The census shows her great-grandfather, Luther as a boy, living on a cotton farm with his parents along with a large number of siblings.

"Sadie, daughter, 10.

Occupation, laborer, home farm."

Whoo.

This is something, a lot of kids.

"Luther-" "Luther, son-" There was no TV and they were on that farm.

Yeah, the farm producing some stuff.

"Luther, son, eight.

Charlie Jr., son, six.

Eliza, daughter, four.

Ernest, son, two."

Oh, my gosh.

"Albert, son, one month."

This is one household.

All these people were living in one household.

- That's amazing.

- Yeah.

So you have roots in Manhattan, but you have deep, deep roots in South Carolina.

- South Carolina.

Did you have any idea?

- No.

- Ah.

That's where your people are from.

Hey, that's my people, southern people.

And they were working in the soil.

I mean, they were hard scrabble farmers, you know?

And as you could see, their older children were working for them on the farm.

Their daughter, Sadie, who was just 10 years old, is listed as a laborer too.

What do you think that must have been like?

Not being able to send your kids to school, putting them out there to sow the seeds, clean the cotton.

Can you imagine that?

Yeah.

I don't even know if I have the best words to describe, you know, what I... how this makes me feel.

Luther and his family undoubtedly endured a great deal of suffering simply to keep their farm running.

But moving back one generation, we came to a man who had endured even more.

Ciara's third great grandfather, Aaron Gardner, was born in South Carolina around 1830, meaning, that almost certainly he was born into slavery.

Searching for details about his life, we uncovered a labor contract signed in February of 1866, less than a year after the end of the Civil War.

It lays out terms of employment between a white cotton planter named William Zimmerman and 10 newly freed African Americans, one of whom had a familiar name.

"Aaron Gardner X his mark full hand."

That is your ancestor signing his mark because he couldn't read and write.

Oh.

He's signing a contract.

Oh, wow.

This is a year, he's been free for one year.

Wow.

And he's signing a labor contract with this white man named William Zimmerman.

Wow.

This is likely the first contract your ancestor ever signed.

And the first time he was ever compensated in any way for his labor.

Yeah.

It's sad.

- It's sad.

- Yeah.

It's sad.

You know, it's like you get a little bit of freedom, but you got so far to go.

Aaron's plight was even worse than Ciara had imagined.

In the wake of the Confederate defeat, former slave owners sought new ways to exploit Black labor.

And contracts like this one became commonplace.

Under its terms, Ciara's ancestor was hired to work for one year, but he wasn't going to be paid a salary.

Instead, Aaron was to receive a portion of the food crops he grew and a percentage of the cash profit at the end of the growing season.

But there was a catch.

There never was a profit.

Mm-mm.

They would do the books and they would come to the Black people and say, "Hey, it's a tough year.

We didn't break even.

So sorry.

No cash for you guys."

They never made any cash.

Now, what's it like to know that your ancestor had to go through that kind of business arrangement?

That's hard.

Yeah.

'Cause when the South lost the Civil War, it took them about five seconds to reinvent a new form of slavery.

Yeah.

A new way.

And unfortunately, because my people, you know, weren't educated, you didn't even know what you were, you know.

You thought there was great opportunity and there was joy.

Because this sounded pretty good.

'Cause you never had it before.

No, you never had it before.

Yeah.

Sounds good.

He's never had it.

And you go, "Well," and he went back, talked to his wife.

"I think we gonna work hard."

Yeah.

"And we gonna make it."

Yeah.

And work hard to just basically end up with nothing.

There was a grace note to this story.

Knowing that Aaron was working on William Zimmerman's plantation a year after emancipation, we wondered if he could have been enslaved on that same plantation.

We found our answer in the 1860 census.

It contains a slave schedule listing the 19 human beings that William Zimmerman held in bondage.

There are no names on this schedule, as it was customary, but two of the men are roughly the same age as Aaron, and others match the ages of his wife and children.

Allowing Ciara the chance, at least to glimpse a trace of her enslaved ancestors and reflect on all that they managed to survive.

How do you think it was possible for your third-great-grandparents to raise a family together, knowing under slavery at this point, your wife could be raped, they had no way to protect your wife, your kids could be snatched away and sold.

What do you think that does to a person, to a family?

It breaks you.

Yeah.

- Breaks you.

- Yeah.

It makes you scared.

Constantly.

Yeah.

You never really get to live.

Mm-mm.

It just makes you also like, appreciate.

It makes you appreciate 'cause we didn't have to go through this.

No.

Right.

You know, so I appreciate them.