Wait for it. Wait for it. Twelve of our former Presidents enslaved people. Until spending a night at Mount Vernon, members of the Slave Dwelling Project had slept at the homes of Presidents Andrew Jackson, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, and James K. Polk in that order. Mount Vernon proved elusive. For years, various contacts would tell me that they knew someone who could get us into Mount Vernon for a sleepover. Those contacts would always get back to me stating that they could not make it happen for whatever reason.

More recently, the Slave Dwelling Project has gone into a mode of vetting requests from antebellum sites throughout the nation that contact us about conducting programs at their sites. In other words, the necessity for us to pursue historic sites is becoming less frequent, however, there is a short list of places that we would like to pursue. Mount Vernon went onto that list. Just as I was about to pull the trigger on making that formal request, it happened.

I got an email from Jessie MacLeod, an associate curator at Mount Vernon. I met Jessie in 2015 on the campus of Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island when we both participated in a conference they had there. I expressed to her my desire to spend a night at Mount Vernon. I told her about all the people who thought they could make a sleepover happen but to no avail. She explained the bureaucracy at Mount Vernon but, vowed to be on the case. That was one of those conversations that I walked away from saying, “if it happens, it happens, if not, so be it.”

In the meantime, I went on about the business of members of the Slave Dwelling Project sleeping at antebellum historic sites that once housed enslaved people. Jessie was indeed on the case however, it took four years to make it happen.

The request was unusual. Most of the programs of which the Slave Dwelling Project is involved are usually open to the general public so that they can participate in some manner. This program would be strictly for Mount Vernon staff. It would involve a campfire conversation and sleepover.

Mount Vernon

Making it exclusive to staff created a challenge because when we released our 2019 schedule to the public, it was Mount Vernon that got the most requests for people wanting to join us.

Prior to this visit, I had never visited Mount Vernon. Upon arrival, I was amazed by the high volume of buses that were there. Being the home of the first President of the United States and being close to Washington, DC has its advantages and it was that time of year when school groups conduct most of their field trips.

Jessie arranged for me a private tour of the archaeology department. I was like a kid in a candy store as I admired the excavated evidence of the materials left by enslaved people at Mount Vernon. Like fingerprints in bricks left by the enslaved people who made them, the bone fragments from animals that they ate, chards of broken plates and other excavated items spoke to me. They were saying, we, the enslaved people, were here, tell our stories.

Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon is an amazing site. Most of its original built environment is well intact. Up until that point, I had never experienced dormitory style slave dwellings that housed men and women separately. I could only wonder how many of the enslaved people inhabiting those spaces had biological connections to each other. Did that biological connection of the enslaved people even matter to President George and First Lady Martha Washington? Were those enslaved people even aware of the power that their master yielded?

There was a time in this project when I had no desire to visit mansions of enslavers. I only concentrated on the places where the enslaved people inhabited. That has now changed, I now explore these mansions to examine spatial segregation or how the enslaved people functioned within these spaces.

There is an exhibit in Mount Vernon’s museum which is dedicated to slavery. The glass doors that give access to the exhibit has the names of some of the people that George and Martha Washington enslaved, very powerful. Well done, a lot of money was spent to make that exhibit happen. Fortunately for us, Washington’s life was well documented, therefore, there were lots of primary sources used to create the exhibit. A lot of reading is required to totally understand the exhibit and it has lots of artifacts. The one thing that I found blatantly missing were shackles, a branding iron also would have been just as moving. For me, the shock value is important. I recall that when I worked at the African American Museum in Iowa, we had a debate about displaying a complete Klu Klux Klan uniform in the new museum. To my dismay, the compromise was to display only the hood in the permanent exhibit.

Munt Vernon

Unfortunately, the exhibit in the Mount Vernon museum has an expiration date. In one year, it will go away. It is my hope that the decision makers will reconsider or find welcoming places where the exhibit can travel. I think that the exhibit would be appropriate for the proposed International African American Museum in Charleston, SC which is scheduled to open in 2021. Many places take pride in the fact that “Washington slept here,” those would also be great places for the exhibit. Sites in Philadelphia where Washington served as President should also welcome the exhibit.

But, back to the business at hand. This was a professional development program coordinated jointly with Guest Experience and Historic Preservation and Collections. Jessie MacLeod and Roy Young, Vice President for Guest Experience, were involved in the planning and coordinating the logistics.

Mount Vernon campfire conversation

As darkness descended upon us, our campfire conversation was a lesson in interpretation. It took place at Pioneer Farm, a site that was once a swamp but one of many places made capable of housing enslaved people at Mount Vernon. Several recreated buildings including the slave cabin that we would sleep in offer visitors the chance to interact with Black and White interpreters, which I find odd, common and necessary at antebellum sites, that, for various reasons, costumed White interpreters tell the stories of the enslaved.

Mount Vernon has two African American interpreters on the front line. Their input to the conversation was vital. There were revelations of the challenges faced by these African American interpreters and African American interpreters in general, but the rewards of getting to tell the stories of enslaved people at this prominent site were also revealed. We spoke also about the challenges of White interpreters, costumed or not, telling the stories of enslaved people. For some older visitors, telling this element of the story at all is a new concept for them.

We talked about the push back received by telling the stories of the enslaved, especially at the home of the first President of this nation because once and not very long ago, that was not an element of the stories told at the site. That is an aspect of interpretation that is common throughout the nation as I’ve learned firsthand in my travels.

Mount Vernon

We talked about the exhibit and that only twenty percent of the people who visit the site see it. My mind was put at ease when it was revealed that no matter what exhibit was in the space, it would still be only twenty percent of the people visiting, but twenty percent of the volume of people who visit Mount Vernon is not too shabby. I relayed how a great percentage of people who visit Magnolia Plantation where I work do not choose to come on the tour of the slave cabins because it represents an element of American history that is uncomfortable to them.

The sleepover in the recreated was peaceful. I chose the upstairs loft. Woke up and took a walk to the Potomac River to watch the sunrise.

Like the sites of Presidents James K. Polk, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, we stayed in a place that was recreated. Although these places were recreated by research based on archaeology and primary sources, interpreting the enslaved people at these sites were afterthoughts. Just as it took me four years to get to Mount Vernon, it has taken decades for antebellum sites to correctly interpret the lives of the people they enslaved. It is my hope that this trend continues.