Conflicting Emotions

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Conflicting Emotions

I want us to do better. I want us to be stewards of our lands and keepers of our brothers'. I want men and women to be peaceful, loving creatures across the board and across the world. I have hope for these things. Yet, I am angry. I am frustrated and overwhelmed by the legacy from which I have come. My ancestors are murderous, violent people who are responsible for such evils as colonialism, slavery and genocide. They ravaged not only countless ethnicities around the world but the natural environment as well. I am the daughter, the granddaughter and the great-great-great granddaughter of the "White Man". The liar, the treaty breaker, the villain; that is who brought me into this world. So what then does that make me?

It makes me a confused and conflicted woman. My Mother has always been very open with me about my family heritage. She never hid from me the fact that my family initially made their fortune on cotton and tobacco plantations in South Carolina and Georgia. There are towns in both of these states named after my slave-owning family members. My Mother still has in her possession the slave ledgers which recount the numbers and the prices of the slaves bought and sold by our family. She has always reminded me that we need to be knowledgeable about our history, even if that knowledge is of shameful and painful things. And let me tell you, it is both of these things. I have never really been able to reconcile my own personal beliefs with the cultural heritage that was passed on to me with my DNA.

As I have begun to delve deeper into the history, ecology and current state of the Everglades I have begun to reflect on the role that my family has played in the recent history of the Everglades. My great-great-great grandfather Chipley was the man who brought the railroad to Northern Florida. It was his line that Flager built upon and extended into Southern Florida. Countless people made their way into the southern part of this state on the path that my family began. My great-grandfather, who was a biologist, came to southern Florida as an early "pioneer". He subsequently made his fortune off a company called Shark Industries which slaughtered sharks and sold their body parts around the world.

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