Plantation

Why I Started This Blog and the Unexpected Outcome

Journeys can be very interesting. You just never know where you could end up. 

Part of my journey started with falling in love. A love that will probably prove eternal. I have a rather mixed up family: my mother was adopted and I don’t really know her too well. Being born in Tucson, Arizona, I grew up wondering where her side of the family came from but she had no interest in knowing; my parents divorced when I was three. My single father and I moved to San Diego, California when I was five years old. My fathers side is Italian and Lithuanian, with the first family settlers taking root in Chicago, Illinois. I lived with a feeling of missing half of yourself and it is a strange and empty feeling. 

An even stranger feeling is being contacted through social media by someone who says they are a sister you never heard of. That happened to me a little over 6 years ago. My mother was a bit of a rolling stone and she accumulated 5 children that I knew of. Turns out there was a 6th that she gave up for adoption when she was 17-18. 

My eldest sister and I met when I was still living out in California.  I met her, her son and her husband. We clicked right away and were amazed by how much we had in common. She lived out in Louisiana and a year later I went out to visit.

My first trip to Baton Rouge and New Orleans ended with me being enamored by the beauty and culture of the area. I’ll be damned if it wasnt love at first sight. That’s what started this blog and constant love letter to the great state of Louisiana. Sure it has its issues, but when you strip it down to its bare bones and get to the essence of it, it’s just beautiful. 

My sister is considered a Yankee from Chicago, though she has lived in Louisiana for about 15 years. When she was still in High School she made her first trip to the state and made it back as often as she could. It’s almost like a vodoun spell that affects anyone who enters. I myself have tried to go back at least once a year since my first visit. 

To get back to what started it all, I wanted to know where my mother came from and where half of me originated. I purchased a DNA kit through 23andme and became linked to people who didnt share DNA with my father or his side. I sent out a few messages to my cousins but no one knew how we were linked. Last year I gifted my sister with a kit as well since we don’t share the same father and 13 years separate us.

My sister also sent out messages and after a few months one of the cousins finally responded and gave her some info to get started. She ran with it and dug and dug for months until she finally got in touch with the right people to find out who our grandparents are. 

They came from Kentucky, bloody Breathitt County to be exact. A land where many children were given up or sent to live with cousins when times got tough. My grandfather was a womanizer and alcoholic, and my grandmother had an unknown amount of children whom she gave up almost all of them for adoption. We know of at least seven but suspect more. 

Ultimately what this really did is open a whole treasure trove of family history. We had a great grandmother who was killed by moonshiners while they raided a jail in Kentucky to free their brethren. We found out that one branch of the family owned plantations in the deep south before the War of Southern Independence. Ancestors served in the Revolutionary war and the Civil war, on both sides. They came from England way back when.

Probably the most interesting member of our family was a man named Charles Rochon, my seventh great grandfather, who helped to found the current location of Mobile, Alabama back when it was still part of the Louisiana territory. He accompanied Henri de Tonti, the Italian explorer in service of France on many of his expeditions exploring the Louisiana Territory. The Rochon’s owned town homes in the French Quarter of New Orleans after the great fire of 1788, and stayed there often. 

We discovered that all along we had a connection to Louisiana founded in our family blood and were drawn back to the state in our own ways and along our own journey’s. Life has a funny way of connecting people and you just never know where you’ll end up. 

REBLOG with your thoughts.

Kara Walker is an American artist who explores race, gender, sexuality, violence and identity in her work. She is best known for her large scale tableaux of black cut paper-silhouettes, which expose the viewer to the issues of prejudice. ‘Slavery! Slavery!’ is an example of this work, created in the year 2000. Through many displayed qualities such as colour contrast, the simple narrative, layout and exaggeration, Walker provides a strong critique of the plantation culture. What initially looks like a historical instillation is later dismissed upon closer scrutiny, as the shadow figures are shown to be revelling in all kinds of erotic, sadistic and masochistic acts. This portrayal of the design is executed in a way that emphasises Walker’s sharp sense of wit and humour, yet still addresses the history and identity with a powerful directness. Through the use of largely stereotypical and exaggerated designs, Walker is able to challenge this notion of prejudice and effectively display the horrors of it.

[ Sources:
- Art History lesson notes.
- https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/kara-walker-2674
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara_Walker
-https://walkerart.org/collections/artists/kara-walker ]