Slavery in Arkansas

 

One can find many books written on architecturally significant antebellum big houses and the people who inhabited them. The propensity to focus on antebellum mansions have left a void in interpreting a vital part of American history. The part left out, slavery is not a subject that makes one comfortable.

There are not many books written about former slave dwellings. These meager buildings are not sexy enough for potential authors and publishers of books to pursue. In 1993, John Michael Vlach wrote the book titled “Back of the Big House: The Architecture of Plantation Slavery.” As an avid preservationist, it was the first book I read in my research for starting the Slave Dwelling Project. That book became the unofficial bible of the project. I’ve even had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Vlach when he presented at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens in Charleston, South Carolina.

 

Since the inception of the Slave Dwelling Project, three organizations in the United States have created programs with variations of the title “Back of the Big House.”

Historic Charleston Foundation in Charleston, SC has a program titled “Beyond the Big House.” For the past two years, this program has given us access to spaces in private antebellum homes that once housed enslaved people. This is a variation on the yearly tours that they give which focus on the big houses and their gardens.

For the past seven years, Preserve Marshall County in Holly Springs, Mississippi has conducted a program titled “Behind the Big House.” This program gives visitors in Holly Springs the opportunity to visits dwellings that once housed the enslaved. It is done in conjunction with Holly Spring’s annual Pilgrimage and is the longest continuous out of state program of which the Slave Dwelling Project participates. And yes, the focus of the Pilgrimage is the big house only.

The Slave Dwelling Project is a vital component for making all the Behind the Big House programs happen. In the case of Historic Charleston Foundation, the Slave Dwelling Project is involved in the detailed planning of the event.

While the Slave Dwelling Project likes adding new sites to the portfolio, consistency has its value. It’s always nice to be invited back to historic sites we’ve visited in the past. A few sites fall into this category and they provide great references for those historic sites that consider our service but, are unsure if they want to make that commitment.

For the past three years, the Slave Dwelling Project has been going to Arkansas to participate in their “Behind the Big House” program. In 2016, it was Historic Washington State Park in Washington. In 2017, it was Lakeport Plantation in Lake Village. In 2018, it was the Historic Arkansas Museum in Little Rock.

For the past visits, I traveled to Arkansas with Jerome Bias, our lead cook for our living history programs that we conduct. This year I would be solo. Our host, Preserve Arkansas, changed the program to focus on youth and Jerome had a cooking engagement at Montpelier, the home of President James Madison.

This year, the program was again conducted at Historic Arkansas Museum and was described as such: “Behind the Big House moves beyond the Big House,” or stately historic homes, to explore extant slave dwellings and interpret the experiences of the enslaved people who inhabited them. This workshop, held at the Historic Arkansas Museum, will focus on foodways, researching the lives of the enslaved Arkansans, and best practices for interpreting slavery at historic sites and museums.”

The difference was that there was a school component added. Students would visit three stations to 1) learn about gardening and gathering during slavery 2) meet the residents by sampling antebellum Scottish and Creole food and 3) learn about the archeology of foodways behind the big house.

I had no official role in disseminating information to the students, but I could not resist engaging with the first group of children who walked into the Brownlee Kitchen, space where I would spend the night. They were smart and prepared for all that they encountered, and all their questions were relevant. The kids sampled scotch scones with molasses and most of them loved it.

The same program of visiting the three stations that were done for the students was repeated for the adults later that evening. Our meal this year was scotch scones with molasses and peach & blueberry preserves; hogshead cheese; fried mealie pudding; Mrs. Cheap’s (disclaimed) essence of chilies; scotch beef barley broth; boiled beef shin caralou gumbo; pikliz and stage planks molasses cake. This was all served to a diverse group of about 100 people.

The evening lecture was titled “The Big House as Home: African Americans, Slavery, and Roots Tourism in the United States by Dr. Jodi Skipper of the University of Mississippi. I met Dr. Skipper in 2011 when she was a professor at the University of South Carolina. Pleasantly surprising to me, Dr. Skipper used a lot of quotes from people who contributed to some of our past written blogs.

Last year, we could only muster five people for the campfire conversation and sleepover. This year, there would be far more people involved. In all the years that I have been conducting campfire conversations, they have very seldom been moderated by anyone. Dr. Kelly Houston Jones of Arkansas Tech University was the moderator for this campfire conversation, and it worked well. We covered local, state and national history as it pertained to slavery. It only got a little awkward when someone brought up and defended Nathan Bedford Forrest.

About 20 of the conversation participants would spend the night in tents that were set up on the property. I retreated to the Brownlee Kitchen building and slept there alone and comfortably only to realize that the building was climate controlled.

Historic Arkansas Museum is one of those sites that would not have made the cut for the Slave Dwelling Project in 2010 when I was making the rules for places to sleep. Preservationists prefer extant buildings that are still in their original locations. This is not that, because most of the buildings have been moved there and they are in the heart of Little Rock. Surrounded by paved roads and tall buildings, the site is a stark difference from some of the plantations of which I’ve spent nights. The noise of vehicles, sirens and other noise common to cites are constants to the site. The hours of the day that traffic is not a factor are few.

In incorporating the stories of the enslaved into the narrative, we must be creative in our ways of doing so. Preserve Arkansas has incorporated that creativity. The event was a success.