We Call Our Daddy Mister: In Defiance of Convention; Life and Times at the Rose Hill Plantation

About this book

Burrell Harrell the son of a Confederate soldier refused to abide by the customs and traditions of the Stars and Bars. He took up with a mulatto woman who bore him nine white children five boys and four girls. They lived as a family in Georgia contrary to custom and law. Harrell took on all comers to safeguard his children. His children were not accepted as white; they lived a difficult life being neither white nor black but were conditioned culturally as black. Mister Burrell loved his family but toward the end he willed all of his belongings to a nephew the son of a profligate brother leaving his family without land or legal means to prosper. The holdings of Mister Burrell were about 2000 acres 500 hundred head of cattle and a whole creek.Probate of the will disclosed the probability of another will allowing his heirs and Burrell Harrells children to challenge it. While the challenges were successfully fought off by the nephew he lived in fear of having to give up land. Two of Burrells daughters still live with hopes that they will be awarded something before they pass on.