As plantations talk more honestly about slavery, some visitors are pushing back

Washington Post ^ | September 8, 2019 | Hannah Knowles

[Governor Dinwiddie]

article: "… an effort is underway to deal more honestly with the brutal institution …"

Slavery might have been immoral but "brutal". I think not. They should cite some examples of George Washington's, Nellie Custis's, or Thomas Jefferson's "brutality". It didn't happen.
 

[KosmicKitty]

I call shenanigans.

I have a favorite youtuber, Townsend, formerly Townsend and Sons, that produce videos about recipes, cooking, and other aspect of life in the 1700s.

They did a great series on people who work at Williamsburg and portray people from the 1700s. One black woman portrayed a slave. You know who gave her grief? Yep, other blacks.

i give his woman lot of credit. she said that she did this so people wouldn’t forget their history and how far they have come!

[BenLurkin]

There used to be at the Monticello “visitor center” which described in detail the lives of the slaves. Was interested to learn that they were able to hold “second jobs” for which they were paid, and that they were able to save that money, sometimes even enough to buy their freedom.

[\/\/ayne]

Excerpted: As Jefferson and Washington sought to liberalize the State’s slavery laws to make it easier to free slaves, the State Legislature went in exactly the opposite direction, passing laws making it more difficult to free slaves. (As one example, Washington was able to circumvent State laws by freeing his slaves in his will at his death in 1799; by the time of Jefferson’s death in 1826, State laws had so stiffened that it had become virtually impossible for Jefferson to use the same means.)

What today have become the almost unknown views and forgotten efforts of both Washington and Jefferson to end slavery in their State and in the nation should be reviewed. Consider first the views of George Washington. Born in 1732, his life demonstrates how culturally entrenched slavery was in that day. Not only was Washington born into a world in which slavery was accepted, but he himself became a slave owner at the tender age of 11 when his father died, leaving him slaves as an inheritance. As other family members deceased, Washington inherited even more slaves. Growing up, then, from his earliest youth as a slave owner, it represented a radical change for Washington to try to overthrow the very system in which he had been raised.

Washington astutely recognized that the same singular force would be either the great champion or the great obstacle to freeing Virginia’s slaves, and that force was the laws of his own State. Concerning the path Washington desired to see the State choose, he emphatically declared:

I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery]; but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by Legislative authority; and this, as far as my suffrage [vote and support] will go, shall never be wanting [lacking].

- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson & Slavery in Virginia

[livius]

” Monticello could have been built without the “brutal institution” - it could not have been built without Jefferson...”

Intolerant, that’s the best and most concise comment I’ve read about this. May I use it (citing you) in other posts? Great observation and perfectly expressed.

[Alberta's Child]

I have no problem with historical facts embedded in tours of historical sites. But facts can get uncomfortable for these SJW-types, too. If I was on a tour of Monticello and someone went to great lengths to point out all the work that was done by slaves, I would ask two simple questions:

1. Why is it that the black slaves worked in the fields here, while this magnificent estate was built by white laborers?

2. Monticello was built almost 250 years ago. If I were to visit the regions of Africa where Jefferson’s slaves traced their roots, would I find any buildings as magnificent as this over there TODAY?

[Meatspace]

“Was interested to learn that they were able to hold “second jobs” for which they were paid, and that they were able to save that money, sometimes even enough to buy their freedom.”

What was their first job?

[BenLurkin]

Jefferson was very enthusiastic about peas. So, probably something to do with that. That and the big silo of river ice he kept in his basement.

It is a lot smaller than expected, and many of his ballyhooed features come across as a tad silly when seen first hand.

[Demanwideplan]

Need to remind them a black U S man sued an indentured black servant for ownership thereof and won in 1649. Thus began slavery.

[Cheesehead in Texas]

I went to Monticello around the same time. The tour was awful. It was basically, “all slavery, all the time.” The tour guide was annoyingly condescending too. When we went into the room with paintings and busts of famous people, she asked if anyone knew who they were. I said I knew them all. She challenged me to name them. After correctly identifying them, she said I must have taken the tour before. I said, “No, I’ve never been here before, I’m just educated.” She asked if I majored in history. “No, my degree is in petroleum engineering.” She looked confused. As if engineers can’t read anything besides an ops manual.

[Brooklyn Attitude]

“...one visitor complained earlier this summer that she “didn’t come to hear a lecture on how the white people treated slaves.”

What the tourist should have said was “Yeah Yeah hippie, we all saw “Roots”. Just get on with the tour”.

[setter]

We were on a tour of a S. Carolina plantation last year. 80% was the field and slave cabins. It was clearly overdone towards slaves and the white guilt was dripping.

Funny point aside the modern padlocks on the slave cabins doors were “Master lock”

I made a snide I guess bad humor remark about it to my wife. She and a few who heard it laughed. Some gave me a death stare.

[Cheesehead in Texas]

I think I’ll go to Hadrian’s Wall and complain about how my enslaved ancestors built that wall and there is not enough virtue signalling about how bad life was for those enslaved by the Romans.

[dljordan]

“...not that there’s anything wrong with that...”

I’ve been overwhelmingly white my entire life.

[Verginius Rufus]

I read a long time ago that the National Park Service was unhappy that very few black people were interested in visiting their sites so they have been trying to make as many as possible of them all about slavery. They can talk about slavery until the cows come home and it won't do much to increase the number of black visitors.

I visited Mount Vernon a few years ago, which of course is not government-run. They were trying to highlight the lives of the slaves but it did not overwhelm the attention paid to George Washington and his life. There were some black tourists there but probably the foreign tourists outnumbered them.

[Vermont Lt]

It’s a fact. It should be included with the tour.

But it should also include a history of context—that it was “accepted” at the time, and even though we find it abhorrent today—it was part of life in antebellum southern plantations.

[Drew68]

Newsflash: Sometimes history isn't pleasant.

True, but in 2019 you can't even mention Jefferson or Washington without segueing immediately to slavery.

[CincyRichieRich]

I’m sure my post here is going to make some people mad that’s okay. I’m going to give my observations on this based on 25 years of marriage in a white guy black wife marriage and having toured around the country to many of these plantations and other slavery oriented exhibits and tours. Typically when black people tour these destinations , they do it with a group on a bus not individual families, usually... I think that is mostly because they feel a little weird being by themselves and probably might be outnumbered by all the white people that do attend them t...that’s neither good nor bad it just is. That said, my annoyance - and it’s just as much as everybody else here - is the tour guides. Some of them are extremely good... for example recently here in Cincinnati we went into Ripley, Ohio which is on the Ohio River specifically on the Cincinnati side and we toured the John Rankin House as well as the John Parker House. Rankin was a pastor who was an abolitionist and John Parker was an escaped slave who was a half white half black man who of course back then was called a black man and he, through some course of events, became one of the transporters across the river for slaves who were escaping( historically he would be called a conductor of the Underground Railroad). Both men are worthy of their attention and some historical reading. I would consider both of them heroes. That said, the tour guide for The Rankin house... at least this particular man who is white ...did a good job, but some of his lecture was annoying because it had that added effect of telling us how bad we were as white people instead of just stating the facts. I found that to be very annoying and I really don’t need somebody, especially a white liberal, lecturing me. I would rather hear the facts and let myself digest it. OTOH, the gentleman who did the tour of the John Parker House was black and he was an incredible historian and talked in the way where he was painting history and I would never forget anything he said. He was a historian as well as an Entertainer. And he got history across to us and all of the bad parts about slaves and mistreatment and all of the horrible things they endured but I did not mind the way he told it because he did not lecture me or talk down to me or try to make me feel guilty he just told me the way it was. He was not annoying at all and he was not lecturing in any way. When we were leaving there was a bus showing up with about 50 black people from Louisville and it was a church group who was coming to take a tour of both places. Yes that seems anecdotal, however and all these years of taking tours, I have noticed a pattern and that’s what I have to go on. Ats time has marched on, and I do believe especially during the Obama Reign of Terror, tour guides, movie stars, comedians actors , actresses, all have been given permission to increase the laying into white folks.. and even while it is white liberals who are the ones doing most of that. It’s like THEY are off the hook and they have to make us the receivers of the tour feel that wrath and guilt. And they absolutely love having a captive audience so you have to sit there and take it. Facts are facts ...yes absolutely slavery was abhorrent and rapes and lynchings and whippings and chopping off of fingers, toes, feet, branding, family separations, treated like chattel, as well as snipping the Achilles heel if somebody tried to run if they were caught... that all did happen and we cannot deny that nor do I want to deny that. But there is a way of telling people the truth without being insulting and I frankly hate hearing it from white liberals. That’s just my two cents. I actually would much rather have a black person give me a tour and tell me all about it then a white liberal.

[jughandle]

Almost like they’re trying to make our entire history and founding about ONE thing...

[mewzilla]

Guess we were lucky. We got the opportunity to visit Monticello a while back, booked one of the in-depth tours.

Had an excellent guide who gave a great tour, including information about the slaves there.

We got an informative tour, but not a guilt trip.