I've got slave ancestors. The story goes that the two young brothers (around ages 10 and 12) were Shanghaied in Ireland in the middle 1700s and forced to labor aboard a ship. When the ship ported in the southeast of colonial America (can't remember where, exactly, likely somewhere from Georgia to Virginia), they jumped ship and hid under someone's porch till the ship set sail again. So, for the length of the journey, they were indeed slaves.
Grandma told us that story several times.
