All the fuss over Ben Affleck’s slave-owning ancestor may have been over the wrong relative, according to new information unearthed by the Daily Beast.
Last week, America learned not only that Ben Affleck, the Oscar-winning director and actor, was a descendant of a slave owner but also that he attempted to hide that fact when it was uncovered as part of a TV genealogy program. A newly published batch of hacked Sony emails showed that when Henry Louis Gates, Harvard history professor and host of the show Finding Your Roots, tied Affleck to an ancestor who was presumed to own a number of slaves, the film star requested that connection be excluded from the episode.
Lots of people have been asking who the guy was. His name was Benjamin Cole - lived in Georgia on my Mom's side about six generations back.
— Ben Affleck (@BenAffleck) April 22, 2015
The whole ordeal may have been over nothing, it seems.
Benjamin L Cole owned no slaves, according to the Daily Beast, which relied on the work of a Georgia genealogist, Barbara Stock. Instead, Stock found, Cole was the executor of an estate that included slaves, but according to the law at the time, was not permitted to benefit financially from these slaves.
Stock relied on tax digests from Georgia and Savannah which showed that Cole owned no slaves or land.
“The 1860 federal census slave schedule shows Benjamin having 23 slaves as executor for the Ann S Norton estate [Cole’s mother-in-law from his first marriage], eight slaves as trustee for S L Speissegger and her children, but none for himself,” she told the Daily Beast.
Does that mean Ben Affleck is not a descendant of slave owners? Not so fast.
It turns out that Cole’s second wife Georgia A Cole – Affleck’s third-great-grandmother – owned one 12-year-old girl in 1863 and 1864, according to Stock and the Daily Beast.
After Affleck’s request to exclude Cole from the episode on his ancestry became public knowledge, he released a statement on Facebook, which read: “I didn’t want any television show about my family to include a guy who owned slaves. I was embarrassed. The very thought left a bad taste in my mouth.”
He went on to say that he regretted his initial request to exclude slavery from his episode of the show.
“We deserve neither credit nor blame for our ancestors and the degree of interest in this story suggests that we are, as a nation, still grappling with the terrible legacy of slavery. It is an examination well worth continuing. I am glad that my story, however indirectly, will contribute to that discussion. While I don’t like that the guy is an ancestor, I am happy that aspect of our country’s history is being talked about.”
