Ask some folks if they have visited a plantation before and they may say no. Ask those same people if they have visited Mount Vernon, Monticello, Montpelier, Highlands, White Haven or the Hermitage and they may say yes. Those places are homes of slave-owning presidents and former plantations. The plantation portion of these historic sites are sometimes minimized.

The Slave Dwelling Project envisions a future in which the hearts and minds of Americans acknowledge a more truthful and inclusive narrative of the history of the nation that honors the contributions of all our people, is embedded and preserved in the buildings and artifacts of people of African heritage, and inspires all Americans to acknowledge their Ancestors.

Twelve of our former presidents enslaved people. The Slave Dwelling Project has been able to implement our vision by spending nights in slave dwellings at the homes of Presidents James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, James K. Polk, George Washington, and Andrew Jackson.

It is difficult for some people to embrace the reality that former presidents enslaved people. In fact, I get a lot of push back when I mention it to those who think that these men were God-like in their abilities and they think that their images should remain as such. They tend to shut down on me or want to change the subject. This is the same reaction that I get when I discuss slavery in northern states. Slavery in northern states and slave-owning presidents does not align with the history that was disseminated to them and tend to put them in an uncomfortable place. 

In 2014, I had the pleasure of spending a night at the Hermitage, the home of President Andrew Jackson. That sleepover was part of a package deal that included sleepovers at Belle Meade Plantation and Clover Bottom. My host was the Tennessee Historical Commission. 

In President Andrew Jackson was a war hero, one who purged Native Americans and also enslaved people of African descent.  One can find easily in this man components and qualities to love and hate.  In my experience, when you mention his name, people immediately take sides in discussions that can oftentimes get contentious. 

What is commendable is that the Hermitage, like many other historic sites, is changing the narrative. I was convinced that the Hermitage was on board with changing the narrative from my first visit in 2014 and a subsequent visited as a team of consultants to address matters of interpretation at the site. On the way out are the days when you can visit historic sites and hear nothing about the people who were enslaved there, and in the case of the Hermitage, the stories of Native Americans who were purged.  Moreover, the inclusive stories being told at these sites are rooted in the thorough research of archaeologists, genealogists, archivists, and historians and is supported by primary sources.  

What we experienced at the Hermitage on this trip was an audience that is receptive to these changes.  

This visit to the Hermitage would be to participate in their celebration of Juneteenth.  Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free.  This trip included me and living historians Nicole Moore, Sara Daise, and Dontavius Williams. What follows are some of their thoughts.

Sara Daise
Lizzie Taught Me: Slavery, Juneteenth, Rest, and Freedom

Although I’ve been a historic interpreter with Inalienable Rights: Living History Through the Eyes of the Enslaved since its inception in 2016, I haven’t participated in any of the sleepovers. This changed a few weeks ago. In commemoration of Juneteenth, I traveled with the Slave Dwelling Project to present and spend the night at Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage. That’s right. After having never slept on any plantation with the group, my first time would be on the plantation home of America’s 7th President.

As Joe McGill, SDP’s founder, said to me (only part jokingly), “When you do something, you do it big, huh?”

It would seem so.

I had a lot of anxiety and apprehension before the overnight for a multitude of reasons. I am sensitive. I feel energies. Having presented history on more than one plantation and historic site in South Carolina, I’ve experienced a rush of feelings when entering these spaces. I have never visited an American president’s home. Never had the desire. My research and interests, as a Black, queer, Gullah Geechee Womanist, Afrofuturist Cultural History Interpreter and Public Historian, center around the stories of the most marginalized among us. This work can be as difficult and painful as it is empowering and life-giving. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel walking onto the 1,200 acres once owned by America’s 7th president. America’s 7th president who owned HUNDREDS of enslaved Africans.

I had some less emotionally charged reservations as well. One of those being that I don’t like to be hot when I sleep. I require a fan blowing on me at night, even in the winter. Besides the whirring of the fan being kind of meditative, I just feel better when there’s a constant flow of air. Two, I’m not crazy about bugs. A Gullah Geechee Lowcountry native, I’ve encountered many a crawling, buzzing, flying creature. I’ve encountered bugs that do all of the above. And still, the idea of sleeping on the floor of an open air slave cabin, making it even more possible for a bug to end up in my nose, ears, or mouth, has never EVER sounded appealing.

I’ve heard from different historians in SDP, and read the accounts of people who’ve participated. There is a lot of significance and beauty to be gained from the experience. A friend of mine who spent the night on Magnolia Plantation in 2017 told me that seeing the grounds at nights transformed how he saw the site.

I also had a lot of nervousness around the fireside discussion. Having worked as a cultural history interpreter of Africana history since 2015, I have heard some of the most bizarre and offensive questions. I began my career at McLeod Plantation Historic site in Charleston, SC. When it opened with the goal of interpreting the “transition to freedom” from the perspective of the enslaved Africans and their descendants, many visitors who were accustomed to ahistorical accounts of “happy slaves” and “benevolent slave owners” were visibly uncomfortable and defensive to this new, nuanced information. And more times than I can count, those visitors would attempt to shift their discomfort to me. I have endured the “Why would ‘the slaves’ run away?”, “Where are the stories focused on the plantation owners?”, ‘’You can’t really judge the past by 21st-century standards, right?” interrogations. You know–as if enslaved Africans were somehow actually less human than their descendants are today, which ultimately means slavery was acceptable in its time. That line of inquiry is exhausting and disheartening.

I prayed a lot before I got to the site. Requested prayers, too. I asked my ancestors to be with me as I traveled to this plantation to do work that I love.

Thankfully, there were no offensive cross-examinations during Juneteenth. Those attending the event had thoughtful questions, comments, and anecdotes about their own experiences at historic sites, and interpreting difficult history.

During the dialogue that night, one white visitor inquired about how to avoid being a “white savior”, while recognizing the importance of Black history, and more specifically, the history of American slavery. Wikipedia states, “Sometimes combined with savior complex to write white savior complex, refers to a white person who acts to help non-white people, with the help in some contexts perceived to be self-serving.” I pointed out the importance of listening to and centering the voices of the most marginalized among us. It is a general misconception that “no one is telling these stories”, and thus someone with more privilege should do all the uncovering and all the sharing. Often, the reasons we believe these stories aren’t being told point to the same marginalization and exploitation at the root of the stories we seek out. There have always been people from every community, even (perhaps especially) the communities of people with multiple intersecting identities that our society has deemed less than human. Our current system actively rewrites its violent history, while silencing and erasing the survivors of these crimes against humanity.

To illustrate this point, I read a newspaper clip from 1870. Diamond Stylz, trans activist, historian, womanist, and ⅓ host of Marsha’s Plate: Black Trans Talk Podcast shared it with me in my twitter DMs after seeing me tweet about how horrifying the history of slavery in Texas was.

The clip reads:

Some weeks ago a couple of young men were arrested in London for being dressed and appearing in the streets in women’s clothes. They were bound over to court and will be tried for this very grave infringement on woman’s rights. A black Chevalier d’Eon has turned up in Texas. He is a young man who from his youth up has had a desire to dress exclusively in woman’s apparel, and likes to sew, quilt, knit, cook and long for the ballot. Once he was a slave, and sometimes compelled to dress as a man but when the year of Jubilo came, Dick Montgomery–such is his name–rushed madly into liberty and female clothes, and wildly proclaimed that his name was Lizzie. So far as is known, no court has taken upon itself to arraign this ‘man in woman’s clothes’ for infringing upon woman’s vested rights.

As Diamond, a Texas resident, told me, “Jubilo” is another reference to Juneteenth. What we have here is documentation of enslaved gender-non-conforming people. What we have here is a completely new interpretation of how freedom was celebrated in Texas, and in America by the formerly enslaved. What we have here is an indication that there are likely countless stories like this that we haven’t read, and don’t know how to look for. How might the world look today if Lizzie’s story was commonly told when we celebrate Juneteenth? This formerly enslaved woman saying, “this is who I am. This is who I’ve always been. No one can take this from me!”

How many stories and voices and truths has this white supremacist patriarchal capitalist nation robbed us of?

The sleepover went better than expected. This is partly due to the storms we anticipated in Tennessee that night. Trying to avoid a mad-dash to shelter at 2 am, when the clouds were scheduled to open up, the group slept in more updated cabins. These cabins had AC and electrical outlets! Though we still slept in sleeping bags on hard, uncomfortable surfaces, the conditions were far better than those of our enslaved ancestors, and even the regular conditions for the participants of the Slave Dwelling Project. We opted to put our sleeping bags on these slim wooden tables, as the brick floors looked even less appealing. I pushed my table up against a wall, and slept with my back pushed against said wall, to hopefully avoid rolling onto the floor in my sleep.

At around 4 am I woke up. The snores of my roommates were loud, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t fall back to sleep. Instead, I walked around the grounds. Found a bench. Stared at the moon. The lightning bugs had mostly gone to sleep, and all I could hear was the faint, but consistent buzzing of the nocturnal wildlife. It was quiet. It was still. It was beautiful.

Because I love research, and am always looking for connections, I thought to look up slavery and insomnia. Like I said, and like we should all know, enslaved people weren’t sleeping in air conditioned units. There was no electricity.

I live with depression and anxiety, and sometimes it’s very hard for me to sleep. I can’t begin to fathom the emotional exhaustion enslaved people navigated every single day. The intricacies. The idiosyncrasies. The myriad of human emotions that these very human people experienced. How did they sleep through the hottest, most humid nights? The incessant bug bites? The sniffles, sore throats, hungry stomachs. The headaches? The cramps? How did they sleep at night when their family members were sold? When there was gendered, domestic violence in slave village? When they knew in their hearts of hearts, and minds of minds that they were human beings deserving of dignity, love, and autonomy, while living in a world that negated all of the above?

I remember starting a new antidepressant in 2016. The same day I started, within 24-hours, Philando Castille, and Alton Sterling were murdered by the police. Two Black people murdered by the state. Miles and miles apart. A community left behind to mourn these tragic losses. One of the side effects of my new meds was insomnia. I was awake the entire night. And I had to give tours on the plantation the next morning. I know how 21st century-me barely made it through that day. How on earth were enslaved people navigating the backbreaking, mind-warping labor, the dehumanizing realities of slavery, with the reality that human beings need sleep?

In “African Americans don’t sleep as well as whites, an equality dating back to slavery”, Benjamin Reiss writes about sleep inequality, or a sleep gap that exists between Black and white Americans. The article details how enslaved people have been robbed of adequate sleeping conditions since the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and goes on to discuss slave owners’ documented opposition to enslaved laborers getting the sleep they need:

Thomas Jefferson, for instance, opined that black people simply “require less sleep” than whites. And while he noted enslaved people’s propensity to drop off quickly at the end of a long day, he convinced himself that a rapid descent into sleep was evidence of inferior intellects (rather than insufficient rest). White people, he observed, could keep themselves up late into the night to pursue intellectual or creative endeavors, whereas “negroes” were deficient in the powers of “reflection” that allowed them to do so: “An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course.”

Reiss also quotes Frederick Douglass, who discussed the consistent lack of sleep in his memoir.

“More slaves were whipped for oversleeping than for any other fault.” Douglass went as far as to suggest that keeping the enslaved population in a state of constant fatigue was a useful tool in breaking their will. He wrote that, on Sundays, he regularly found himself “in a beast-like state, between sleep and wake” that made it impossible for him to act on the “flash of energetic freedom [that] would dart through my soul.” Sinking back to the ground, he would simply mourn over his “wretched condition.”

Imagine that. An enslaved person. A human who is the legal property of another human. This person manages to muster up some sense of themselves, some sanity, some method of making it through each day. And even that method is robbed from them because they are soooooo exhausted. Imagine.

As is our way, there are people tackling this history, this sleep-gap. In 2016, Tricia Hersey founded the Nap Ministry. In “The Atlanta Nap Ministry preaches the liberating power of rest”, Gray Chapman writes:

Hersey dug into the Emory [University] library’s African American history archives, researching the lives and legacies of enslaved Africans who labored on Southern land, including her own ancestors. She studied this history through the lens of black liberation theology. “It was this whole examination of labor in the South, and how bodies are commodified, and how capitalism and white supremacy help that,” she says. Hersey talked to African Americans who’d lived through the Jim Crow era about how their decades-old trauma manifested physically. After exploring scientific research on how the brain uses sleep to process trauma, she became transfixed by the idea of rest as a form of reparations and sleep deprivation as an issue of racial and social justice. Rest wasn’t just personal; it was political.

For this reason, I don’t feel any guilt that my first sleepover experience wasn’t historically accurate. I don’t believe my ancestors require my suffering and discomfort. While I believe there is much to be gained by us stepping out of our comfort zones, and having the hard HARD conversations, I believe I gained everything I should have from my visit to Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage. And I deserve every bit of sleep/rest I can get. And then I deserve some more.

The transition to freedom is long. It often feels treacherous. I am committed to our wellness and our liberation for the long haul. As a Black queer woman, an Afrofutrist, a historian, I know that my freedom is inherently tied to yours. Yes, reader. Yours.

May we continue to seek out the truth. May we continue to rest. May we continue to create solutions, and build community, and center the voices of the most marginalized among us. As the Black Feminists of the Combahee River Collective write, “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression.”

Nicole Moore

Participating in the Juneteenth programming at Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage was different for me. It felt different, and it hit a little different. I wanted to ensure that we were highlighting the lives of the men, women and children once enslaved on the land and the best way I felt that could be accomplished was by cooking a meal that was what they would have. I’ve done a few sleepovers with Joe, and was of course excited to be a part of this one. If you’ve never been to The Hermitage, it’s an impressive expanse of land. It’s a gorgeous property. But in its physical beauty, I could still see the hundreds of people who made it run–who were long forgotten by some, but would be recognized by the Slave Dwelling Project utilizing the research and efforts by Hermitage staff.

One of my good friends, Dr. Ashley Bouknight, was the assistant curator, and she also created some of the faux food that was displayed in Alfred Jackson’s cabin on site. Mr. Jackson was enslaved by President Jackson and held the role of body servant to Jackson. Alfred held a position of importance to the family, to the point that he is buried near the President and his wife on site—significant on its own and speaks to the complexity of the relationships between the enslaver and the enslaved.

But as part of the living history program, I wanted to make what was in Alfred’s cabin, and I asked Dr. Bouknight what she created based on the documentation. It was a simple meal: some fowl, greens and white beans, with cornbread. Simple enough, yet when visitors came to the Spring Cabin where we were interpreting, they felt a deeper connection to the story actually seeing Alfred’s meal. They could smell the Cornish hens being cooked, they could see how the greens and white beans were prepared over a fire, and they could draw their own connections to how the foods they enjoy are more aligned to the diet of the enslaved versus what the Jackson family would be eating. Visitors, both black and white, found themselves drawing comparisons to the meals they’ve had around town, at BBQ joints, and in highbrow restaurants that looked more like Alfred’s and found themselves connecting to those men and women. They began to see that the slave population at The Hermitage was more than just bodies, and historical figures. The enslaved were people whose stories the visitor wanted to get to know. Visitors saw how Alfred’s cabin was furnished and started to wonder—why did he have the furniture he had, and what was it about his relationship to the Jacksons that afforded him the distinction of being buried near them? They stepped away thinking about the fingerprints on the bricks of the kitchen and those who would have worked in the house, and by the end of the day, we all began to think of who truly occupied the space, both inside and out, and what that community meant.

The beauty of the grounds took on a different meaning for me after that. No longer was it vast space, it was a place full of activity, of men and women, and children involuntarily involved in this institution whose legacy has yet to be fully understood. The meal was more than just a recreation of what was in the cabin. It was a way to remind everyone that the voices of the enslaved, and their spaces, matter.

Hunter Shea Rhodes

So I spent the night inside an original slave dwelling at the Hermitage.

I admit that I was not planning on doing so at first. I have wanted to for quite some time now, and when I first heard about The Slave Dwelling Project from Jerome Bias, I knew I wanted to get involved however I could. The only issue was that Joseph McGill, the founder of The Slave Dwelling Project, and his team go to so many different sites that it would be difficult to chase them around.

Luckily for me and the people of Nashville, they came to the Hermitage.

My interaction with them started around 6:30 P.M. when my wife and I arrived and found our way to the Cabin by the Spring where the Hermitage hosts events. I first met Nicole Moore, one of the historic interpreters with the project who had been a part of the cooking demonstration earlier in the day. Her welcome and friendliness were immediately palpable and I knew that we were in for a stellar evening.

As a few minutes went by, we decided to not build a campfire for the group conversation we were to have beginning at 7:00. It was a gorgeous day with barely a cloud in the sky, and the recent rains had tempered the Tennessee heat. We circled up some benches and sat in the field by the Cabin and began a discussion on slavery and its lasting impact on us, both individually and as a larger collective.

The conversation began with introductions and a question of how white people can avoid being white saviors, and it continued to go to places such as reparations and unrequited labor to how it feels for Black people to visit plantations more generally and the trauma that can accompany that. The whole while, regardless of the particular topic, folx around the circle spoke honestly and we talked until it was too dark to see each other.

I thought the night was over. Then, much to my surprise, I discovered that I was able to spend the night.

I had come in thinking that this was only going to be a conversation as the event description on the Hermitage’s Facebook page made me think that the sleepover would only be for Joseph and the others who were with the SDP. Luckily for me, I was able to continue with a new part of this incredible experience. Luckier for me, I had a sleeping bag in my van already.

I chose to stay in one of the original dwellings instead of the newer building so that I could really get at least a tiny sliver of what it might have been like to call one of those buildings home, and I tell you what, I am glad that I made that decision.

All I had was my sleeping bag on top of a hardwood floor, and while the doors remained open for some air flow, the sound of nature (not something I’m used to on account of living in the heart of the city) and the new environment made it pretty difficult to actually fall and stay asleep. Thankfully, this restlessness gave way to new questions I had never before considered in the course of my research.

My focus is always on the humanity of the enslaved. I do not want to simply talk about their status or how they were acted upon by others, but I want to really interrogate what it means to truly look at the enslaved as human beings. As it turns out, one of the best ways to do that has been to do things they did, and sleeping in this dwelling (or not sleeping for most of the night, as it were) offered me an incredible if not slight glimpse into more ways to view their humanity, and I think they are mind-opening in their simplicity.

Do you ever think the enslaved laid in bed restless, unable to actually fall asleep? Do you think they tossed and turned over something they saw or felt, or perhaps over an argument they may have had with a loved one? Do you think they finally got the chance to rest their weary bones after working can’t see to can’t see and realized that they had not eaten in hours?

These questions rushed through my mind as I tried to fall asleep. I was learning so much from simply being still and letting the spirits in that place share with me their experience from when they were embodied. These gave rise to even more questions regarding how we talk about enslavement and the enslaved people more generally. Why do we not actually discuss what eating meals and drinking water would have been like on an average day for the enslaved farmers and others at the Hermitage? Are there notes in letters that we just haven’t looked through yet that describe these more intimate details of how the enslaved may have lost sleep for one reason or another?

I finally got some shut eye and woke up about an hour before sunrise. As is common regardless of my sleeping arrangements, my mind immediately began racing again, but just like a few hours before, it was flooded with new thoughts, new questions that were given to me by the spirits in that place.

Do you think the enslaved ever woke up before the alarm, in whatever form that alarm took? Do you think they intentionally did so to get in a quick bite or to say a prayer or to kiss their sleeping children on the forehead? Do you think they sat in bed before rising, thinking about the day to come and wondering if they even wanted to do this at all?

I know to some people these questions may seem preposterous. Many times in conversations about the enslaved, the focus is on the oppression they faced, and admittedly, that is worth discussing. However, we have to remember that they were human beings, and as such, they did things that human beings, like you and me, would do. We risk dehumanizing them further if we talk about them merely as passive characters instead of human actors.

As the sun arose, I walked around the property some and saw several deer, as well as some turkeys that had gathered close to my place of rest for the evening. I took more time to be still, to be quiet, and to thank the spirits for their guiding.

It is not often I get opportunities to truly commune with the spirits as I did that evening. I have been to my fair share of plantations, and I will continue to visit and revisit even more. This opportunity, though, to spend the night in an original dwelling is unlike any visit I have had before. The incredible work of the Slave Dwelling Project, this time led by Joseph, Nicole, Dontavius Williams, and Sara Daise, gave me insight that no book or conversation could ever offer: insight into the humanity of the enslaved people, garnered through one small instance of living like they did.

As the morning moved forward, we said our goodbyes to each other and I thanked them for their continued work and dedication to telling these stories. I went to the parking lot to wait on my wife to pick me up, and slowly life went back to normal, save the new set of never-ending questions that are still rattling around in my brain.

If you have the opportunity to spend time at any event the Slave Dwelling Project hosts, do yourself a favor and jump at the opportunity. Even just the conversation is worth the time, but spending the night in one of these buildings is truly life-changing. We need people who are ready to tell a new story, uncover a buried history, and shape a new narrative, and the SDP is doing just that.

If you believe in this work, then hop on board and come along for the ride. There might be some bitter moments, but history tastes better without the sugar, anyway.