Shifted By The Winds by Ginny Dye

vitally important.
    Biddy met Carrie’s eyes squarely as she began to speak. “People like to think blacks were the first slaves in America, but that isn’t true. Long before the first blacks were brought here, England was sending over white people to create the labor force this country needed.”
    “ White people?” Alice gasped, her blue eyes growing wide. “From where?”
    “It began in England,” Biddy answered. “Things weren’t going so well in the mother country. Famine and war had filled the streets with beggars, vagabonds, and criminals. They decided that transportation was the way to handle it,” she said wryly.
    “Transportation?” Carrie echoed, wanting desperately to understand.
    “That was their word for banishing the undesirable people from England,” Biddy said bluntly. “Of course, that wasn’t until they had sent the children over.”
    “Children?” Florence was the one to echo her this time.
    “Children,” Biddy confirmed. “It seems adults were having a very difficult time adjusting to southern heat. Too many of the first colonists were dying from heat, disease, and starvation in the tobacco fields. They decided children would be more likely to survive the demands of the labor, so they began shipping them over, starting with a group of one hundred.”
    “But where did they get them?” Carrie demanded. “How old were they?”
    “They ranged in age from eight to sixteen,” Biddy answered. Her face tightened. “They took them from the streets of London in the beginning.”
    “They kidnapped them?” Florence asked, the horror evident in her voice.
    “That they did,” Biddy answered grimly. “But that was just the beginning.”
    Carrie struggled to make sense of what she was hearing. “Don’t you mean they were brought over as indentured servants?”
    “That’s what you were taught?” Biddy asked.
    Carrie struggled to remember where she had heard about indentured servants. “I can’t honestly say I was taught anything.” She thought back to when she had first heard that term. “I remember my father talking about indentured servants helping to build our plantation. He never spoke much about it.”
    Biddy’s face tightened with a quick anger but relaxed just as quickly, compassion returning to her eyes, along with a mixture of pity and sympathy. “How long has your family been here, Carrie?”
    Carrie was silent for a long moment as she thought back. “My great-great-grandfather came over in the 1700s,” she said finally.
    Biddy nodded. “Then they probably owned some of my people.”
    Carrie shook her head. “My family never owned white people.”
    “Just black folks?” Faith asked gently.
    “Yes,” Carrie acknowledged, unsure why her insides were churning so much. She also felt very much on display. Janie had grown up in the South, but her family never owned slaves. The rest of her housemates came from families who had heartily endorsed abolition for the slaves. Even though all her father’s slaves had been set free before the war, she knew her family had stolen the lives of so many before that.
    Biddy read the expression on her face. “Your family may have the most recent history of owning slaves, Carrie, but I can guarantee you that any of your families that have been here since the 1600s or 1700s have owned slaves.” Her eyes touched all of their faces.
    “That’s not true!” Elizabeth cried. “My family has been here since the mid-1600s. We have never owned a slave.”
    Biddy smiled, but her voice was firm when she replied. “Did your mama ever tell you about the indentured servants your relatives used to build their life?”
    Elizabeth frowned. “Mother has never said anything. It was my grandmother who told me about the people who came over from Europe looking for a new life. They didn’t have money to come, so they agreed to work for a certain number of years to pay their transportation fare, and then they were given land or money to start over