Fragment: Parentage

Fragment from: Scarborough, William Sanders. The Autobiography of William Sanders Scarborough: An American Journey from Slavery to Scholarship. Edited with an Introduction by Michele Valerie Ronnick. African American Life Series. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2005.

According to the census of 1850 there were in the state of Georgia [in the decade of my birth] 193 free colored males between the ages of twenty and thirty. My father, Jeremiah Scarborough, was one of this number having been set free some years before by his master who was convinced that slavery was wrong and washed his hands of the stain. The same census give 287 as the number of free colored females in Georgia between the ages of twenty and thirty. My mother. Frances Gwynn, was not included in this number.

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