These statues of enslaved younger boys are a part of a modern-day depiction of southern plantation life on the Whitney Museum in Louisiana. AP Photograph/Gerald Herbert
Positioned on practically 2,000 acres alongside the banks of the Potomac River, Stratford Corridor Plantation is the birthplace of Accomplice Gen. Robert E. Lee and the house of 4 generations of the Lee household, together with two signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee.
It was additionally the house of tons of of enslaved Africans and African People. From sunup to sunset, they labored within the fields and within the Nice Home. Till pretty lately, the tales of those enslaved Africans and of their brothers and sisters toiling at plantations throughout the Southern U.S. have been absent from any discussions throughout modern-day excursions of plantations comparable to Stratford Corridor.
Even now, with new excursions and an exhibition highlighting enslaved Africans and African People who lived at Stratford Corridor, discussions throughout plantation excursions amongst guests can typically flip into visceral debates over whose historical past must be informed or ignored.
These tensions are a part of an ever-growing work of criticism directed at websites that proceed to omit the historical past of the enslaved group. Of the 600 plantations scattered all through the South, just one, the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana, focuses completely on the experiences of the enslaved.
As a public historian and the director of collections and customer engagement at Stratford Corridor, I can attest that guests have vastly completely different expectations after they go to this historic landmark. Their questions replicate their very own interpretations, curiosities and political biases, typically to the detriment of acquiring a richer training on each side of plantation life – the great, the bad and the ugly.
Awkward questions
Museum professionals at plantations hear all of it and should steadiness viewpoints which might be diametrically opposed to 1 one other, such because the romanticized notion of antebellum gentility and the fixed concern of terror and violence of the enslaved. Guests’ expectations typically collide with actuality, creating tense moments on excursions. Some guests need solutions and tales that sit comfortably with their concepts of slavery and of America as a complete.
“Had been the Lees good slave house owners?” is a frequent query.
A view of Stratford Corridor Plantation in Virginia, birthplace of Gen. Robert E. Lee, circa 1950.
Photograph by Authenticated Information/Archive Photographs/Getty Photographs
Many guests touch upon how the slaves have been handled like household, or how their housing doesn’t appear that bad. Some would slightly skip the entire slavery factor altogether and simply comfortably be taught in regards to the ornamental arts and the customarily luxurious lives of the white households who lived there.
However historical past will not be comfy. Although he lived at Stratford Corridor solely throughout his early years, Robert E. Lee was a slave proprietor in his personal proper. The vast majority of the practically 200 enslaved individuals Gen. Lee owned have been inherited after his father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis, died in 1857.
For each query in regards to the kindness of the enslavers are others in search of detailed descriptions of abuse and terror.
“How a lot abuse occurred right here?” is one such query.
The reply is obvious in regards to the innate inhumanity of slavery. Abuse ran rampant, the whole lot from rape and dismemberment to separating households. Enslaved individuals lived in fixed concern. Violence was all the time a menace, in a single kind or one other.
These questions plague many historic websites. Museum professionals are then saddled with spending extra time explaining the shortage of particular proof of abuse on their website – or examples of their information – and spending much less time speaking in regards to the methods enslaved males, ladies and kids used their tradition and group to persevere in a system constructed on violence and terror.
Violence was not all enslaved individuals skilled on plantations. Questions that focus closely on the remedy of the enslaved – and never the individuals themselves – erase their humanity and ignore their company.
Enslaved individuals on South Carolina plantation in 1862.
“>Slavery Photographs: A Visible Document of the African Slave Commerce and Slave Life within the Early African Diaspora
It additionally reduces their whole existence right into a byproduct of white habits and, worse, diminishes their cultures and their contributions to each the positioning and the nation as a complete.
Tour guides are pivotal in offering richer, extra inclusive academic experiences. But we usually endure private assaults and offensive commentary. Historic interpreter Dontavius Williams works across the nation at plantation websites, and, regardless of his authoritative experience, Williams, 38, has informed me and others within the discipline that he has been known as “boy” on a number of events.
Many African American interpreters even have to handle statements about how slavery was good for his or her ancestors.
Inclusion will not be exclusion
The guests’ function is to be taught from the employees and have interaction in ways in which generate constructive conversations. Facilitators like Williams are skilled in encouraging such talks, whatever the guests’ preconceived notions, political agendas or mounted notions about slavery and different affirmation biases.
What brings a extra nuanced and balanced tour are questions on who made the furnishings, who cooked the meals, what individuals ate, how enslaved individuals persevered despite enslavement or which West African traditions survived within the Colonies.
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This inclusion doesn’t equate to exclusion. Guests can be taught of the white household, the ornamental arts – and the enslaved group.
Historic websites aren’t Disneyland, U.S. historical past will not be fantasy and plantations are inherently uncomfortable locations. If vacationers ask the deeper, extra nuanced questions, they’ll get solutions that problem preconceived concepts and render a extra full understanding of our nation’s historical past.
Kelley Fanto Deetz works at Stratford Corridor.
