Southern Plantations Weren't So "Romantic" For Blacks
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Article from Race in America
by Tamara Winfrey Harris August 03, 2010
As you drive down I-75 in Georgia, bold billboards advertising "Plantation House" periodically pepper the landscape. Perched just off certain exit ramps are the plantation houses themselves: wide, white and fronted by columns. They're like a dream — aren't they?
Across the antebellum South, such plantation homes are the site of much tourist romanticization. The stately mansions conjure up the idea of lost causes, genteel living, dashing men with accents that flow like honey and alabaster-skinned women in ornate dresses.
But this vision of history is too easily divorced from the lives of the enslaved black people who made it possible.
Over the years, at least two white women have gushed to me: "I would just love to go back to that time!" Presumably, these women did not consider that for them to be "Scarlett" of Gone With the Wind, I would have to be a darkie working in the fields. My family would have to live in bondage as chattel — our very lives dependent on the whims of our masters. Life in the antebellum period wasn't simply colorful and romantic, it was dependent on free labor and the dehumanization of people of color.
As an African-American descendant of slaves, when I read Gone With the Wind, I didn't think about how grand it would be to be Scarlett O'Hara — I wondered how awful it must have been to be Mammy. As an amateur genealogist, I have seen my ancestors listed in documents as property, just like the fine china and horses on the Southern farms where they lived. Once you've seen that, it's hard to perceive the way the South still venerates its old culture as somehow benign.
Far too few plantation home tours for tourists even mention the lives of enslaved black people at all. Guides cloak history by using euphemisms like "servants," or by focusing on architecture and interesting tidbits about the lives of the plantations' white owners. A 2009 study of 20 North Carolina plantation homes by East Carolina University, for example, found that seven didn't mention slavery at all and only three made efforts to reflect the experiences of black people who lived and worked on the land.
Some go even further, presenting a whitewashed vision of slavery as a positive force. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, several plantations tours "create the image of happy slaves cared for by benevolent masters." The article quotes Meredith Hall, who owns Darshana Hall Plantation, as saying, "I think that there's a real misconception of slavery; it was a relative thing. This family tried to treat people well. They kept the families together. … They had a pretty good reputation with regard to slavery."
What's more, some plantation homes have actually started welcoming tourists to spend the night in slave quarters — ones re-imagined as charming suites, of course. For example, Virginia's Edgewood Plantation boasts "eight luxurious and charming guest rooms; six in the main house and two in the former slave's quarters." One of those rooms might be Prissy's Quarters, "an enchanting retreat, with rose-covered, vine-canopied queen bed."
So here's what we've learned: slavery was a "relative thing," and slaves slept in quaintly comfortable rooms with flowered bedspreads. How crass can you get?
James Baldwin says, "American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it." Right now, the version of the antebellum South that tourists get to see is pure fantasy — one that erases the histories of black Americans.
As Derek Alderman, who authored the plantation study, puts it, "These plantations were not just about their white owners." No, indeed. The mansions we pose in front of today are sites of a brutal history that should never be forgotten or papered over, lest it be repeated.
Photo Credit: Corey Ann
edit : Kinsey6 : 8/14 : corrected BBC code to display photo
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I see no one has taken the opportunity to comment on this. Let's start with what I agree with - Slavery was much more than likely brutal for most, but as no statistics were kept, no one can say for sure. But is definitely untruthful if all or most of the "tourist" places give the impression it was idyllic for most slaves. And everything I've ever read about it, including Solomon Northup's book (I forget the exact title '16 or 17' years a slave) never once described a canopy bed in a slave's quarters - and he was on several plantations. I do believe he said one owner out of 7 treated the slaves decently. He could have been lying, but it seems extremely unlikely. I don't doubt two white women said to the author that they would have loved to live back in the antebellum period - there are stupid people everywhere of all races who don't stop and consider that TV and Movies are idealized fiction.
What wasn't said here, but is quite often in many other articles/books I've read is that slavery was worse in America than anywhere else. I don't know how anyone would know though, considering how the majority of human history is not recorded. And many kinds of slavery still exist today all over the world. We do know that the lives of poor whites, especially sharecroppers weren't much better than the slaves. The latter part of the 18th century was the industrial revolution as well, not to mention many many children worked in the factories and were maimed in the machinery and beaten . Many so-called free men were paid in script during this period - not in cash. They could only use script at the company store, which was marked up 100% over private stores. So sharecroppers (who could seldom earn enough to pay their total land rental fees) and factory workers never got out from under the control of the landowner or factory owner.
None of this is to say slavery wasn't worse and an abominable practice. It is sad that this even has to be discussed 150 some years after slavery was abolished. (and no, I"m not saying discrimination is a thing of the past either) But to think a few tourists going visiting a plantation might, maybe, possibly bring back slavery someday - well, I can't even think of words to express how incredibly unlikely that is. For one thing, everyone has access to the courts. There are too many black elected officials, doctors and lawyers and the like for that to occur. Hispanics, at present rates, will eclipse blacks as the largest "minority." The USA also has a sizeable population from the middle east. Who would even be the slave? Soon whites may be the minority? Will it be them? Further, every time we buy something from China we are almost endorsing something too close to slavery than I care to contemplate. The working and living conditions there are just about unbearable. Finally, if the courts, Congress, the educated elites and lawyers cannot stop slavery from reoccuring here in the USA then I guess one has to conclude that an apathetic, undereducated population that would let it happen is an unstoppable occurence.
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The biggest single slave owner was the Church of England and they are the reason that it took so long for the UK to ban slavery.
From memory, it cost the UK government an equivalent of £64 Billion in today's money to buy them out of the slave industry.
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Raphjd - Well, as a person born in the USA of course, our history, TV shows and movies even sitcoms in imaginary situations all conspire to give one the impression America is the first at everything. I never knew the UK government bought out The Church of England. When and how did this happen? Reading a bit of Irish history, the British government seemed pretty harsh in they way they "helped" during the potato famine, (late 1800's?) making people work without coats, gloves, sometimes even shoes. Seems hard to believe they would be more concerned about slaves than citizens?
I edited my second paragraph which used to say "it is strongly implied here that American slavery was worse than anyplace else….." I guess I should have left it. Reading the article for the third time, I see James Baldwin comments "American History is ......more beautiful, more terrible..." but if he was referring only to slavery, "more beautiful" hardly fits? I don't know.
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hXXp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4694896.stm
Read that.
Also note that the £13,000 talked about was the amount paid in 1833, not today's money. That was just one Bishop and a few of his cronies.
We also have to remember that there were Africans involved in the slave trade as well. Slavery in Africa still continues to this very day.
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i read a book by julius lester, the title was Day of Tears. It talks in a brutal way about the largest slave plantation ever. the story's real, the conversations were "derived" from history. When i read it, i could identify with the slaves, who had no idea whether they would be sold off to a gentle master or to a tyrant.
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NQM - if you're interested in a first person account - read Solomon Northup's "Twelve Years a Slave". He and his wife had a successful life - I can't recall if she cooked for a hotel and he had his own farm and played the violin for pay. This was of course in a northern state in the very early 1800s - anyway - a couple white guys wanted him to play for them and he was taken to various locales and eventually kidnapped. I won't tell the rest because I don't want to ruin it for you but obviously he eventually escaped to return north which enabled him to tell his story.
Raphjd - I was aware Africans were involved in the slave trade since I was trying not to diverge too much from the main story, didn't say it, but since you brought it up - It is absurd to lay all the blame at the feet of the Europeans. As if they could just walk onto another continent and "grab" someone off their native soil. Since this is a "debate" part of the forum I will also add however, that those inclined to lay the blame that way sometimes say (again) yes, but slavery was not conducted the same way - it was not permanent in Africa. So they didn't know what they were doing selling to Europeans. I very much doubt that for the same reasons I doubt other thing: so much of human history was not written down. Surely after the first few shiploads left never to return, seems someone would have figured that out. The gigantic ship, much larger than any native ship, alone would imply a very very long voyage, would it not?
Lastly no one will ever truly win anything tangible or long term by playing the "who suffered the most game.' At first glance it appears some races fared better than others, or did they? Over the entire course of all human history, hasn't every race or group been on top and bottom but at different times? Is not suffering ultimately an individual affair? It is not a good feeling to know that you a black person can't use the same drinking fountain in the south of the 1940s but one cannot bear pain for another can they? And what of the Hutus vs. the Tutsi's a decade or two ago? Both of the same race - a black reporter wrote for a US magazine "the dead bodies of the (Tutsi's I think) went down the river several hundred an hour, almost too fast to count." (murdered by the Hutu's).
PS - I read your link - the church paid the owners compensation after emancipation came in 1833. It wasn't the government that paid the money. It is a sad fact that a church did such things in 1833, not exactly the dark ages, but I'd be happy if we could work on abolishing the slavery we have NOW. Getting the USA out of Iraq, Afghanistan, stopping the sex trade of young boys and girls in Asia…...We spend so much time looking back we often don't help those living NOW.
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There are many articles that talk about the government paying for it. The wikipedia article says the government paid the Bishop of Exeter and his 2 cronies for the slaves.
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Fancydude, will do. Might be a welcome change.
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Raphjd - That article is hard to read ! Well, I read it for the third time and it says the Bishop of Exeter and three colleagues were paid for 665 slaves - but I didn't see any mention of WHO paid. But you are a good source of information - so I'll take your word for it that the gov't paid. 64 Billion pounds (almost 90 billion in USD) seems like an incredibly huge amount of money though. In US dollars - Many people earn less than 30,000 a year here - and work 30 years - so they have made less than a million for their entire lifetime. So 665 people earn 665 million and the same slaves are worth 15 times that? Yeah, I realize slaves worked from sun up to sun down, not 8-5 etc. Still…...
Not only that, 13,000 pounds for that time in history - an incredible amount of money! Think about this - a friend of mine had a house in an historic district along THE main street in a major city. In 1910, houses in the first block (prestige was a big factor) were selling for $3,500, second block $2500, and third block 1500. Of course, the further away you got, there were less features - (leaded glass by the fireplace, built in book cases etc) still these were all 2 story brick homes with at least three bedrooms. (Henry Ford's model T plant was about 2 miles from there, and he was offering the unheard of wages of $5 a day (which most people didn't know included benefits- that was not cash in your hand)...... So a slave was worth 1/665th of 90 Billion USD? The math or conversion figures must be wrong somewhere. A spool of thread in 1885 was 2 cents. How could a slave (or anyone else's) productivity be worth that?
