Tag Archives: Slaves

NOTORIOUS NATCHEZ

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Natchez-Under-the-Hill, the neighborhood at the bottom of the bluff where the American Queen landed, was notorious during steamboat days.  Violence and vice attracted the rough adventurers from the boats on the river, but the location kept the behavior isolated from the town’s more prominent citizens.

Those “prominent” citizens were wealthy, thanks to cotton—and their slaves who harvested it.  In 1860, it was the richest city in the U.S., and there were many antebellum mansions that were spared during the Civil War when the town surrendered to Farragut’s fleet.

We toured the restored Rosalie Mansion, after getting a hop on-hop-off bus tour of the town.  Hurricane Harvey was passing through, so it was nice to get out of the high winds and pouring rain, bag up our dripping plastic ponchos, and have a look at how the one-precent’rs lived back in the 1860’s.

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Like all of the other mansions, Rosalie was owned by a wealthy white cotton plantation owner and owner of slaves who was part of a small group that dominated the antebellum South.  (Acquiring land and slaves provided the surest route for a person to achieve elite status in the South.)

Ronald L. Davis, author of The Black Experience in Natchez, describes what life was like for those blacks in Natchez who were not owned as slaves: “Freedom for Natchez blacks was not the opposite of slavery.  Each ‘free person of color’ was expected to function as an essentially marginal person.  The extent of one’s freedom depended upon one’s deportment as well as one’s conformity to a role in life accommodating the white community… the free blacks of Natchez lived, in other words, somewhere between slavery and freedom.”

Another mansion we toured was Magnolia Hall, where we learned that during the Civil War, a cannon ball had been fired by the Union that blasted through the kitchen wall and landed in a soup terrine.  How’s that for a soup garnish?

Hurricane Harvey had blown through town by the evening, so we went for a stroll to enjoy the beautiful sky that Harvey left behind:

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The “Mayor” of Natchez-Under-the-Hill

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Coming up next:  SCAMPERING AROUND ST. FRANCISVILLE

THE LOWCOUNTRY REGION: HOME OF THE GULLAH COMMUNITY

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Several years ago when Bruce and I visited Charleston, one of the things that intrigued me most was the Gullah culture. It was our first time in the Lowcountry, and we were unfamiliar with the customs, creole language, and cuisine of the Gullah people who are descendants of enslaved Africans and live in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina and Georgia.

Today, we visited Penn Center on St. Helena Island which is the heart of the Gullah community. Founded in 1862, it was originally the first school for freed African Slaves. In addition to traditional subjects, trades and marketable skills such as agriculture, carpentry, and homemaking were taught. As the students learned, they utilized their new skills to help sustain and maintain the school.

Closed in the 1940’s, Penn became a central meeting place for those involved in the civil rights movement. It was a safe place blacks and whites could sit down together to discuss strategy and issues; and, it is also where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reportedly began his “I Have a Dream” speech.

In 1974, Penn Center was designated a National Historic Landmark District, and is the only African American landmark district in the nation. Today, in addition to the museum, the center offers educational and cultural programs related to the history of the Sea Islands and Gullah people.

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One of the things I enjoyed seeing most at the museum and Welcome Center was the display of sweetgrass coil baskets woven by members of the Gullah community.

Originally used as a way to clean rice using the “fanning” method, rice was placed in the baskets to separate the hull from the seed after it was first broken up with a mortar and pestle.

A craft passed down from mother to daughter, there are now over 1,500 people involved in some aspect of basket making. These baskets were woven by Jery Bennet Taylor and are sold at Penn Center:
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SCENES FROM PENN CENTER AND ST. HELENA ISLAND

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ROAD TRIP DAY 43: LONG AND WINDING ROAD TO MONTICELLO

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When driving from Luray to Charlottesville, taking the long and winding road is the only way to go to enjoy the beauty of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. Skyline drive, which runs north-south through Shenandoah National Park, covers 105 miles of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We drove the remaining two-thirds of the length of the road today.

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The sky was blue after last night’s thunderstorm, so we got an early start to take in the views at overlooks along the way. The Appalachian Trail runs through Shenandoah National Park as well, so we hiked a tiny portion of the trail.

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Since I hadn’t researched the park in detail (I only knew it was a highly recommended must-see scenic drive), I had no idea there were accomodations available other than campgrounds. Skyland Resort and Big Meadows Lodge are both located in the park, though, and offer accomodations we would have loved to have stayed at rather than at the motel in Luray. We saw the interior of one of Big Meadow’s cabins while it was being cleaned, and it was quaint and cozy, yet roomy. Both the resort and lodge have restaurants, evening entertainment, and plenty of great hiking opportunities to keep busy during the day. Skyland Resort even offers guided horseback rides.

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This was the view at the end of one of the short hikes from Skyland:


707.JPGA trio of deer were helping themselves to the grass alongside the cabins, and they weren’t the least bothered by me as I slowly got closer to watch. I was no more than 20 feet away, and I’m sure I could have gotten even closer.

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At Sun City Peachtree, we have to be much more stealth to keep deer from running off. If we move while we are watching from the window inside our house it will spook them!

The entire drive through Shenandoah National Park was gorgeous and so thoroughly enjoyable, today. We were fortunate to have nice weather, and I enjoyed driving the long and winding road.

After wrapping up our cruise along Skyline Drive, we made our way to tour Thomas Jefferson’s home in Charlottesville.

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Monticello was designed by Jefferson, a self-taught architect, and the tour of his home was very interesting.

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Not only was Thomas Jefferson an architect– he also founded and designed the University of Virginia– Jefferson was also quite an innovator, inventor, and horticulturist; in addition to being a statesman and author of the Declaration of Independence. Those are the impressive facts about the president who is the face on the $2 bill.

There are also very disturbing facts about Thomas Jefferson that make me wonder how on earth his picture wound up on that very bill in the first place.

Did you know that the man who wrote such inspiring words as “all men are created equal” and have a right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” actually owned 600 slaves throughout his life? THIS from the man who promoted religious tolerance and freedom? I didn’t know this, thanks to my very basic education in U.S. history, but I wanted to scream, “HYPOCRITE!!!”

Another fact missing from my education about our third president was that Jefferson accumulated a great deal of debt, and was $107,000 in debt when he died. Strike two! (I will leave “Strike three!” to your imagination…”)

As it turns out, Monticello was built on land inherited from his father, run by slaves, and financed with other people’s money. The house is 11,000 square feet and originally sat on 5,000 acres; however, some of that land had to be sold off to pay down that $107,000 debt after Jefferson died.

The remainder of what turned out to be a blazing-hot day was spent strolling and having dinner at Charlottesville’s historic downtown pedestrian mall.