Part 20: My Roots
In retirement, I have had a chance to look backwards in reflection and think forward towards a better America. I feel fortunate for the friends and family I have had and the opportunities to serve that I have enjoyed. Most people butcher my name, and it is rather unusual and the subject of much speculation within our family.
Most people think I’m of Scandinavian origin because I’m tall, long faced, blue eyed, fair-skinned, and am now very white haired (it was once quite dark); I’m definitely not Nordic. Our family name was invented and is unique to our close relatives.
We were mixed race creoles from the South. My dad’s ancestors, great grandfather and mother, migrated up the Mississippi River from New Orleans and settled in Cincinnati. http://www.angelfire.com/la/ancestors/Bacas.html Their origins and the reasons for their move are shrouded in mystery. So what I recount is part family lore, part what I found on the internet, and part research conducted by my cousins, uncle and grandfather. According to my grandfather’s research, our forebears lived on a large plantation, Saint Mary’s plantation, outside New Orleans. According to my uncle and cousins’ research, they lived in downtown New Orleans, on Saint Louis St. close to Bourbon St. According to my Dad, my great, great grandfather left New Orleans in a dispute with his father, Bathelemy Bacas, and my cousins report that all his then living brothers and sisters decamped and left town at the same time. According to my uncle and cousins, our family was mixed race in New Orleans; our great, great grandmother was a freed slave. One cousin reports we are listed in the city registry as LHDC, “libre home de couleur”. http://lawsonwulsin.com/blog/the-art-of-passing/ Another cousin reports a painting of our great, great grandfather, hanging in a New Orleans museum dedicated to free people of color. https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/southern-school-19th-c-portrait-of-a-855-c-2eed0f1d16 One cousin reports, our family lived in Haiti before immigrating to New Orleans; were they “free people of color” or “whites” in Haiti (then Sainte Domingue), and is the slaughter associated with the Haitian War of Independence what propelled their departure? They arrived in New Orleans, a French town, as a French speaking family from Haiti and fought with the US forces against the bloody British in the Battle of New Orleans. They left New Orleans in the 1840s’ and moved to Cincinnati dropping the last name of Bacas, changing their last name to Wulsin, and changing their identity to white. Three of the four Wulsin boys (the youngest Clarence was too young) fought for the Union in the Civil War and one died at the Andersonville, SC concentration camp. One cousin speculates that they left New Orleans because as a mixed race family, their ability to live and thrive was becoming increasingly precarious. For three generations, they married fair skinned brides, Greene, Hager and Tubman, and became Anglicized. According to my Dad, my great, grand-mother Katherine Greene Wulsin with her New England Revolutionary War heritage did not welcome her husband’s sisters into their home due to their skin color.
Om my mother’s side we were early Catholic emigres and became slave owners on the Eastern Shore. My mother’s maiden name was Tubman, and her family lived on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tubman-252 and https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Tubman-241 As English Catholics, they had fled religious violence and persecution in the 1660s. They established a little church for their fellow Catholics on the Eastern Shore. https://www.secretsoftheeasternshore.com/backroads-chapel-and-michener/ and https://mht.maryland.gov/secure/medusa/PDF/Dorchester/D-18.pdf It is still standing, now known as Tubman Chapel and the adjacent St. Mary’s Star of the Sea is still holding mass. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cut2GlS07SM
Walking down Columbus Ave. in the South End of Boston on my way to court one day, I looked up at the Harriet Tubman Settlement House and wondered about the coincidence of our shared names. I asked my Mom and she said “yes, her family had owned slaves, and her forebears had freed their slaves in the 1820’s”. That may have been part of the manumission efforts that were widespread in Maryland at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Maryland Later I read the tale of Minty Ross who married John Tubman, a free man; she went on to become the famous Harriet Tubman who led slaves from Maryland on the Underground Railway to freedom in the North. https://allthatsinteresting.com/john-tubman They were both from Dorchester County where our Tubman forebears lived.
President William Tubman of Liberia was also a descendant of freed slaves, but he was not related to my mother’s family, although when I asked about our shared family name, my mom had thought that he was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tubman Maryland had a very active return to Africa movement starting in the 1820’s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Maryland
Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin
dated: 9/26/20