The Thomas Family in 300 Years of American History

by

Robert E. Thomas
of Dallas, Texas

Editor’s Note

Robert E. Thomas wrote this book in the 1970s, about a family that held slaves in Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama and Texas. This edition keeps his text exactly as printed, including the language of his time and of the records he quotes. He writes “Negro” throughout. Chapter V lists the family’s slaves among their property, as the tax rolls and wills did, and includes a conversation Robert imagines in which Sam Houston, a friend of the family, says he favors slavery. Chapter VI describes the lynching of Joe and King Richmond in Sulphur Springs in 1915 and quotes a racial slur shouted by the crowd.

The people the family enslaved are part of its history, and so is the way their descendants wrote about them. Where Robert’s account is the only one, as with the family’s part in the events of 1915, it’s his account, not a settled record.

Pages 176–177 are missing from the copy this edition was made from.

Appendix A lists the descendants of William and Susan Thomas, down to people alive today. It is left out of this edition.

— Samuel Fuller Thomas, 2026

Contents

• Foreword and Acknowledgments
• A Chart of the Family
• Chapter I: Virginia — The First Four Generations
• Chapter II: North Carolina — The Fifth and Sixth Generations
• Chapter III: Moving Westward — To Alabama and Texas: The Seventh Generation
• Chapter IV: San Augustine — The Eighth Generation
• Chapter V: Hopkins County — The Ninth Generation
• Chapter VI: The Seven Brothers — The Tenth Generation
• Appendix B: The Paternal Ancestry of Susan Jane Buford
• Notes and Bibliography
• Footnotes