So, Your Ancestors Never Enslaved People: Prove It!

Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia are all places where the Slave Dwelling Project has conducted programs that share its vision, mission and goals. When discussing chattel slavery in the United States, southern states immediately come to mind. In 1860, there were approximately 4 ½ million people enslaved in the United States, most of them enslaved in southern states.

If we expand our minds to think about chattel slavery, it is highly likely that we can find that all states in the continental United States once had enslaved people on their soil. It is my quest to find these places and the built environment that supports this theory.

Until recently, I had spent nights in most of those southern states, blatantly missing from the portfolio was the state of Kentucky. That is no longer the case. For years, I had been trying to make a sleepover in a slave dwelling in the state of Kentucky happen. All the leads that I followed yielded nothing. Maybe it was its role as a border state during the Civil War that kept it out of the Slave Dwelling Project’s portfolio for so long.

For the past two years, I have gone to the Hempsted Houses in New London, Connecticut to participate in their Juneteenth celebration. Aileen Novick is the Project Manager at the Hempsted Houses; she made me aware of Locust Grove in Louisville, Kentucky, a place of her previous employment. She made the introduction to Brian Cushing, Project Director at Historic Locust Grove, and the two of us took it from there.

According to its website: “This c.1792 Georgian mansion tells the story of its builders, William and Lucy Clark Croghan, and the story of American beginnings. William and Lucy Clark Croghan, along with Lucy’s brother, General George Rogers Clark, welcomed a generation of American luminaries to their home to rest, dialogue, campaign, and duel. Presidents James Monroe and Andrew Jackson, John James Audubon, Cassius Marcellus Clay, and Lewis and Clark—among others—all passed through Locust Grove. Now a National Historic Landmark, Locust Grove is a unique example of early Kentucky architecture, craftsmanship, and history.”

To my pleasant surprise, that same website mentions the house being built by enslaved labor. The website also mentions the 30 to 45 people the owners enslaved.

Bricks, bricks and more bricks, the big house is made of bricks. My thorough examination of those bricks yielded fewer fingerprints than I anticipated finding but, finding those few were satisfying to me.

The original outbuilding was made of stone and contained the kitchen on one end and a smokehouse on the other. In between the two was the room that I would sleep in alone. Some people would spend the night in the kitchen, and others had pitched tents in the front lawn of the big house.

A fire pit dug into the earth with care, the dirt and grass preserved to go back into the hole when the event was over. Two tiers of bricks outlined the firepit to prevent the conversation participants from getting too close. This fire pit is where we would conduct our conversation.

The food served, and the fire lit, we sat around and indulged in food taken from the recipes of Michel Twitty. Michael was at Locust Grove in a previous year, imparting his knowledge to whoever wanted to listen.

The campfire conversation started one hour earlier than was scheduled. The introductions revealed that some participants traveled quite a distance to participate. Locust Grove staff, educators (current and retired), neighbors, young, old, African Americans, Whites were all a part of the 35 people who would participate in the conversation.

Their introductions revealed that we had descendants of enslavers and descendants of those enslaved. One college professor at the University of Louisville explained that she uses my blogs to teach her students. Two hours into the conversation and a few people left. Our response was to make the circle smaller. Three hours into the conversation, and we were still going strong.

A strong desire to continue a conversation beyond two hours about slavery’s legacy on this nation has never happened. Usually, after about 1 ½ hour, people tend to start talking among themselves, and the groups are dismissed generally at the 2 hours mark. Three hours in and this group wanted more. Before dispersing, I gave them all a chance to provide a closing statement on what they got out of the experience. Closing statements was something that I had never done in the past. This closure gave everyone, even the few that were less vocal during the conversation, an opportunity to provide input.

Everyone retreated to their spaces for their sleepover spaces, the tents, kitchen, and the remainder retreated to their nice comfortable beds in their homes.

Although, I was not sleeping at Locust Grove alone. I was alone in this space between the kitchen and the smokehouse. It gave me a lot of time to reflect, especially on the robust conversation that we just engaged in with a group that did not want the conversation to end when it did. How can we have more of those type engagements?

The next day was an opportunity to engage a broader audience on the subject matter of chattel slavery as it applied at places other than plantations. There are lots of examples in the Slave Dwelling Project’s portfolio of how that worked. Locust Grove impressed me again by generating a standing room only audience at a paid event.

Leslie Stainton

As a board member of the Slave Dwelling Project, I spend a lot of time thinking about budgets, bylaws, and above all fundraising. (If the spirit moves you, you can contribute here!) I haven’t spent much time in actual slave dwellings. So when Joe told me he’d be coming to Kentucky in late August, just a six-hour drive from my home in Michigan, I wanted to be there. And I’m so glad I was. It’s easy to forget the very real work that takes place on a Slave Dwelling overnight—not just the sites seen and history learned, the good food (hats off to the crew at Locust Grove who cooked up a Michael Twitty storm!), the powerful sensory experience of sleeping on an actual floor where enslaved people worked and slept and conversed and cried … The real work happens around the campfire, as it did at Locust Grove, where we talked far into the night about our collective history and our personal histories. The real work happens in the morning, when you wipe the sleep from your eyes and resume the conversation you were having the night before. The real work happens as you stand around the kitchen counter with your coffee cup, noshing on doughnuts and trading questions and stories with people you’ve never met but feel, suddenly, as if you’ve known all your life—people who don’t share your background or skin color but whose stories you desperately need to hear if we’re ever going to move beyond the racism that paralyzes this country. I loved every minute of my short stay at Locust Grove (even the porta potties!).

Nice weather helped. A beautiful setting helped. A superb and committed and friendly staff helped. But it’s those conversations—last thing at night, first thing in the morning, and all the times in between—that make what Joe’s doing indispensable. I came away feeling hopeful. And for this often-despondent Ann Arbor Democrat, that’s something.

Shannon R. Floyd

There is something intriguing to me about preserved plantations; particularly the slave quarters. Slave quarters are “sacred ground” for me; they are places where “dreams” and “endurance” collide. I am the “dream” fulfilled to the slave and their “endurance” in lieu of u-n-s-p-e-a-k-a-b-l-e atrocities is my “power”. In an instant, I am reminded of whose blood is “running through my veins” and I. am. REVIVED.

Soooooo. . .participating in the Slave Dwelling Project at Locust Grove this past Friday (August 23rd – 24th 2019) was a “no brainer”.

Immediately following candid and COURAGEOUS conversations about slavery, “isms”, discomfort with discussions about race in general, the “evolution” of institutionalized racism, etc., four strangers “hunkered down” for the night in the kitchen (a small quarter building separate from the mansion). As I laid there, my mind drifted to thoughts of “Rose”, a slave who worked/resided in the kitchen. What did she think? How did she feel? What was life like for her? How did she survive enslavement? Was her bedding uncomfortable? How did she withstand the summer months cooking three meals a day in an open fireplace big enough to stand in? Was she warm enough during winter months? THANK YOU ROSE for SURVIVING, living and ENDURING in spite of! I AM because YOU were.

True growth is NEVER rooted in comfort. . .it is only in discomfort that we are challenged to GROW. Thank you Carol Ely (Executive Director of Locust Grove) for providing us with an opportunity to GROW and for being BRAVE.

The Slave Dwelling Project at Locust Grove
Lynn Slowden

I was so excited to participate in the Slave Dwelling Project Conversation and Overnight. I tried to find a location and a time that worked for my schedule for the last several years, and was delighted to find Joe McGill, its founder was coming to Locust Grove, which has a dear place in my heart. As a historian, I felt that the original sins of our nation had not been adequately addressed, because we didn’t have the courage or the framework to begin the conversation. The Slave Dwelling Project offers one opportunity to have that conversation.

The campfire provided a focal point for our attention and as the night fell, offered a feeling of intimacy as we shared our experiences. The participants were a wide-ranging group, from Locust Grove docents and first-person interpreters to a Catholic priest. There were descendants of some of the people who had been enslaved by the Croghan family as well as descendants of slave owners. There were people like myself who belong to families who span the color spectrum of the human race. I began with a silent prayer that I could remain open and present to all the thoughts and feelings that were shared. It was lively and courageous and continued until finally, Joe told us we had to call it a night. The guests who came for conversation would have to depart and those of us who were staying could turn in.

I had prepared a sleeping space for myself in the dairy, a square stone building with uncovered openings in the walls for ventilation. The milk pans and milking stools were piled on shelves and in corners. Stars were visible through gaps in the roof. I was lucky to have a wood floor beneath me. Some of the other ladies were sleeping on brick. I was too wound up to sleep and spent almost two hours sitting at the campfire until the embers died away. The deer came up close behind me in the darkness; I only noticed when they ran as I got up off my seat.

I crawled into my blanket. My arthritic ankle started to scream. How would I ever fall asleep? I hadn’t worked from sunup to sundown; was this how she felt? Waiting for exhaustion to cover the aches and pains from years of labor? The dairy would have felt wonderful in the heat of summer, but it had rained earlier in the day and the night was cool. The breeze drifted in the window and down the wall to my space on the floor. As I was dropping off to sleep, I heard a woman scream, far from the house. It startled me. I listened to see if my roommate or the ladies in the kitchen stirred. No one else seemed to have heard it. Something from a dream? My subconscious?

My overnight with the Slave Dwelling Project appeared simple, but as the days passed, I discovered it was profound. The names of some of the known people enslaved at Locust Grove continues to haunt me. I’ve wondered about the stories that haven’t been told, all over the United States. I’ve wondered about my family’s story. We have work to do.

Sharron Hilbrecht

Biddy, Mary, Anne, Dick, Charity, Terry, Poll, Videlia, Nace, Bob, Sictory, Theresa Charity, Violetta, Monica, Henny, Millie, Pat, Nace, Young Moll, Old Moll, Rachel, Jerry, Sue, Hagoe, George, Head, Peter, Anne, Daniel, Peggy, Jane.

The question of whether my ancestors owned people was never really something I considered. My Kentucky ancestors were poor, country farmers, hardly situated to purchase slaves. Slaves were owned by wealthy plantation owners, people with money, and my ancestors were neither. I guess in the back of my mind, I knew it could be possible that some of my long ago ancestors, who had been in the mid-Atlantic states since the 1600s, had owned a slave or two, but while tracing my genealogy, it wasn’t anything I investigated. I had researched my family for years and had never seen anything that indicated that they were slave owners.

But then again, I had never really looked. I hadn’t really thought about it. I would pour over censuses and wills and find the names of my great-great-grandparents and their parents and children and brothers and sisters, but unless the names were directly connected by blood to me, I skipped right over them.

So when the question arose whether any of us knew if our ancestors had owned slaves or not, I didn’t raise my hand. I suspected it could have been possible, but I didn’t know for sure, so I didn’t answer. Now I do.

Biddy, Mary, Anne, Dick, Charity, Terry, Poll, Videlia, Nace, Bob, Sictory, Theresa Charity, Violetta, Monica, Henny, Millie, Pat, Nace, Young Moll, Old Moll, Rachel, Jerry, Sue, Hagoe, George, Head, Peter, Anne, Daniel, Peggy, Jane.

In the days after the camp out, I logged into my Ancestry account and looked at the censuses again. At first, I didn’t find any evidence of slavery in my family, and I was relieved. Then I saw one ancestor owned one person; another owned two. And I knew it was just a matter of time until I found more.

I googled one of my fifth-great grandfather’s names, and a link popped up to a website of the early colonial settlers of Maryland and Virginia. I clicked on it, and it led me to his will. The date was 1812. I read it.

He left Biddy to his daughter in Kentucky. They were both already here, but in addition, he willed half of her “issue” to his granddaughter and the other half to his son-in-law. I had to read that twice and then again and again. He gave her children away before they were even born??? Mary went to his other daughter and Anne to his wife. Charity and Dick, however, were to be sold, and some of the money from their sale went to another daughter and the rest to pay debts.

I had seen parts of Henry’s will before, but I had never read it beyond where it listed his children, and now I was horrified. I thought of the small community of enslaved people on Henry’s farm, and I thought how their lives would be upended, and everything they knew would be wiped away. And what in the world happened to poor Charity and Dick?

With the same website, I was able to read the transcribed wills of a number of my ancestors, and many of them owned people. Name after name. Some with ages, some with monetary values, “girl,” “boy,” “woman,” ‘man.”

And there was this:
“Item I give and bequeath one Negro man called Peter and one called Anne to my son JOHN and the first child she bares to my beloved daughter, Mary.”
“My beloved daughter…” What if Anne’s first child was a beloved daughter too?

What trauma, just from everyday living. What utter lack of agency. How did people live like this? How had none of this ever occurred to me before?

Since finding those first names until now, I have been on a mission to find all of the names of the people my ancestors owned. I know there are more. I cannot let them be lost to history. I’d like to find their descendants and apologize. Until then, I will make sure they are not forgotten. Say their names with me…

Biddy, Mary, Anne, Dick, Charity, Terry, Poll, Videlia, Nace, Bob, Sictory, Theresa Charity, Violetta, Monica, Henny, Millie, Pat, Nace, Young Moll, Old Moll, Rachel, Jerry, Sue, Hagoe, George, Head, Peter, Anne, Daniel, Peggy, Jane.

Thank you for one of the most life-changing experiences I’ve ever had.