by Joseph McGill | Nov 8, 2015 | Blog Posts
When I received a letter from Missouri’s Little Dixie Heritage Foundation in 2010 my first instinct was to brace myself for some language laced with hate. With the Slave Dwelling Project just getting traction and my limited knowledge of southern sympathizers,...
by Joseph McGill | Oct 26, 2015 | News
Sleeping in slave dwellings is a simple act. In my five years of performing this act, over 70 extant dwellings in 16 states have been visited. Some of these sites have had more than one sleepover meaning that the overnights have exceeded more than 100. I have been...
by Joseph McGill | Oct 11, 2015 | Blog Posts
It is always great when I get invited back to a site for a sleepover. Last year we attempted to sleep under the stars among the ruins of the tabby slave cabins on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina. Mother Nature had other ideas, a violent thunderstorm and rain that...
by Joseph McGill | Oct 3, 2015 | Blog Posts
As I lay in the cabin I couldn’t help but think of the people who had lived within the wooden walls of our tiny room. Oh if the walls could talk; the stories they could tell. The joys of new birth, the sorrow at loss; the immense pain and burden of working so hard...
by Joseph McGill | Sep 24, 2015 | Blog Posts
At the invitation of a Bratton descendant, I returned for my second overnight in the one extant slave dwelling at Historic Brattonsville. Although it was a return visit, this stay broke new ground in several ways. First of all, I was the Slave Dwelling Project...
by Joseph McGill | Sep 22, 2015 | Blog Posts
“I thought of children who might have been afraid of benign things like the sounds of animals scuffling through the night when there were much larger, darker things that stirred fear in their parents. I thought of mothers, tired from the day’s work, still tending to...
by Joseph McGill | Sep 7, 2015 | Blog Posts
Preserve: (1) to keep alive or in existence; make lasting (2) to keep up maintain My love of preservation was really tested in a recent stay in an extant slave cabin. I was very enthusiastic about my opportunity to work on a HistoriCorps restoration project especially...
by Joseph McGill | Sep 1, 2015 | News
The 1772 Foundation has donated $48,250 to the Slave Dwelling Project to support its 2nd Annual Slave Dwelling Project Conference. The conference theme is: “A History Denied – Preserving Tangible Evidences of Slave Dwellings” and will be held at the Embassy...
by Joseph McGill | Aug 30, 2015 | Blog Posts
If in 1703, more than 42 percent of New York City households held slaves, often as domestic servants and laborers and the last slaves were freed in 1827, why is it that when I interpret slavery in northern states, I often get push back? I can now add the state of New...
by Joseph McGill | Jul 23, 2015 | Blog Posts
Now in its fifth year, the Slave Dwelling Project has allowed me to spend nights in extant slave dwellings in fourteen states. The stewards of these dwellings range from private, non-profit, local government, county government, state government and federal government....
