Archive for April, 2012

now that I Know I’m Related to Custer

Posted on April 14, 2012. Filed under: Uncategorized |

This is the first year I’ve taught US history since learning that I am distantly (very distantly) related to General George Armstrong Custer. Conrad Custer (1695-1772) is an ancestor of mine.* Conrad’s children are in my tree. Conrad’s father, Arnold Custer (June 6, 1669- 1739) had other children with another wife. One of those children is the ancestor of Gen. Custer.

Custer was a very mediocre soldier to say the least. The only reason he rose through the ranks was because of who he knew. One of his protectors was Gen. Phil Sheridan. It was Sheridan who famously said: “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

Watching a video showing Custer’s actions at Washita in 1868 and the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876 made me feel ashamed. I realized that everyone has persons in their family tree that did things they abhor. As an Anabaptist Mennonite, I often felt a bit superior—we were behaving far better than mainstream American society, right? Recent articles have reminded Mennonites that our farmlands in America were at one time Native American lands that were usually acquired using nefarious methods.

Learning that I have this minor and distant connection has made me more aware of my family’s connection to America’s story—both the good and the bad. A small consolation is that if I must be related to a general in the Indian Wars, at least it’s the one who lost a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Native Americans.

Which stories do we choose to tell? I am also related to Abraham Opdengraf, one of the signers of the first anti-slavery petition in American history, signed in Germantown, PA in 1688. Now there’s a connection I can be proud of. On the other hand, I know of at least one ancestor whose purchase of a slave is part of the public record.

We must celebrate the amazing, positive stories in our family trees. But a true retelling of history requires the retelling of some of the negative stories as well. It is those negative stories that keep us from becoming too proud or complacent that “we would never do anything like that”. It is the tragic stories that bring us to God’s throne of grace, saying: be gracious to me, a sinner.

* Conrad’s aunt (Eve Doors Custer; c. 1687-c.1765) is buried at Towamencin Mennonite Church.