Perhaps that's why fur trader and merchant Michel Mernard, who was born near Montreal, Canada, wanted in on the action. In 1836, Menard negotiated for more than 4,000 acres of land here.
"The request specified the land be east of Galveston on the east end of Galveston Island," Alice Gatson, Chairperson for the Galveston African-American Heritage Committee, said.
In 1838, Menard formed the Galveston City Company to survey and sell plots, and in 1839, Galveston was officially chartered and founded as a city. In his personal life, Menard was married three times before he married his fourth wife, Rebecca Bass from Macon, Georgia. She brought her two daughters to move into the Menard house, along with John Fluker Thomas, who was an enslaved boy at the time.
"He left a family, and he was probably a strong black youth that she saw she could use him in bringing him, uh, to Texas, maybe around the house or to do things to help her, uh, do things around the house," Gatson continued.
Thomas likely stayed in the slave quarters, which still stand on the back of the Menard property today. He grew up, he married, had children, their children had children, their children had children, and so on -- which brings us to 73-year-old Lawrence and 74-year-old Eugene Thomas.
"Great, great," they said in unison.
That's right. John Fluker Thomas, who was owned by the founder of Galveston and his wife, is their great-great-grandfather. Growing up in Galveston, the Thomas brothers spent their whole lives knowing about Juneteenth and celebrating it, but didn't know until later in life that their ancestor had a front row seat.
"I'm going to tell you, it shocked us. Yeah. It shocked us," Lawrence Thomas said.
For the Thomas brothers, most of their time was spent on sports and at Avenue L Baptist Church. In 2004, at a family reunion, they learned their connection to John Fluker Thomas.
"It just floored me. No one ever said that to me when I was growing up here. Yeah. No one. And so once I knew that, it gave me a different sense of being, of who I am. Because I could point somewhere now from my origin, from where we come from," Eugene Thomas explained.
After General Gordon Granger read General Order No. 3 in 1865, freeing the enslaved in Texas, John Fluker Thomas continued to work as a carpenter, and immediately dropped his given slave names of Fluker, Bass, and Menard, and just went by John Thomas.
The family's push for Juneteenth advocacy continued.
The Thomas brothers' father, Reverend James Benjamin Thomas, worked with State Representative Al Edwards years ago to get Juneteenth recognized as a state holiday in Texas, which finally became effective in 1979.
When Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021 under President Joe Biden, Lawrence got to witness the signing in Washington, D.C.
Now, going forward, they want everyone, not just Black people and descendants of the enslaved, to know about the day that changed America.
"We need to educate our kids thoroughly what Juneteenth is and what it really meant. And I think a lot of it's for not knowing. Our kids just don't know. Because no one's teaching them," Eugene said.
The Thomas' plan to travel to Charleston, South Carolina, this week to celebrate Juneteenth and pull historical documents -- seeing how Charleston was once the largest point of entry for enslaved Africans in North America. They also plan to go to Macon, Georgia, at some point, where John Fluker Thomas originated from.