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December 31, 2006

The Disgraces of Privatized Memory

T
he growing privatization of historical sites, described in this NYTimes article, is a troublesome trend.

History in private hands can be a perilous thing. Consider Historic Poplar Grove Plantation just north of Wilmington, North Carolina, which, its website tells us, "preserves the homestead of a successful farming family," the Foys.

Visit the website a bit. You'll learn that "plantations were self-contained and self-sustaining. If you didn't make it or grow it or raise it, you probably did without it."

(Who did the growing and the raising?)

You'll learn that "Joseph Mumford Foy personally selected the trees from which the lumber was cut to build the present manor house."

(Who cut the lumber and built the house once Joseph Mumford Foy did his personal selecting?)

You'll learn that "the farmer worked hard all spring to get the ground prepared and get the crop in the ground," and that "when a successful crop did come in there was joy all around, and lots of work because food storage was a real concern. Corn could be dried, peas and beans hung in their shells for later, root crops put into the cool root cellar, apples and pears carefully dried in the sun."

(Who prepared the ground and got the crop in? Who did the harvesting, and was there really joy "all around?" Who dried the food?)

You'll learn quite a bit about the Foy family.

(That is, the white people in the Foy family.)

Oh, and you'll learn about the animals that lived on the plantation.

What you won't learn much about are the slaves that the Foy family owned -- the human beings who did the work.

My wife and I visited Poplar Grove a few years back. We were given a tour by a white woman dressed in period costume. We heard a great deal about the Foy family. At the end of the tour, I asked the guide to tell us a bit about the lives of the slaves at Poplar Grove. She said, "well, what we know is that the Foy family treated their slaves very well. In fact, they were so happy here that when the war ended and they were freed, 63 out of 64 of them chose to remain right here on the plantation as tenant farmers."

This is privatized history. It's incomplete, deceptive, and accountable to nobody. It disgraces the fullness of the memory of a place like Poplar Grove Plantation.

Posted by Eric at December 31, 2006 8:59 AM

Comments

Great post. I graduated from UNCW and did some archaeology at Poplar Grove a few years ago. I was aware of the slave quarters but not much archaeology had been done at the time of slave live on the plantation. Looks like not much has changed, but I hope I'm wrong.

Posted by: Will at December 31, 2006 11:47 AM

"After the war, with no slaves, many plantation fields would go unplanted."
"63 out of 64 of them chose to remain right here on the plantation as tenant farmers."
I guess that 64th slave was the one who used to do all the planting. Or, just possibly, they're not telling the whole truth here either.

Posted by: Mojo at December 31, 2006 1:36 PM

Well, that's depressing news. You'll find quite a different story a bit north of there at the Somerset Place plantation, Creswell, N.C. It's state owned, but it wasn't the state so much that changed the interpretation--it was one determined descendant of slaves there, Dorothy Spruill Redford. Inspired by Arthur Haley's "Roots" to investigate, she ended up writing a book called Somerset Homecoming: Recovering a Lost Heritage.

From the UNC Press description, "Somerset Homecoming, first published in 1989, is the story of one woman's unflagging efforts to recover the history of her ancestors, slaves who had lived and worked at Somerset Place. Traveling down winding southern roads, through county courthouses and state archives, and onto the front porches of people willing to share tales handed down through generations, Dorothy Spruill Redford spent ten years tracing the lives of Somerset's slaves and their descendants. Her endeavors culminated in the joyous, nationally publicized homecoming she organized that brought together more than 2,000 descendants of the plantation's slaves and owners and marked the beginning of a campaign to turn Somerset Place into a remarkable resource for learning about the history of both African Americans and whites in the region."

It's a very interesting place to visit.

No reason that couldn't happen to a privately owned historic site . . . but it would be a surprise.

Posted by: Sally at December 31, 2006 2:08 PM

Just my opinion: It's an interesting article, but we must remember to take everything coming from the New York Times with a grain of salt. They are the newspaper of Jayson Blair, after all, in more ways than one. They're also the only "newspaper" Mike Nifong seems to go scurrying to to give an interview, knowing full well they're one of the few sources still sympathetic to his.....actions.

Posted by: Mike J. at December 31, 2006 5:37 PM

I wonder if a decent term for this sort of thing is 'historic marketing'. An estate (or presidential library) that determines that its best interest is to massage memory rather than represent facts.

Posted by: fishbane at December 31, 2006 5:59 PM