Tom Cotton's Slave-Owning Ancestors

Tom Cotton feels very strongly that 1619 project should not be used to teach kids.He has sponsored a bill that cuts funding to using the 1619 project to teach kids. Is an ulterior motive for Tom Cotton to not want anyone to learn the truth about slavery?

If we dig into records of slave ownership, we can see that Tom Cotton’s family owned slaves.

Tracing Tom Cotton’s Genealogy was rather easy:

Slave-owning Ancestors

The 1850 Tax List for Drakes Creek Sec., Simpson Co., KY, p. 81, lists Tom Cotton’s ancestor Francis Ryon as owning 180 acres of land and seven slaves. Francis Ryon’s daughter Rebecca married Jesse Hackney Cotton in 1842. In 1859, Jesse and Rebecca moved to Yell County, Arkansas. According to the 1860 census, Jesse Cotton, owned twelve slaves.