Last updated: July 20, 2023
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Podcast 125: Interpreting History with the Slave Dwelling Project
Starting the Slave Dwelling Project
Jason Church: Good morning Joe!
Joe McGill: Good morning, how are you?
Jason Church: Very well, how are you doing?
Joe McGill: I’m well.
Jason Church: Be brief if you want but how you got started in this project.
Joe McGill: The stars aligned, a lot of things came together at that time, ten years ago when I started the project. At the time, I worked for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and I would visit places associated with the Trust and on my own. Sometimes these are antebellum sites, you know, prior to the Civil War that could tell many stories. But usually the stories that were told at these sites were of the architecturally significant buildings on those sites and missing from that element of the story were the buildings where enslaved people occupied, where enslaved people did the cooking, where they functioned in the carriage houses, none of that was there. No element of people whom I derived my DNA from, was there.
I was also at that time a Civil War reenactor; I was at least fifteen years into being a Civil War reenactor. So, I know the joys of visiting historic places and sometimes sleeping at those places. And then of course, having that DNA that I have and knowing that something needed to be done with the lack of information out there and making that statement that somebody needs to do something about this. Of course, that somebody was me.
I took it upon myself, I got lucky. I was part of a team to monitor the work of the carpenters that were actually restoring the slave cabins at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, where I am now employed on a full-time basis actually. So, in doing this and seeing the opportunity for these cabins to now tell that element of the story at that place, I wanted to take it a step further and sought permission to spend the night in one of the cabins when they were finished. Well, they thought it was a great idea and then I said well if they think it’s a good idea, maybe others will too.
So, I sought a list from the state Historic Preservation office here in Charlestown, South Carolina, told them my intent. Of course, they got it because they think a lot like I do, it’s about preservation. So, I got the list from them and started making phone calls. And surprisingly, you know after I made my requests and after that awkward calls, of course you know, such a request is not usual, most of them got it. And because most of them got it, I started making a list of where I would go in accordance to those yes’s. Now I got a few noes along the way, but I had enough yeses to step up on faith and make it happen.
Joe McGill: Good morning, how are you?
Jason Church: Very well, how are you doing?
Joe McGill: I’m well.
Jason Church: Be brief if you want but how you got started in this project.
Joe McGill: The stars aligned, a lot of things came together at that time, ten years ago when I started the project. At the time, I worked for the National Trust for Historic Preservation and I would visit places associated with the Trust and on my own. Sometimes these are antebellum sites, you know, prior to the Civil War that could tell many stories. But usually the stories that were told at these sites were of the architecturally significant buildings on those sites and missing from that element of the story were the buildings where enslaved people occupied, where enslaved people did the cooking, where they functioned in the carriage houses, none of that was there. No element of people whom I derived my DNA from, was there.
I was also at that time a Civil War reenactor; I was at least fifteen years into being a Civil War reenactor. So, I know the joys of visiting historic places and sometimes sleeping at those places. And then of course, having that DNA that I have and knowing that something needed to be done with the lack of information out there and making that statement that somebody needs to do something about this. Of course, that somebody was me.
I took it upon myself, I got lucky. I was part of a team to monitor the work of the carpenters that were actually restoring the slave cabins at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, where I am now employed on a full-time basis actually. So, in doing this and seeing the opportunity for these cabins to now tell that element of the story at that place, I wanted to take it a step further and sought permission to spend the night in one of the cabins when they were finished. Well, they thought it was a great idea and then I said well if they think it’s a good idea, maybe others will too.
So, I sought a list from the state Historic Preservation office here in Charlestown, South Carolina, told them my intent. Of course, they got it because they think a lot like I do, it’s about preservation. So, I got the list from them and started making phone calls. And surprisingly, you know after I made my requests and after that awkward calls, of course you know, such a request is not usual, most of them got it. And because most of them got it, I started making a list of where I would go in accordance to those yes’s. Now I got a few noes along the way, but I had enough yeses to step up on faith and make it happen.
A Growing Project
NCPTT, NPS
Now luckily for me, at the time, I was employed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and I was traveling to the states of Alabama and Louisiana. Knowing that I was going to these places and putting the word out of this new thing that I was doing, some of my clients or contacts through the National Trust would start seeking these places for me, because they were getting a bonus. See I was traveling there anyway for my job, and I was just tacking one extra day onto that trip, you know just spend the night in these places in these other states. So, again the stars aligned all this came together.
Now, ten years later we’re still at it. I say we because we’re now a non-profit organization functioning as such. We have a lot more checks and balances to ensure that you know what we’re doing is proper and in order. So, again ten years later, I’m at this thing and here we are, you and I Jason about to go into a mutual endeavor.
The Larger Scope of Slavery
J. McGill: A lot of folks think like I used ten years ago. A lot of people try to keep slavery on southern plantations. Well, you’ve got to expand that way of thinking. Because if you keep it there, you’re going to miss the urban slavery that happened and you’re going to miss the slavery that happened in those northern states. So, so far, it’s been twenty-five states and the District of Columbia. If you limit it to agriculture, you’re going to keep it at you know, at those larger plantations but you’ve got to also think, you know, even in those northern states there were some plantations. You know, less so than the south, of course, its economy was that agrarian effort to extract from the land all that they could. And that worked better in the south than it did in the north.
Now that northern slavery was more of body servants and people of this nature. You know that structure that usually survives again, near the big house as you just stated, that structure is usually made of better material than the structures for the field hand because it’s by your nice, beautiful big house and it’s about aesthetics, it’s optics. If you have that building near your nice beautiful big house, you want it to look good at least. Not saying that the enslaved people who occupied that space got any better treatment, but at least the materials that that house was made out of was usually more substantial, it certainly looked better, and it was a status symbol.
Now that northern slavery was more of body servants and people of this nature. You know that structure that usually survives again, near the big house as you just stated, that structure is usually made of better material than the structures for the field hand because it’s by your nice, beautiful big house and it’s about aesthetics, it’s optics. If you have that building near your nice beautiful big house, you want it to look good at least. Not saying that the enslaved people who occupied that space got any better treatment, but at least the materials that that house was made out of was usually more substantial, it certainly looked better, and it was a status symbol.
Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the Slave Dwelling Project
J. McGill: You know, my first three sleepovers, I was all by myself, all alone and that’s how it started. So, now I’m back to that but not by choice. It’s because of the Coronavirus that we’re back here. But I’ve been at it long enough to embrace the technology that exists and that is one of the reasons you and I are talking right now. I’m seeing your face and you’re seeing mine, you’re likewise. Well, we’ve taken that same technology to apply to the slave dwelling project. I’m sleeping in the places alone, but we also give folks the opportunity to interact with me through Facebook live and before the actual sleepover, we also have a zoom call that folks can take part in. And the zoom call is more real time interactive when we do the Facebook live, you know it’s me talking a lot then I get an opportunity to scroll through the people who are signed in and try to answer any questions that they may have posed to me. Less interactive than zoom, but interactive enough to still let folks get a feel for the place. They see the place through my eyes, they hear about the place through my ears.
You know it’s fun. I’m kind of getting used to this, but you know, it’s good and bad. It’s good because people can do the social distancing and stay where they are and still learn about that place, but it takes away that face to face and eye to eye, that campfire atmosphere where they can have that interaction with everybody around the campfire. So, we want to try to get back to that as soon as the science will allow us to. We plan these things as if I’m going to be there physically and there are going to be others there physically with me, we planned it as such. But we know that at some point, if the science says, “Well you know, that’s not the way to go,” then we are going to have to pull back and make it these social distance learning type activities and we are prepared to do that.
You know it’s fun. I’m kind of getting used to this, but you know, it’s good and bad. It’s good because people can do the social distancing and stay where they are and still learn about that place, but it takes away that face to face and eye to eye, that campfire atmosphere where they can have that interaction with everybody around the campfire. So, we want to try to get back to that as soon as the science will allow us to. We plan these things as if I’m going to be there physically and there are going to be others there physically with me, we planned it as such. But we know that at some point, if the science says, “Well you know, that’s not the way to go,” then we are going to have to pull back and make it these social distance learning type activities and we are prepared to do that.
Slavery as an Institution
J. McGill: You know in 1787, when we were in our nation’s capital, which was back then, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, considering the ratification of that Constitution, the fact that you know, the southerners demanded that they needed twenty more years to still import people into this nation for the purpose of enslaving them because their economy depended on it. You know it’s the agriculture that we talked about earlier, that was that opportunity right then to snuff out this slavery that exists now in these United States. They could have ended that chattel slavery right then and there. But they did not. They kicked it down the road, kicked it down the road, and they kept doing that and because they kept doing that, and even after freedom came, all those things that replaced slavery like convict labor and KKK and lynchings and white citizen councils and you know, they were always doing these things to disenfranchise the African American population.
You know, take Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the massacre there. Take your Rosewoods and if you look at compile a list, that complied list of people who were lynched, you will see that there were a lot of businessmen who were thriving and because they were thriving and competing with the white population, there were these efforts to silence them and making a public spectacle of what was done to them.
You know, take Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the massacre there. Take your Rosewoods and if you look at compile a list, that complied list of people who were lynched, you will see that there were a lot of businessmen who were thriving and because they were thriving and competing with the white population, there were these efforts to silence them and making a public spectacle of what was done to them.
Continuing Legacies of Slavery
J. McGill: So, I want folks to know that, yeah, we should be angry, but we’re still dealing with what we should have dealt with historically that we allowed to persist, the slavery and the effects thereof and we are still living with that legacy. But yet they’ll make a statement like, yeah, get over it. You know it happened, not in their lifetime so get over it. They got to understand what that is. That “it” is more than slavery. That “it” is all that period you just described. Disenfranchisement are when these African Americans were pursuing their happiness there was always something, a law or a group, or something to take it all away again, take you right back to zero.
So those things continue to persist, and we say that if you know, if were going to learn history or you’re doomed to repeat it or something to that effect. I know I butchered that, but the thing is we know the history, but we still repeat it. I was given a tour yesterday at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens and my question and answer period now tend to focus more on connecting those dots, what we’re going on today, you know George Floyd’s death, what we’re dealing with now, monuments coming down at an alarming rate and they’re not just confederate monuments anymore. I mean they try to, throw everything, everything into that bucket.
Well, it is because that we’ve been telling a distorted history for so long. Some of these public sites, you know they kind of fit into to it. They kind of went along with it, whereas they should have been just doing the opposite. I think had they been telling the real history, I think we would be in a much better place because if you ask a group of people if they’ve visited a plantation, many of them may say no. But then if you ask that question another way, you know if you ask them if they visited Montpelier or Mount Vernon or the Highlands or Mount Vernon, they may say yes. Well, those are plantations. And that’s that indication that we were trying to hide this, hide something on these properties. And because we were hiding it, prolonging it for so long, we still have people who come to these sites seeking out that sugar coated version of the history, you know the Gone with The Wind hoop skirt version of that history, but now what they’re finding out is that some of these plantations and some of these historic sites are doing what they’re supposed to do, what they should have been doing all along. And it disappoints some people because again, they still come for that fantasied version of the story. But the number of sites that are doing right and doing it the right way, that number is increasing and those who are still doing that glorified Gone with The Wind version of history, that number is getting smaller. So, we’re making progress.
So those things continue to persist, and we say that if you know, if were going to learn history or you’re doomed to repeat it or something to that effect. I know I butchered that, but the thing is we know the history, but we still repeat it. I was given a tour yesterday at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens and my question and answer period now tend to focus more on connecting those dots, what we’re going on today, you know George Floyd’s death, what we’re dealing with now, monuments coming down at an alarming rate and they’re not just confederate monuments anymore. I mean they try to, throw everything, everything into that bucket.
Well, it is because that we’ve been telling a distorted history for so long. Some of these public sites, you know they kind of fit into to it. They kind of went along with it, whereas they should have been just doing the opposite. I think had they been telling the real history, I think we would be in a much better place because if you ask a group of people if they’ve visited a plantation, many of them may say no. But then if you ask that question another way, you know if you ask them if they visited Montpelier or Mount Vernon or the Highlands or Mount Vernon, they may say yes. Well, those are plantations. And that’s that indication that we were trying to hide this, hide something on these properties. And because we were hiding it, prolonging it for so long, we still have people who come to these sites seeking out that sugar coated version of the history, you know the Gone with The Wind hoop skirt version of that history, but now what they’re finding out is that some of these plantations and some of these historic sites are doing what they’re supposed to do, what they should have been doing all along. And it disappoints some people because again, they still come for that fantasied version of the story. But the number of sites that are doing right and doing it the right way, that number is increasing and those who are still doing that glorified Gone with The Wind version of history, that number is getting smaller. So, we’re making progress.
Interpretation Matters
J. Church: What would you like to tell people that you maybe haven’t gotten across yet?
J. McGill: One thing, I think that if anybody should come away from a plantation thinking that slavery was a good thing, I think they need to seek a refund. If they paid anything for that, to have that story told to them. Working at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens and giving people choices as to which tour that they should take and knowing that there’s a value to each tour. In other words, you pay an additional fee to go on the tour that you want to go on. Well, the tour that we give from slavery to freedom, our cabin tour is taking the least. And that speaks to the bigger problem that we have as Americans, wanting to stay in that comfort zone and not wanting to deal with the atrocities that we committed along the way to obtain this greatness that we are as a nation. But we must understand that in obtaining this greatness, we relegated the natives as less than, we relegated the enslaved Africans as less than and because we label them as such historically, we’re still dealing with the residuals of that today. So, I think people should be open minded enough that you know, the white privileges that are granted that are beneficial to whites. You know it came at the cost of making others less than. I think we should stop resisting. The demographic shift of what’s to come in the near future, you know the white population is not going to be the majority anymore. Of course, now the majority is a good mixture of others because when you fill out forms these days, you see black, white, other. And we’re getting a lot more others and there’s a lot of pushback against that and you can see it you know with the building of walls, or the banning of Muslims or voter suppression. We need to be mindful that resistance to this demographic shift, it tends to divide and conquer. And I don’t think that’s the way that we should go in our pursuit of happiness and forming of a more perfect union.
J. Church: It’s a nice way to wrap it up. Well thanks for talking to us Joe, I really appreciate it.
J. McGill: One thing, I think that if anybody should come away from a plantation thinking that slavery was a good thing, I think they need to seek a refund. If they paid anything for that, to have that story told to them. Working at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens and giving people choices as to which tour that they should take and knowing that there’s a value to each tour. In other words, you pay an additional fee to go on the tour that you want to go on. Well, the tour that we give from slavery to freedom, our cabin tour is taking the least. And that speaks to the bigger problem that we have as Americans, wanting to stay in that comfort zone and not wanting to deal with the atrocities that we committed along the way to obtain this greatness that we are as a nation. But we must understand that in obtaining this greatness, we relegated the natives as less than, we relegated the enslaved Africans as less than and because we label them as such historically, we’re still dealing with the residuals of that today. So, I think people should be open minded enough that you know, the white privileges that are granted that are beneficial to whites. You know it came at the cost of making others less than. I think we should stop resisting. The demographic shift of what’s to come in the near future, you know the white population is not going to be the majority anymore. Of course, now the majority is a good mixture of others because when you fill out forms these days, you see black, white, other. And we’re getting a lot more others and there’s a lot of pushback against that and you can see it you know with the building of walls, or the banning of Muslims or voter suppression. We need to be mindful that resistance to this demographic shift, it tends to divide and conquer. And I don’t think that’s the way that we should go in our pursuit of happiness and forming of a more perfect union.
J. Church: It’s a nice way to wrap it up. Well thanks for talking to us Joe, I really appreciate it.
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