The Caldwells

 

You will notice that I come down very hard on the British Empire, describing the manner in which the empire was built and managed, in harsh terms. Some of you might feel offended; some might applaud. Please know that my DNA is almost entirely British (both parents were born and raised British). I hold deep respect for the British people. This story occurred well back in time when royalists might argue, “everyone was doing that stuff.” As noted in the movie, a number of European cultures were indeed building empires and acting as poorly as Britain.  That, in my view, is not reason to gloss over the wretched stuff and perpetuate, by omission or otherwise, untruths about what actually happened. It merely makes it sadly normal in the day.

 

Descriptions of history, I believe, bring with it a responsibility to ‘tell it like it was’ as best we can. In doing so, I believe we honour those countless unseen souls who received the other end of the British stick and we refrain from perpetuating myths about (if your ancestors happened to be at the ‘right’ end of the stick) how wonderful we were. One of the brilliant things about exploring genealogy, if the explorer is at all thoughtful and open to new perspectives, is that it humbles one. It helps me to understand that each one of us is capable of doing terrible things (or wonderful things). There, in every family runs the entire gamut of the human condition. In my family, I discover both the oppressor — the fourth largest slave trader in Jamaica, and the oppressed — my 3rd great grandmother was a slave. THAT is humbling.   Peter Caldwell Bruce