Wormsloe State Historic Site, about 10 miles South of Savannah, is a fascinating place.Its graceful long drive leading into the site evokes an "old south" pastorality, even though it was added after the Civil War, in the 1890s.
The site is a splendid place to visit.The tree lined path is impressive to behold. Even more delightfully, once you are off into the paths, the landscape changes.
Every step you take, there's a rustle as a frog or a skink or something else jumps away from your approach. There are pines, palms, and all sorts of lush vegetation.
The fallen and dead trees add to the atmosphere.
And when you stand near the marsh you can hear it gurgling and talking to itself, like a content baby. It's almost as if the water is singing.
Plus, there are ruins of an old tabby fort, right near the water, giving you a tangible item through which you can take a leap into imagining the past. You can imagine watching the ships, sloops, barks, and flatboats going by.
We started outdoors. We walked, looked, and listened. And we had a fabulous, if very sweaty, time.And then we went to the visitor center.
I can't tell you how much I wish I hadn't suggested going and looking at the exhibits. Or to be more accurate, I think I wish I had not asked the staff for more information about slavery on the site.
The staff member I asked started off by telling me there wasn't slavery in Georgia.
Whhaaaa?????
To try to put myself in the employee's shoes, I think the guy didn't really focus on what I was asking. His vision of Wormsloe was of a fort in the 1730s (and in the first decades of the colony's existence slavery was illegal), so he answered for that time frame.
And I was asking about Wormsloe in the 19th century.
And so, after a bit of to and fro, during which I pointed out that George legalized slavery in the colonial period, he finally admitted that there were 12 slaves at Wormsloe.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the conversation kind of went downhill from there.
I won't go into all the details, but to give you a flavor of the conversation...I was told that all the big plantations in the state were in Northwestern Georgia! I don't know a lot about Georgia's geography, but they picked the wrong couple of weeks to mess with me. During our first week, as we went up the Savannah River, Todd pointed out a bunch of old rice plantation, where hundreds of slaves would have labored.
And, this week, I've been reading the fabulous Saving Savannah, by Jacqueline Jones. She tells us that in 1850, Savannah was a city of 15,312 people, 7,000 of whom were slaves. I'd say that makes the region a center of slavery.
Anyway, the "inside" Worsmloe experience left a really bad taste in my mouth. And I keep wondering, does the state of Georgia really want its history to be whitewashed by its historic site's employees? Or was this guy just an abberation? I really hope he was just enthusiastic but misinformed.
Even if his view isn't the state sanctioned view, it does lead me to wonder why it seems so hard for historic sites to discuss slavery.
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Welcome to my childhood! No, I don't think that guy was an aberration. Don't you know that all the oldest families in the south owned no slaves? At least, that seemed to be the party line when I was growing up. Of course, my mother (old VA family) set me straight on this at an early age. But then of course she was already unpopular, as she had the gall to go around recommending that federal reparations be made to the descendants of slaves. Just the life of the party, old Marilyn was!
ReplyDelete(Well, really, Jan!)
ReplyDeleteWas she shunned socially? We've been reading about women, like Virginia Durr, who stepped out of the 'magic circle' of white womanhood and learned about the costs of speaking out.
Oh, and I loved "Saving Savannah," which I read last year. Have you read "Journal of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation" by Frances Anne Kemble?
ReplyDeleteJust went here. I was very curious about the wooden platform, three steps high with a contraption next to it that had a bench and wooden beam with two arm holes. I'm no historian but it seemed to be reminiscent of equipment for a slave auction.
ReplyDeleteAlso, on the plaque it reads..."indigo, rice and silk were cultivated here by Jones,his indentured servants and later slaves."
Just went here. I was very curious about the wooden platform, three steps high with a contraption next to it that had a bench and wooden beam with two arm holes. I'm no historian but it seemed to be reminiscent of equipment for a slave auction.
ReplyDeleteAlso, on the plaque it reads..."indigo, rice and silk were cultivated here by Jones,his indentured servants and later slaves."
Thank you for sharing your experience. I visited today and later searched on the Internet for over an hour to find out how many slaves Wormsloe had. I think since current family members still live on the property that they are squeamish about admitting their ancestors owned other humans.
ReplyDelete