adkins offspring to Christ? Maybe it was her mother or her mother's mother? We suspect the Second Great Awakening in America was most certainly known to her. Click below to understand why and how. Our speculation is this unknown mother was the daughter of Fannie and grand-daughter of Anaka the African born slave of Lucy Adkins who died between 1795 and 1797 documenting existence of mother and grandmother. The only matter we know for certain is that she was born in an era of very dangerous evangelization missions in the north, south, east and west, ... by many free and sincere White and some Mulatto and Black ministers of the Gospel in Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and Quaker faiths. There is no evidence that any Catholic or Episcopal ever joined in the Great Awakening Movement to bring poor uneducated Whites, Blacks and Native Americans to the cause of Christ. (The Quakers did however in later years operate stations on the underground railway, ... but the numbers helped were miniscule compared to souls inspired by AME ministers like Frederick Douglass and Lewis Woodson and the dynamic young Black Baptist preacher named Henry Hyland Garrett, ... to help themselves by following "The North Star.") Decades ago, in some Black college ministries, open minded students were known to have heard "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and God was the Word," and many preachers before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, ... thanked HIM for their coming liberation from slavery long before the deed was ever done believing as they did in the absolute power of the Word.
An unexpected example of inspirational dynamics was the dynamic movement that began in Western Pennsylvania to convert corn farmers and whiskey makers in the former Whiskey Rebellion crushed by federal government. The movement quickly spread down Appalachian Mountain chain into the Virginia slave plantations where Fannie likely lived in Western Virginia. To their credit, slave owners were deathly afraid to prevent circuit riding preachers from teaching "the Word" but tried numerous means and methods to offset the impact such as requiring slaves to acknowledge baptism would not give them freedom from slavery. Very few slave owners dared prevent slaves from having Sunday worship services, and in due time women began congregating in their slave quarters for nightly prayer meetings couched in slave songs acceptable to out of sight overseers who tried to listen but could not hear the words summoning Christ like "Over Here my Lord, somebody needs you over here." Indeed, the functional Black Church (without walls) came into existence by mothers who congregated together in the name of Christ, ... not plantation preachers generally paid two dollars to entertain women on Sunday in African linguist traditions.
By the time our unknown Adkins mother was 20 years of age, .... "The Word" was internalized as a matter of course in lives of many young women like her, ... and literally indoctrinated into children with the only real power a slave mother had available. Both sons and daughters living in their mother's slave cabin would have heard the mournful prayers at night for a loving Jesus to give them salvation from a cruel overseer or the constant threat of being sold away to another plantation owner. It can be assumed mothers prayed for "no more pain and pregnancy" from owner initiated plantation rapes by young bucks literally licensed as studs to keep women pregnant. How many thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of children were not conceived in love by men and women, ... we will never know but the effects are long lingering in generations of offspring incapable of it toward the opposite sex. Too many Black women and men still psychologically suffer from that horrible past never addressed by writers! And, mind you to remember that young men were literally shackled away from young women unless they had clear access and permission by slave owners; ... and often in time, as exists in most prisons, were induced to the ways and worlds of degenerate actions and attractions including rape. Our view is that writers like Alice Walker in choosing their topics ought to embrace the challenge of life as it was lived by African-Americans rather than imitating writers like Margaret Mitchell in portrayals of Black men as objects of contempt and hatred. Write about the unknown mothers who brought forth imperfect men who though incapable of being loving and tender toward women, ... had the courage and capabilities to fight and die to emancipate "the least of us" including Alice Walker's ancestors. The woman even degraded her own father. The more we learn about our enslaved ancestors, ... the better we are to relate to "the least of us" knowing full well that "except for the grace of God, there go I." |
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