Reframing the Remains:
An Infrastructural Remediation of North Carolina Plantations
An Infrastructural Remediation of North Carolina Plantations
Every year, millions of Americans visit national parks, museums, monuments, and cultural landmarks, experiencing guided walks, tours, exhibits, signage, and artifacts, each focused on interpretation of the important site. Historic plantations face unique challenges as locations of racialized memory, and historic interpretation of these sites hinges upon engaging communities and visitors in meaningful conversations, specifically centering around the historical artifacts and cultural sites’ embodiment of racialized memory. This materialist media genealogy of plantation infrastructure examines the complex narratives of three pre-Civil War plantations in North Carolina, detailing aspects of memory remediation. Plantation sites move from their original role as memory containers of working plantations to their reimagining as transmitters and broadcasters of memory for contemporary visitors. In this translation, critical questions emerge about the struggle for narrative space of enslaved voices in the remediation of plantation sites. Produced as an ESRI StoryMap, this project scrutinizes plantation sites’ deliveries of both enslaved persons and planter narratives and offers important reflections on the changing nature of Antebellum South historical sites.
Click points on this map to explore plantation homes in North Carolina that this project profiles.
“Media…are vessels and environments, containers of possibility that anchor our existence and make what we are doing possible.” (Peters, 2016) John Durham Peters suggests an extensive context for media; throughout the course of his work, he outlines a definition of media that encompasses the very fabrics of human nature - fire and ocean, technology and culture. This expansive definition provides the foundation for this project, an understanding that nearly everything that humanity has created functions as a media device which records, stores, processes and plays back its content for subsequent generations.
As humanity has created media, so infrastructure has emerged to meet the needs of its people. “Civilization is an array of infrastructures. Shipping, fire, farming, herding, bureaucracy, city settlement, genealogies are examples.” (Peters, 2015) These infrastructures serve a dual purpose: to meet physical needs and to function as media devices. Peters also details the dependence of humankind upon its infrastructural technē in an extended metaphor of ships and the sea. (Peters, 2016) Ships function as an environmental housing to pass through the sea, an unnatural habitat for humans, by artificially replicating a traditional human environment. However, ships still live at the mercy of the water, and must be able to withstand a variety of environmental changes, sun, sand, storm, etc. (Peters, 2016) Similarly, plantation homes crafted enclosed environments for their communities; housing, food, religious activites, medical care, work, and schooling all took place on the plantation complex. This enclosed life at its nexus, however, took place amidst antebellum society and culture, where enslaved-agriculture economy drove planters to create plantation infrastructure as a means of control of their wealth and to withstand societal changes. Plantation owners became dependent upon this economy to drive their status and power, and as a means of control over the enslaved populations creating the agricultural wealth of the plantation.
Plantation infrastructure function not only as a means of control but also as means of media - recording and playing back the experience of humanity, i.e. memory. Bernard Stiegler identifies the important role of memory in progressive technological ruptures. "It is by freeing itself from genetic inscription that memory at once pursues the process of liberation and inscribes thereupon the mark of a rupture—on stones, walls, books, machines, madeleines, and all forms of supports..." (Stiegler et al., 1998) Technics serve as containers of the inscription of memory, vessels which bind up the experiences of civilizations and then play them back to future generations. How is this historical memory experienced? It is conveyed through remediation, the process of reanimation or playback of the historical memories encased within the technical structures.
Many infrastructures function as hidden sites - undersea cables, sewer and cable lines, cellphone towers disguised as trees. Peters echoes this sentiment, “In a broad sense, infrastructure consists of whatever enabling conditions are backgrounded from perception. Infrastructure in most cases is demur and hides from the spotlight. Withdrawal is its modus operandi.” (Peters, 2015) Home as infrastructure, however, can range from simple and hiding in the shadows to ostentatious displays of wealth and power seen in grandiose architectural masterpieces. This same variety in structures and style is represented in the plantations studied in this project. Although these homes were constructed by landowners of similar socioeconomic means and in generally the same time period, each projects the unique status, attitudes, and beliefs of its builder and owner.
However, over time each home experienced a similar phenomenon - breakdown. "The normally invisible quality of working infrastructure becomes visible when it breaks: the server is down, the bridge washes out, there is a power blackout. Even when there are backup mechanisms or procedures, their existence further highlights the now visible infrastructure.” (Bowker & Star, 2008) The Reconstruction era dissolved enslaved-agriculture economy across the South; as freed slaves left plantations in droves to find relatives, move northward or seek employment, the breakdown in physical labor on many plantations led to the financial ruin of many white planters across the region. In response, once thriving plantation sites were sold in pieces, given to family members, rented to tenant farmers, or in many cases, eventually left to crumble in the years following Emancipation. It is upon this breakdown that many historical societies pick up the mantle of restoration. The remediation of these sites into new, more "visible" infrastructures in contemporary society allows visitors to experience the historical information contained in each location. Without the remediation process, the historical data embedded within the infrastructure would not be accessible by the general public. The reanimation process develops each of these historic homes into tourist sites accessible by visitors to learn more about Southern antebellum and postbellum Plantation life and its planter family and enslaved populations.
This project seeks to assess how plantation sites remediate the histories of their pasts through their selection of infrastructures and artifacts. How do sites present the narrative of the property via tours, signage, historical interpretation and documentation? How do visitors experience the remediation of the site via physical and digital means?
This project examines the reanimation of three specific plantation sites in North Carolina: Historic Hope Plantation in Windsor, NC, Historic Stagville in Durham, NC, and Somerset Place in Creswell, NC. The sites in this project were chosen based on their status as interpreted as pre-Civil War plantations. Additionally, each site operates regularly as a historic home site for visitors, rather than only under special circumstances (i.e. during holidays and special celebrations.) Let us now turn out attention to these three sites:
Originally built to house Governor David Stone and his first wife Hannah, the c.1803 Hope Mansion (seen behind) stands as the centerpiece of Historic Hope Plantation. Photo: Hope Mansion as it stands today.
One of the few privately held pre-Civil War plantation sites in North Carolina, Hope Plantation regales the story of David Stone's political involvement in the formation of North Carolina as governor and eventually US Senator. Hope Mansion, built to accommodate Stone's growing family and active political pursuits, was a fully functioning plantation by the turn of the 17th century with 100+ enslaved working full-time.
"On the property there were buildings for blacksmithing as well as for spinning and weaving to make clothing. Also on the plantation, David Stone operated a saw mill. Other outbuildings included a kitchen, dairy, grist mill, and meat house. A large kitchen garden provided the food necessary for entertaining and feeding his large family." (David Stone and Hope Plantation, 2020)
Hope Plantation was purchased in 1966 by the Historic Hope Foundation, a group of residents in nearby Windsor, NC determined to see the home restored to its former glory. After working diligently to raise the thousands of dollars needed to fund such a massive project, the house was restored to its original state and furnished with period furniture and opened in 1972 as a historic site. Photo: Hope Mansion pre-restoration c. early 1960s.
"Visitors today can learn about David Stone, the man, and the complexities of plantation life in eastern North Carolina in the early 19th century." (David Stone and Hope Plantation, 2020)
Courtesy of Our State Magazine
Historic Stagville preserves a small portion of the plantation holdings of the Cameron-Bennehan families. At its nexus, the plantation controlled 30,000+ acres of land and enslaved 900+ on the property and at nearby plantation Fairntosh.
The area has been preserved as a historic site by the state of North Carolina since 9178 and includes the Bennehan family plantation house, four slave dwellings at Horton Grove, and a large timber-framed barn built by the enslaved (c.1860). "Most of the historic landscape features are gone, but the site includes the foundation of an enslaved family's house, a Bennehan family cemetery, and the foundation of a kitchen building." (North Carolina Historic Sites. n.d.-b)
“Today Stagville is a historic site dedicated to interpreting the lives, culture, and labors of enslaved people on the Bennehan-Cameron plantations." (North Carolina Historic Sites. n.d.-b) Photo: Cameron-Bennehan Plantation House c.1930s
Courtesy of UNC-TV
A wealthy eastern NC shipper and merchant, Josiah Collins acquired the land on the shores of Lake Phelps that would become Somerset Place in 1784 via verbal agreement to cut a canal to drain the land and farm rice and other agricultural products. Named for Collins' original English homestead, Somerset Place remained in the family for three generations, eventually rising to prominence as one of the upper South's largest plantation complexes. By the Civil War, Somerset contained more than 50 individual buildings (including an on-site hospital and an Episcopal church for the enslaved.) More than 850 enslaved individuals lived and worked the land over the course of the history of the plantation property.
"With the end of the plantation system, Somerset Place plantation passed into history. Nearly all the newly emancipated black families left the plantation before 1870. The financially crippled owners eventually sold and left the property, never to return." (North Carolina Historic Sites. n.d.-a)
In 1939, Somerset's main complex and 7 remaining buildings were incorporated into Pettigrew State Park, established to protect and maintain Lake Phelps. In 1969, the state historic site was established as Somerset Place with 31 of the original lakeside acres. Photo: Newspaper clipping from 1969 grounds dedication.
“[Somerset Place] ...offers an interpretive tour that meshes the lifestyles of all of the plantation's residents into one concise chronological social history of the plantation's 80-year lifespan. Through one general tour, visitors explore the lives of the plantation's owners, enslaved community, employed whites, and free blacks.” (North Carolina Historic Sites. n.d.-a)
Courtesy of Somerset Place State Historic Site
The home, as a location of memory, functions both as a physical entity and as a conceptual framework for emotional connection. "It is not just a building, but an idea that is created through the passage of time and the dint of human will. It can therefore have multiple meanings, from simply the house in which a person lives (or lived), the sense of identity or community he or she has fostered, and the emotional sense of belonging that has been developed or lost." (Burke, 2019) Homes are a complex web of the physical, the social and the personal, which blended together foster the powerful ability for a home to serve as container and recorder of memories.
As a physical location, the home draws on the familiar experience for its visitors, as we each have a personal experience of what a home is. Additionally, the home draws out other identifiers of memory, "a song or sound that evokes a particular social experience, the food that reminds one of home, or a scent that arouses memories of a departed relative or lost way of life- essentially, any entity, 'whether material or non-material in nature,' that can inspire the recollection of a past experience or evoke an emotional reaction." (Burke, 2019)
Photo: Cameron-Benneham Plantation House Pre-Restoration c.1920s. Courtesy of Duke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection
Contained in the homes of this project are the original narratives and memories of the inhabitants of the plantation sites. The material infrastructure of the home itself captures the recording of the original memories - encased in the furniture, the writings and documentation, and other physical artifacts left by the original inhabitants of the properties. Which of these artifacts remains when a house begins the process of remediation speaks the nature of memory places themselves. “…memory places themselves have histories. That is, they do not just represent the past. They accrete their own pasts. Virtually all studies of public memory places take account of the connections memory places draw between past and present.” (Blair et al., 2010) Plantations fabricate their own pasts by which objects and structures survive out of their original historical period. Many of the sites have extensive documentation of the planter families and their lives; however, little documentation remains of the enslaved communities' experiences. Additionally, many sites proudly display artifacts original to the plantation which have been recovered or discovered on the property. Each of these objects and surviving structures helps to shape the memory of the site itself.
However, beyond just capturing the original memories of each plantation complex, the remediation of the plantations has led to the transmission and broadcast of the original site's memories. The plantations examined in this project serve as both a container/ recorder and broadcaster of the memories of their site in the remediation process.
Blair et al. indicate there is no consensus on the function of public memory, and the relationship between past and present. However, the author does invoke the important value of memory places. “But we must acknowledge public memory to be ‘invented,’ not in the large sense of a fabrication, but in the more limited sense that public memories are constructed as rhetorical resources.” (Blair et al., 2010) The reanimation of the original memories of a home as a historical site can be viewed by contemporary visitors as they walk throughout the infrastructure itself, examining objects, artifacts, and hearing the narratives told by docents and tour guides about the property.
As Gallagher and Kalin discuss, remediation of a historical landmark can cause a kind of “Disneyfication” of a location, where an entirely new place is birthed from the constant preservation and maintenance of the site itself. In their article on Auschwitz-Birkenau the authors state, “Disneyfication, whether of a city or site, usually suggests a kind of odd perfection made possible through media and mediation that push and pull a visitor out of place, making one more susceptible to a wonder that simultaneously creates a vulnerability of placelessness–utopia as perfect place…thus, there is no question that some part of the site needs to be preserved, but how and what kinds of media mediation are appropriate?” (Gallagher and Kalin, 2017) A similar quandary faces historical plantation homes in the Old South: what portions of plantations should be remediated? How should they be remediated?
Typically, reimaginations of homes as historical sites are fraught with prejudice. “…although all public memory representations are partial, memory places are characterized by an extraordinary partiality.” (Blair et al., 2010) Civil War monuments and sites are particularly prone to this propensity to partiality as the brutal, racially charged history of injustice of slavery have generally been left out of the narrative of lavish Southern plantation house museums. "Numerous studies of plantation tourism, such as Jennifer Eichstedt and Stephen Small’s classic 2002 sociological study, “Representations of Slavery,” have found that plantation sites (especially those that are privately owned) tend toward Eurocentric portrayals of the past that participate in a process of “symbolic annihilation” in which Black presence is ignored or marginalized." (Miles, 2020) The traditional lack of enslaved voices in historic plantation sites can been seen in many facets, but the remediation of the infrastructures themselves helps the issue visibly emerge.
“However, the physical reconstruction of the building will be the most immediate and impressive single interpretative strategy in historic houses, and different approaches can create starkly different images of a historic place.” (Stewart, 2011) The remediation of the technical infrastructure, and thereby the remediation of memory in these historic spaces, has affected the narratives of the plantation sites. In many ways, visitors are being told what and how to remember. The transmission and broadcasting of the memories of the plantation are being shaped by the reanimation of the historical site. Each of these plantations has been characterized by differing techniques of remediation based upon who did the work of the reanimation process. Photo: Image of Historic Hope Mansion pre-restoration c.1950s.
As Stewart tell us, “the effects of physical reconstruction will, to a great extent, define the visitor experience of a historic house.” (Stewart, 2011) Let us now turn our attention to the sites and their physical, as well as digital, reconstructions. Photo: Floor plan of Cameron-Bennehan Plantation House
Historic Hope Plantation's remediation begins with the story of the "The Miracle of Hope - History of the Restoration Project," a detailed written account of the Bertie County residents who worked to acquire and restore the Hope Mansion to its former glory. This document’s account of the story suggests a small glimpse into the politics of remediation – the restoration of Hope Mansion all but ignores the enslaved population’s narrative at Hope during this period. The document explains, in detail, the creation of the “Governor Stone Ball”, a formal fundraising event designed to help provides the funds needed for the restoration of Hope Mansion; no mention is made of archaeological excavations or plans to unearth enslaved populations experiences’ at Hope. The event, a smashing success, harkens to events that may have been held during the Stone’s original ownership of the mansion – a sparkling evening party in the first floor rooms of Hope Mansion.
The Miracle of Hope Plantation as recounted by Wayland L. Jenkins Jr.
After the end of the initial remediation period, the day-to-day operations of the mansion are entrusted to the Historic Hope Foundation, who continue the process of creating and maintaining the historic home as a site of the Stone's planter legacy. Over the next 30+ years, very little excavation work is completed on the land to find additional archaeological sites or other dwellings. The reasoning is two-fold according to current docents at the property: financial hardship as 501c3 and a lack of interest by local farmers who now own the property adjacent to the Hope Mansion.
Upon touring the Historic Hope Plantation, very few physical interpretations of the enslaved narrative exist during the traditional tour. Before entering into the Hope Mansion, docents acknowledge a tree to the right of the mansion where quarters from enslaved persons may have been located. Upon further questioning of archeological excavations and further research of these remains, tour guides quickly explain that the 501c3 organization does not own much of the land surrounding Hope Mansion, therefore little excavation work has been completed.
Upon entering the basement of the mansion, the cellar has been interpreted similar to a house of the enslaved people. After a short explanation of the space, visitors are left free to roam among the room and view items and ask questions of the docent. The docent explains that enslaved and free persons of both African and Native American descent were an important part of the economic growth of Hope Plantation (137 enslaved persons total by most records).
The remediation of the cellar as the home of the enslaved people of Hope Plantation.
Additionally, this lower exhibit of artifacts depicts an enslaved person's carpenter's shop, which would have been close to the house and outside kitchen. The docent explains that no specific narratives survive of the enslaved person's stories of working at Hope Plantation, but this remediation serves as a typical example of the enslaved's life on the plantation. Of the artifacts displayed in the cellar space, not a single one is original to the property. Hope has very few artifacts the remain original to the property due to the home being sold in pieces to the state of North Carolina. Hope Plantations' choice to reanimate the cellar space as the enslaved communities' space further entrenches the divide between the enslaved population and the Stone narrative in the Hope Mansion.
An enslaved person's tools depicted by the cellar fireplace at Hope Mansion.
After moving into the first-floor upstairs space, the oral narrative explained by the docent is framed in the story of the Stone family. As the docent moves about the exhibit, she explains the significance of the many of the furniture pieces, the paint colors and other various parts of the home to the Stone family. Very little mention is made of the enslaved persons' lives, beyond their intersections with various parts of the Stone's home life at Hope.
The entirety of Hope Mansion has been restored, save the very top floor, which original served as a dressing room for the family. These spaces have been outfitted with thousands of dollars of period furniture and paintings, and much care has been taken to find artifacts that fit both the interpretation period and some which were original to the Stone family (but perhaps may not have been originally at Hope Mansion.) In contrast, very little work has been done to recover artifacts and objects related to the enslaved populations at Hope. Very little, if any, archaeological work has been explored around the site, and although much fewer original artifacts exist of enslaved populations of the period, Hope disproportionately has focused their time and energy on preserving the Stone family's heritage inside of Hope Mansion.
Additionally, the artifacts preserved at Hope Mansion display the leisurely upper class planter lifestyle of the Stone family, but also explain the significance of the political, social, and agricultural work of Governor Stone and his descendants. Conversely, enslaved life is exclusively portrayed as work and rest, with very little, if any, emphasis on leisure time, family life, religion, and other aspects of enslaved communities' life at Hope. The enslaved portrayal in Hope Mansion does not provide as wholesome a picture of life for enslaved populations as the Stone family. This disproportionate depiction is reflected in the visibility and prominence of the upper floors of Hope Mansion in contrast to the cellar interpretation of the enslaved communities' life.
A writing desk featured on the second floor of the Hope Mansion.
After touring Hope Mansion, visitors are encouraged to explore the exhibits featured at the Roanoke Chowan Heritage Center at Hope Plantation. This building, which serves as the visitor's center for the Hope Mansion, also houses an exhibit dedicated to "interpreting Hope’s tri-racial Antebellum Legacy." (David Stone and Hope Plantation, 2020) This room features a mural painting depicting civil interactions between English settlers, Native Americans, and enslaved persons on Hope Plantation. Additionally, the room profiles other artifacts that mirror artifacts similar to the enslaved.
A blanket displayed in the Roanoke Chowan Heritage Center.
After discussing the intent of this project with docents and interpreters at Historic Hope, they were quick to acknowledge their own shortcomings relative to the lack of work being done to recover the memories of enslaved persons who lived and worked at Hope. They lean into their financial concerns, as well as the lack of documentation around the mansions and its former tenants as justification for their interpretation of the mansion as it stands today.
The Cameron-Bennehan plantation's remediation process begins privately funded by the Historic Preservation Society of Durham. In 1976, Liggett and Myers Tobacco Company donated 71 acres to Stagville to the state for the creation of the North Carolina State Historic Site. "The gift included the Bennehan house as well as four Horton Grove slave houses (ca. 1851) and the enormous Stagville barn (ca. 1860). The result was the creation of the Stagville Center, a facility used for teaching historic preservation theory and technology and African American history." (McFarland, 2006) Initial discussions about the site waffled between creating a preservation center or a historic house museum with a specific, dedicated focus towards African American history. The state’s changing emphasis on public history, the integration the historical liberation movements of the 60s and 70s into public sites, and a floundering organizational shift within the preservation site eventually allowed the latter interpretation to win out and Historic Stagville as a historic home was born. (Deiss, 2010)
Backside of the Cameron-Bennehan house at Historic Stagville.
The narrative of the enslaved voices has always been in the mix of the remediation of Historic Stagville. Initial efforts at Stagville, however, still centered on the white family narrative of the Cameron and Bennehan families. The Horton Groves buildings (now considered a part of the Historic Stagville site) were originally considered as an opportunity to help various disciplines to study black family units in antebellum and postbellum periods. The original hope was that Horton Grove would become a dedicated site for preserving black history in North Carolina. Over the years, however, the narrative shifted. Beginning in 1985 with the advent of a new site manager, Alice Eley Jones, focused on the Stagville shifted its narrative to reflect the story of the over 900 enslaved voices present over the course of the site's history. Jones arrived at the site troubled to find the lack of information present regarding the enslaved population at Stagville. "While informing visitors of plantation life, the tours and literature at the site focused on the planter's story, leaving slave life to the visitor's imaginations. Enraptured by the feelings the space and structures at Stagville created, Jones began taking steps to provide the public with more information...." (Deiss, 2010) Over a period of years, Jones worked to unearth community support and information about the lives of the enslaved populations at Stagville, an important work which continues at the site today.
Historic Stagville: A Window to the Past, a one minute documentary by StoryDriven.
Upon entering the historic site, the tone of the storytelling is vastly different from many other historical plantations. In each stop on the guided tour, visitors experience narratives and accounts of various enslaved voices, told through both physical and verbal interpretation. Tours may begin either at the main property of Stagville or at the adjacent property of Horton Grove - one significant change in the presentation of the narrative of the site. Starting tours at the Horton Grove location favors emphasis on the lives of the enslaved, as this is the location of some original dwellings of enslaved community members at Stagville which have been interpreted at the site.
Cornhusk dolls inside of a interpreted enslaved person's home at Historic Stagville.
Stagville archaeological remains and signage echo the focus on the lives of the enslaved. Behind the Cameron-Bennehan house lies a formation of rocks understood to be the foundations of the kitchen where enslaved persons cooked for the Bennehan family. The foundations of the home were originally found as a part of previous archaeological digs on the site by local universities. The signage informs visitors of the enslaved's important contribution to agriculture in Southern culture. "The preservation of cultural traditions, with African cooking methods or ingredients, was one way for enslaved people to resist the assimilation and dehumanization of slavery." (Sign at Historic Stagville, seen below)
Signage at the foundation of the kitchen at Historic Stagville.
One additional impressive feature of Stagville Plantation has been their relentless work to reconnect ancestors of enslaved persons from Stagville to the site itself. Launched in 2003, the genealogy project at Stagville has helped many African American trace their roots to some of the 900+ enslaved persons who lived, worked, died and were freed at Stagville and Fairntosh. Stagville hires students from local universities, especially HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities) to help in this effort. They also rely on social media channels to connect with descendants and their families to recapture stories, images and information from antebellum and postbellum life at Stagville which has been handed down for generations. This usage of digital infrastructure informs the physical infrastructures and remediations of the plantation itself.
Social media post from Historic Stagville looking to connect with descendants in the area.
Historic Stagville has made the important choice of presenting the stories and lives of enslaved persons at the forefront of the interpretation of the historical site. Even though the interpretation at Stagville values the enslaved narrative, interpreters at the site still believe there is much work to be done to continue to highlight enslaved persons' important contributions to antebellum and postbellum southern histories.
The remediation of Somerset Place finds its roots in the creation of Pettigrew State Park in Creswell, North Carolina; the Collin's former mansion and surrounding buildings, left to crumble on the shores of Lake Phelps, were incorporated into the newly formed state park. In 1939, early into the state-wide movement to value and restore historical sites in North Carolina, the land around Somerset was purchased and work began to restore the property to its former glory. As historian Alisa Harrison notes in her scathing review of the original interpretation of the site, Somerset specifically focused on "an Old South where planters ruled all, uncontested, and where everyone else—white women and nonelite white men, slaves and free blacks—knew their place and occupied it happily." (Harrison, 2008)
A map of the Somerset Place Plantation Historic Site. Courtesy of North Carolina Historic Sites
Somerset Place continues this Old South white focused narrative until the late 1970s when new researchers at the location propose a master plan which seeks to include the site's enslaved population as central to narrative, given the increased interest in the history of African Americans across the United States post liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Additionally, the changing academic market led to many graduates turning towards the discipline of public history. This shift in remediation takes places gradually, through archaeology, oral history research, and a massive homecoming event organized in 1986 by Dorothy Redford Spruill, eventual site manager.
A portion of a whole room timeline presented in the Somerset Place visitors center.
The Somerset Place tour begins with visitors exploring a whole room timeline displayed inside of the visitor's center. The timeline prominently displays both the planter narrative of the Collins combined with the nearly 850 enslaved persons who lived and worked on the plantation over the course of its antebellum nexus. The tour features storytelling and architecture that equally examines both the Collins and the enslaved lives around the plantation, specifically explaining the intersection and overlap of various enslaved narratives with the overseers and slaveowners. Early into the tour, visitors enter into the home of Sucky Davis. She and 18 members of her family lived in the three rooms of the home. "By 1865, her direct descendants numbered 131 people." (North Carolina Historic Sites. n.d.-c) None of the artifacts used in the reconstructed home of Sucky Davis are original to the site.
The interpretation of the home of Sucky Davis at Somerset Place.
Visitors then visit the reconstructed hospital of the enslaved population at Somerset Place. The hospital features examples of instrumentation and bracing typical of the 1850s-1860s period. The tour guide explains the importance of containing outbreaks of measles, malaria, dysentery, and other contagions amidst the enslaved population who lived in such close quarters. The docent provides a story of one enslaved person, Becky Drew, who contracted frostbite in the stocks after running away from the plantation. As a result, both of her feet and legs were amputated. The tour guide goes on to explain, however, that Becky survived the torturous procedure and eventually was emancipated from Somerset, going on to life a full and happy life. The themes of reconciliation and resilience echo loudly in the retelling of the Somerset interpretation.
The interpretation of the reconstructed hospital of the enslaved population at Somerset Place.
Near the end of the tour, visitors are ushered into the Collins' mansion, where a tour guide offers critical perspectives on the Collins' home life, their family upbringing at Somerset, and the interactions between the planter class and enslaved populations at the plantation. The story of the Collins family is regaled in conjunction with the enslaved population and how the Collins decisions impacted their lives, specifically relative to the Civil War and its impacts upon the plantation.
The remediated dining room of the Collins mansion at Somerset Place.
Somerset Place presents a balanced narrative to its visitors - one of resilience and hope for members of the enslaved populations, without negating the importance of the Collins family to the site. Interpreters at the site stress the significance of valuing a holistic story of Somerset, where both the Collins family and the enslaved population are given voice.
Plantation historic sites present a unique challenge - as stewards of racially charged landmarks, interpreters, tour guides and state officials make decisions regarding the reanimation of memory among these locations via the remediation of their infrastructures. Visitors of these sites often bring Old South ideas into their understanding of the plantation as an infrastructure, romanticizing arguably the most brutal period of American history. Although efforts are being made by these sites and within the plantation tourism industry to express the experience of enslaved populations, great opportunity still exists to expand on those efforts and continue to reimagine the experiences of plantation home museums to include and express the African American and enslaved experiences. Additionally, some sites are downplaying planter narratives or excluding them all together, another challenging concern to navigate among historical plantations. Photo: 1808 map of North Carolina from Historic Hope Plantation
In the midst of intense debate regarding Confederate statues and other sites of importance to Civil War history, what is to be done regarding plantation homes across the South restored to their former glory? These estates should be transformed into scaffolds of exchange - locations for meaningful dialogue about the brutal, racial history of America and the important agricultural and agrarian contributions of plantations and the enslaved people who built them.
Accurately providing an equally weighted narrative about what happened in the past at each of these sites informs future America. A balanced perspective provides visitors with an opportunity to learn from the failures of its ancestors and to usher in opportunities for reconciliation and healing. The cultural remediation of memory at historic plantations affords visitors the chance to engage in purposeful discourse about the past, weaving its thread through history, and drawing connections to current racial issues and tensions. Photo: Foundations of an enslaved family's house at Historic Stagville.
Productive engagement of historical sites links current racial injustices to the past. By memorializing the lives of the enslaved through tangible and intangible means, these plantations call to account the past and present narratives of the American South. Historical sites such Historic Hope Plantation, Historic Stagville and Somerset Place carry a duty to remediate narratives of enslaved populations, racial injustice, wealthy planters, and artifacts and infrastructures surrounding these narratives to propel discussion forward about the entangled American history of slavery in the South. Photo: Genealogy records of Sucky Davis at Somerset Place Historic Site.
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Bowker, G. C., & Star, S. L. (2008). Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. MIT Press.
Burke, J. (2019). Homes Lost in Conflict: Reframing the Familiar into New Sites of Memory and Identity on a Divided Island. History and Memory, 31(2), 155–182.
David Stone and Hope Plantation. Historic Hope Plantation, Windsor, NC Museum. (2020, July 1). https://www.hopeplantation.org/outreach/david-stone-and-hope-plantation/.
Deiss, K. (2010). To Different People, it was a Different Treasure: The Creation and Development of Historic Stagville, 1976-1981 (thesis).
Gallagher, V. J., & Kalin, J. (2017). Collected Debris of Public Memory: Commemorative Genres and the Mediation of the Past. In C. R. Miller & A. R. Kelly (Eds.), Emerging Genres in New Media Environments (pp. 243–256). essay, Palgrave Macmillan.
Harrison, A. Y. (2008). Reconstructing Somerset Place: Slavery, Memory and Historical Consciousness (dissertation).
History. North Carolina Historic Sites. (n.d.-a) https://historicsites.nc.gov/all-sites/somerset-place/history.
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