Day 20 Williamsburg

There are times when God intervenes in your life to provide you with lessons and experiences in a particular order. God can be the only explanation since I don’t believe in fate. Today was the most awesome day in Williamsburg, hands down! I don’t mean to take anything away from the other days since, at the time; I thought I liked them too. However today, having spent time at the slave quarters on the plantation, I might have thought the discussions of wallpaper and wigs somewhat frivolous!

Cliff, bless his heart, had looked through the calendar of events, the Week-At-A-Glance of Colonial Williamsburg. He had a day packed with events that we would see on our last day.

Two southern belles with their parasols. I do decleah, the heat is intense!

Our first show right off the bus is a sampling of theater of the day. Fops, Rogues & Villains presented various scenes and while the audience appreciated the Shakespeare soliloquy they clearly preferred the antics of the ridiculous fop! In a duh moment I learned that while I knew fop, dandy, and Popinjay were synonymous so was macaroni! Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni – not sure what I ever thought that meant?!!

Our visit in neighbouring Everard House, home of the local county clerk indicated that being a civil servant wasn’t a bad way to make a living! And on to the Folk Art Museum to recognize the origins of the art form and the commercial implications of the craft. Interestingly it was Abby Adrich Rockefeller’s love of folk art that contributed greatly to the collection here. Many were pieces that hung in their family home here is Williamsburg and contributions to the efforts here including their folk art collection and their family home, Bassett House.

 

Folk Art for advertising.

Folk Art for entertainment.

Folk Art for decoration - there is a weasel in his pocket since that's what naughty children received!

Folk Art as art!

Quilting was also a Folk Art - my friend Marianne would have LOVED this.

A whole section on musical instruments. This gourd banjo was brought over by the slaves introducing the instrument to the US.

A piano hidden in a chest of drawers! We saw one of these in the Govenors Palace.

Lunch was a quick grab of some local draft root beer and a hearty meatball sandwich. Shopping in the local shops looked interesting (and it’s common knowledge how little I think of shopping so that tells you something!) but it didn’t matter since Cliff had us on a mission to find Great Hopes Plantation. Two black men gathered us all into an area surrounded by fields of tobacco and cotton and for over an hour they gave us an opportunity to understand some of the experience of slavery. This is without a doubt the most powerful presentation I have ever experienced. Even as I write this I am covered in goose bumps and controlling tears. They moved back and forth from a narrative to treating the gathered crowd as a group of recently acquired slaves. They were passionate presenters, talented actors and not afraid to step right up to the line to tell the story of their history. They had shackles that we held, published personal accounts that were passed around and they both had whips that were used to punctuate their stories of slaves who dared to challenge their masters. As they told their stories and the whip sliced through the air to crack against a nearby stump, tears sprang to my eyes at each snap. I had to turn away several times.

We were brought out into the fields to experience is some miniscule way what that work may have been like. Tobacco was the primary plantation crop in this area during the time of the revolution. They told the story of 15 hour days working the fields. Some people were pulled out of the crowd to work the field and they demonstrated just how quickly we could all be trained to respond to a clap to learn to do the job the way they wanted it done. Very powerful! They asked a small group of people randomly picked from the crowd to stand over to the side. While they waited apart from their other family members we were told that these were slaves that had just been sold and we would never see them again. No chance to say good-bye, no warning, just gone! We were all invited to touch the underside of the tobacco plant. This was much of the work that was done to remove the tiny grubs that could destroy the crop. After one stroke of the leaf we were asked to smell our hands. The nicotine and tar were already very obvious and very sticky! The thought of 15 hours is horrible! Tobacco was called the 13 month crop because it never gave them a break. Before the last plant was processed the next plants were set.

They told us about the laws at the time and we followed the chronology of how laws were made and changed to protect slavery and close any loophole that may have existed. It became clear that the cheapest way to increase your slave hold was to keep the women pregnant and grow slaves that you didn’t have to pay for. When slaves began to have children that were sired by the master, a problem now existed with inheritance (not to mention jealous wives). The laws were quickly changed to identify lineage through the mother so that no slave child could inherit land.

Just last night David had read in the paper that a group of Florida policemen had been discovered as belonging to the KKK – yesterday!!! Unless we have missed news while we have been away, those Nigerian school girls are still missing. It’s still happening! When they asked the crowd if anyone knew how long it was before human bondage was stopped, I responded that it hadn’t. The answer was sadly acknowledged and accepted.

Following the presentation both men were very gracious in staying to answer questions and speaking more informally. They began telling this part of the story of Colonial Williamsburg just a few years ago. These men, who are historians and teachers, were instrumental in developing this presentation and admitted to some controversy when planning. Learning that Thomas Jefferson owned 150 slaves was clearly shocking to some in even our group! We later learned the extent of the controversy as David found newspaper articles dating back to 1999 referring to the pubic reactions to this less than whitewashed version of history.

I felt compelled to personally thank them for the very powerful, disturbing courageous and enlightening afternoon. Cliff put it best when he thanked both men for their passion.

 

Can you see the whips around their necks.

In the tabacco field

We walked back to the Visitor Centre along a pathway that really had no connection to the presentation we had just experienced but it served as an ideal backdrop to the incident. It is the path that leads to and from the town but because of the extreme heat we had always taken the bus. On the opposite side of the pedestrian road, leading in to town there are plaques inlaid leading you back in time as it identified points in history. On the path out we had similar stones marking important events and quotes from Abe Lincoln, Dr. King, and JFK, the final stone was the perfect challenge to focus all we had seen and felt in our visit!

What the sign looks like as you walk out.

What it looks like as you walk in.

A sample of one of the signs.

On the way out, having passed quotes from some of the great men on history, this is the final one before the Democracy - A Work in Progress sign...very powerful challenge following what we just experienced.

The Civil War in Seven Songs was our final presentation of the day as a local history professor, along with the woman who trains the fife and drum corps at Colonial Williamsburg, led us through music of the time and the important role it played. Music was used to entertain, to issue war dictates, to record history and, as we learned on the plantation, to soothe the wounded soul of the slave.

Our last bus ride of the three days and although I have long ago lost count of how many times we were on and off, we have yet to wait for a bus! The parking and air conditioned transport alone were worth the cost of admission!

Home via Walmart for pizza and wine to enjoy dinner back at the trailer where we revelled in amazement at the day we had! As the darkness of our final night with Cliff and Liz settled in around us and the night song of the cicadas, frogs ...and whatever other night creatures create the loudest serenade we have ever heard, we enjoy our bottle of wine and are reminded of how very blessed we are!