Can something like this really be a true story? My cousin, aunt, and older brother all say it is.?
May 29, 2010 Bird House Feeder
I discovered something about my great great great great aunt who was alive back in the 1870s and I can’t believe it is true! My brother has gotten into genealogy and discovered that she was a slave during this time. Now first of all, there is no African American in my blood, and second of all, slavery was abolished in the 1860s. I am not naive, I know slavery exists today, but I haven’t gotten to the weird part yet…
…supposedly she was a sex slave to a saloon owner in an old western town, but she was not a whore. She was just HIS personal slave by night, but by DAY, he used her to attract customers to his saloon! This is the weird part.
He re-named his saloon, "The Bird in the Gilded Cage" Casino, and he actually kept her…no joke…in a giant round birdcage hanging over a bar…LITERALLY! My brother and cousin even took me to the old casino and showed me the birdcage. It was big enough to fit a person inside, but had all the features of a normal birdcage-a swing, a perch, even a wooden bird feeder mounted between the bars. The swing was even wide enough for my ancestor to sit on it.
Now of course, I know anything was possible back then but this is like something out of a movie. Supposedly, during the day, the saloon owner made her wear skimpy outfits and locked her in the birdcage to attract male customers to the saloon. At night, he let her sleep in bed with him, but she was in bondage. At any rate, I guess she literally LIVED in a birdcage for over seven years of her life before the saloon owner died and she was set free.
Could that really be real? I saw the cage, but I just can’t believe it.
Hummingbirds are fun, entertaining, full of energy and it’s easy to attract hummingbirds.
