Video
A Witness Oak at Kingsley Plantation
Transcript
Hi I'm Herb a National Park ranger here at the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve. If you look around me we're seeing many palm trees mixed in with oak, live oaks and in down behind me you'll see one of the largest oaks on the plantation. This is over 500 years old and can tell many stories about what has happened here. On this plantation there are over 25 tabby slave cabins this is the only place in the United States that you'll find these cabins if you also look behind me with this massive live oak this is where they came to have weddings also funerals where they had sorrow in their lives and at the same time the enslaved people enjoyed song, dance, and hopeful prayers for the future. The New York Times did a project on the 1619 research of slavery, at that time the story came up with a child that was brought here with her family, her family was sold into slavery all to different plantation owners, herself only being five came to the plantation to help a man that had a sick wife but at the same time missing all her family members, she came out to a live oak and would stand under it and start to remember each family member, their face and their names and named each branch after that as you can see this also brought her sorrow at times and happiness thinking that one day she might rejoin them. In 2004, the oak tree became the national tree of the United States so we think it has earned the right to be called a witness tree because it has experienced catastrophes, slavery, and wars so we invite you to come out to this plantation that has many witness trees and experience it yourself. We're here Wednesday through Sunday from the hours of nine till five thank you.
Description
Ranger Herb explains why we use the term Witness Tree and explores some of the history these trees connect people to at Kingsley Plantation.
Duration
2 minutes, 46 seconds
Credit
NPS
Date Created
02/26/2021
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