It is an unplanned but pleasing coincidence that our visit to Montpelier, the home of James Madison, the fourth U.S. president (1809-1817), coincides with Juneteenth.
Recognized as a federal holiday in 2021, Juneteenth (June 19) commemorates the date that slavery ended in Texas, the last state to abolish the 246-year-old institution.
This historical fact holds a bit more gravity while sitting in the cellar of this plantation home that sits on 2,650 acres in Orange County, Virginia. Here, below ground, is where enslaved people made meals for the Madison household. It also is the site of “Mere Distinction of Colour,” an exhibit that uses artifacts and art to give visitors a deeper sense of the experience of being enslaved.
Wraparound graphics showcase the names of Montpelier’s 100-plus enslaved; interactive exhibits demonstrate aspects of everyday life for an enslaved person; and a short film brings to life the story of Sarah, whose family was continually torn apart by the sale and trade of family members. Her story, taken from letters and other writings, gives visitors an intimate, emotional and tangible feel for life as an enslaved person.
Similar to other current exhibits on slavery, Montpelier’s use of the word “enslaved” instead of “slave” denotes that the condition of slavery was imposed and not at the core of the person’s existence.
At the conclusion of the house tour, we stand near a replica of the desk at which Madison wrote the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and his many thoughts on the birth of our nation and the institution of slavery. One must wonder how this learned man penned documents in which liberty was the central theme while enslaving dozens of people. Madison never freed any of his enslaved and took several with him to the White House, but he wrote that slavery would surely tear apart the nation.
Madison’s Montpelier “confronts visitors with a historic site that is simultaneously a place where ideas of Liberty were conceived and…a place where the same ideas were systematically denied,” according to the Montpelier Foundation.
The cellar exhibition, coupled with tours of the main house, gardens and cemeteries where the Madison family and an untold number of enslaved people are buried, exemplifies just how “messy and bipolar” is the history of the United States.
Highlighting the lives of the enslaved at historic sites wasn’t a given until the Black Lives Matter movement gained traction, opines Christine C., a former Californian who moved to Virginia seven years ago. Soon after, she became a docent at the nearby Civil War battlefields, where slavery once received little mention. (The National Park Service asks that volunteers do not use their full names.)
“First, we had very little information on the site’s enslaved workers,” Christine says. Some records were destroyed during the war and “records the families took with them during the war were lost.”
But then, the park service “dug deeper” and found a “treasure trove of court cases (that) provided invaluable information.”
This information exists because, since enslaved people were property, “they frequently appeared in court cases, which was enlightening.” she adds. “Now, the park service has a larger trove of very specific histories of different enslaved individuals who lived on the battleground sites.”
Christine now volunteers for Historic Germanna, where she catalogs artifacts found at a nearby archeological dig. The organization works to preserve and promote the history of German settlers who began arriving in this area of Virginia in the early 1700s. Their original, pentagonal-shaped fort was just across the road, and archeology students from local colleges help to uncover the layers of history.
“History is one of the reasons I fell in love with Virginia,” Christine says. “It is central to the framing of America and home to many early presidents.”
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