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I only saw the second half, but the interviews in VA about the young Mariah seemed vague and possibly missing the obvious. There was a bunch of speculative BS about if one of the Puryears was Mariah's father, about Mariah being sent away to avoid being a reminder to the wife, etc.
It looked to me that Mariah was mentioned in a will, that she was inherited by son from father. If so that would throw a lot of cold water on the other speculation. It also appears that the son, his family, and slaves were part of the migrations south and west from VA and NC in the 1820-1840's. These migrations often involved members of younger generations from various families moving as a community. In this migration, slave families often remained relatively intact, often dividing in ways similar to the slave-owning families .
Maybe they had specific documentation about Mariah not revealed during the broadcast. It seemed rather flimsy based on just what we saw in the show. I don't know the specifics of that family and that county, but from what I know of neighboring areas, I would not be surprised if there were not more documentation than one might think. While slaves were bought and sold in that region, more-often at that time, they were inherited. This meant that slave families showed up on the census and on wills and marriage bonds. If I heard properly, Mariah was the only slave inherited by that son (along with the saddle, etc.) implying that the family did not own very many slaves, maybe no more than an extended family.
Using the document on the bloodlines of the horses also seemed a bit overly dramatic.
This is all just speculation at the moment. I plan to bring this up with several people I know who actually know something about these topics; curious what they think.
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