James Madison's Montpelier We The People Spring 2017 Montpelier_WTP_Spring2017_FINAL-1-web | Page 7

SPRING 2017
the Constitutional Convention, on June 6, 1787: We
have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most
enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive
dominion ever exercised by man over man.
In the fall of 2015 Museum Programs staff met with
an advisory group composed of members of the
Montpelier Descendants Community, along with
scholars and museum colleagues who work with
African American history. After hearing about our
preliminary plans, this group had two main requests.
The first highlights an important tension inherent
in the interpretation of slavery. While white visitors
to historic sites view slavery as an historical issue,
located in the past, black visitors view slavery as
a personal issue, a trauma that their ancestors
overcame, but one still raw and provoking anger
and shame, with relevance and consequences in the
present. The advisory group asked us not to leave the
Montpelier story of enslavement in the past, but to
bring it up to the present day.
potential pitfall led us to think long and hard about
how we would represent the individual enslaved
men, women, and children who lived at Montpelier,
most of whose names we don’t know and of whom
we only have one portrait—a photo of Paul Jennings
made after he purchased his freedom.
There has been hesitation, at sites that interpret
historical periods prior to the advent of photography
in 1839, to use photographs in exhibitions. Since our
goal was to emphasize humanity, we decided that
the power of photographs to evoke physical human
presence outweighed potential anachronism. We are
therefore using photos from the Library of Congress
of people who lived in slavery, but whose identities
went unrecorded. These powerful images, printed
at life size on glass pillars, artistically presented
with parts of the body in focus and parts out of
focus, will imply a human presence, but one about
which not enough is known. On the pillars we are
including text that suggests the multiple identities
of any human being: familial and
While white visitors to historic
We are addressing this request
friendship connections, experiences,
in two different ways. Working
sites view slavery as an historical occupations, pastimes, skills, talents,
with Northern Light Productions, issue…black visitors view slavery fears, hopes, and dreams, all couched
we are making a seven-to-eight
within the horrible reality that,
minute film for the exhibition that as a personal issue, a trauma that under the law, African Americans
will consider the legacies of slavery their ancestors overcame, but
could, until 1865, be property.
in contemporary American society, one still raw and provoking anger
through issues like continuing
Another of the abiding horrors
and shame, with relevance and
unequal access to housing,
of slavery was the possibility, at
consequences in the present.
education, and employment, and
any time, that one’s parent, child,
the high rates of incarceration of
spouse, sibling, or friend could be
African American men. Furthermore, members of the sold away. To attempt to communicate the agony
Descendants Community have become collaborators
of living with this uncertainty, we have collaborated
in the exhibition. At several points in the cellars and
with master storyteller Sheila Arnold and Northern
in the reconstructed buildings in the South Yard,
Lights Productions to create a media piece entitled
visitors will hear and see descendants, in their own
Fate in the Balance. Told from the point of view of
contemporary voices, talking about the institution of
Ellen Stewart, the daughter of Dolley Madison’s
slavery, the way it was practiced at Montpelier, the
enslaved ladies’ maid, and based on new research,
stories of their ancestors, and what those ancestors
it enumerates the losses that Stewart personally
mean to them and their families today.
experienced, as well as other stories of the
separations of enslaved families at Montpelier.
The advisory group’s second request was that we
emphasize the humanity of enslaved people. In some
Elizabeth Chew, Montpelier’s Vice
attempts to put slavery in historical context and to
President for Museum Programs,
show how enmeshed the creation of the American
has worked in the museum field
nation was with the institution of slavery, museum
for thirty years, focusing on the
curators and educators have lost sight of the fact
interpretation of women’s and
that they are talking about human beings. This
African Americans’ history.
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