Wessyngton Plantation: A Family's Road to Freedom | NPT

the following program is made possible in part by the Tennessee Civil War national heritage area 10 year-old Jenny and her sister Sarah have seen their mother for the last time sold for 100 British pounds they belong to a distant relative of America's first president they are Washington's now on a three-month journey to their new home on our young country's western frontier the state of Tennessee with a life of servitude ahead of her Jenny will watch her children and grandchildren labor to build one of the wealthiest plantations in the United States though Sarah will die a slave jenny will spend the last few years of her life as a free woman but the blood required to end her bondage and that of millions like her will not be shed for another 60 years you when I was a small boy five or six years old every Sunday just about after church my maternal grandfather to take me for a ride out in the country and often we would past the entrance gate to wincing ttan and my grandfather would slow down or stop and say that's Washington that's where your grandmother's family came from beginning with Jenny's long walk from Virginia generations of John Baker's family spent their lives here working the rich Robertson County soil not because it was home and not by choice while just a child himself John would answer the call to tell their stories what would become his life's work began with the discovery of an old photograph in a middle school textbook when I was in the seventh grade we used to social studies takes we'll call your Tennessee and I spotted a photograph of four individuals who had formerly been enslaved and for some reason I seemed drawn to this photograph and I looked at it each time I will go to class thinking they resembled individuals that I'd seen before and I learned later from my grandmother the two of them were her grandparents Emanuel and Henry Washington who had been enslaved at Weddington plantation so I was immediately fascinated right then I couldn't wait to get back to school to tell my classmates that my great-great grandfather and mother's picture was in our social studies textbook some of them believe me some didn't so it dawned on me what my grandfather really meant but my family's history went back there some 200 years John was determined to learn all he could about his ancestors when a relative told him that descendants of the original owners still lived at Wessington he contacted the family John discovered that just a few years earlier the plantation records had been donated to the Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville which was soon to become his home away from home teenage curiosity soon turned into obsession John would spend the next 30 years combing through thousands of documents and photographs and interviewing dozens of descendants culminating in his book the Washington's of Wessington plantation during slavery most plantation owners would have had to have kept these type records is just a few of them survived and Wittington happens that we want our the most documented in the south I would say Weston plantations very distinctive not only was it one of the largest in Tennessee all the records survived so unlike a lot of plantations that we look at we can give a fairly full picture of what slavery was like that later generations kept all of those documents is truly remarkable but what I also think is important is that the oral traditions the enslaved members of the wedding 10 plants as well I was very fortunate when I started my research there were probably 20 to 25 individuals who were children or grandchildren of former Western conceived so after I started interviewing some of these people I became as interested in their family histories as I was my own so that's how I ended up spending 30 years of research some people say you mean it takes 30 years to trace your ancestor and I said now it takes 30 years to trace 300 people ancestry 300 people 300 human beings during Wessington heyday as the largest tobacco plantation in America nearly 300 African Americans were forced under constant threat of brutal punishment or separation from loved ones through sale to keep the lucrative operation going never will forget that slavery was an economic activity that was a reason for slavery I'm not sure that the masters understood or appreciated the degree of compassion that african-american people felt for each other that's a part of that subhuman fixture or identity of slavery the master class had to believe that it would have been too hard on one soul of conscience to understand that you were treating loving and human and compassion individuals like slaves there are many slave bills of sale in the Washington family collection starting in 1801 up to 1843 so I was able not only to trace my ancestors and to others ed Whittington I was able to trace where they came from before they got to it whereas I Myka jablow path bargains sold and delivered to Joseph's Washington to Negro girls named Jenny and Sarah and in consideration of the sum of 100 pounds for which Title I warrant and defend against all claims that can be produced against the above-named gentleman for the said Negroes young Jenny had helped carved Wessington out of the Tennessee wilderness carrying clay from a nearby creek for bricks to build the mansion in which she would spend her life as a servant my childhood had ended when she arrived there she'd be expected to put in a full day in the kitchen in the laundry and maybe especially during certain times of year he'd been doing some agricultural work especially when it's harvest time so it's all about investment then she was a good investment it was generally advantageous for slave owners to purchase children a particularly young female children because of their great childbearing potential of course the the children of any such purchases would eventually belong to the slave owner and so this kind of purchase would have long-term profitability by age 16 Jenny began contributing to her master's wealth with her own flesh and blood while slave weddings were not legally binding she married a slave named Godfrey from a neighboring farm off plantation or broad marriages were quite common but often lonely as visitations had to be approved by owners the old English name Wessington later changed to Washington dates back more than 500 years before a wealthy Virginia tobacco farmer by that name purchased sixty acres in Middle Tennessee this gentleman is Joseph Washington and he was born in Southampton County Virginia July 7th 1770 he first came to Robertson County in 1796 on his first visit he went to the home of his cousin karna Archer Cheatham at that time this little girl was a baby small enough to be carried in the arms so he being a bachelor someone asked him when he was going to get married and he said well I'll just wait for this little girl to grow up and I'll marry her which is what he did in 1812 when he was 42 and she was 16 which her father was the wealthiest man in the county so that's probably helping Wessington had grown to just over 1,000 acres by 1812 with a slave population of 25 but Joseph Washington's land holdings would continue to expand for many years to come as would the need for labor Jenni's husband Godfrey was purchased by the Washington's for $800 in 1820 bringing the total number of slaves to 44 he and Jenny would have nine children in all that's one of the great tragedies of slavery it doomed successive generations to servitude but along with that knowledge came a feeling that you had a responsibility and a duty to raise people to be able to withstand that experience and to even if it's only internally to triumph over it Jenny becomes the founding member of a very important family at Wessington and she becomes the real matriarch and leader of that community she obviously was a person who had the kind of character the kind of strength of personality that made her suited for that particular role it's a strategy used to bring as much cohesion to explain community and to a particular slave family as circumstances allowed that started all unusual to find women and men who played that kind of role sometimes even for persons who were not blood-related she was also a source of continuity she has a memory of what it was like living in Virginia she remembered the trips you remember the travel she knew that there was a world beyond Robertson County Tennessee much of Wessington growth and business success is attributed to Joseph's son George Augustin Washington when the enterprising young man began taking over the operation in the late 1830s the plantation covered more than 4,300 acres requiring 86 slaves to run it during the decade following Joseph's death in 1848 Wessington expanded to more than 13,000 acres with land value skyrocketing from 20,000 to 250,000 dollars and although he had stopped purchasing slaves in 1842 George a Washington had become the largest slave holder in Tennessee with 207 for african-americans in bondage the sprawling estate was virtually self-sufficient known across the country for the quality of its many exports including a variety of produce hams and brandy the scale of Wessington sheer size of all the plantation operations the sheer size of the enslaved labor force meant that it was really more like looking at an entire village so you had every possible skill level represented it meant that yes you had many field hands but you also had enslaved people performing highly-skilled kinds of jobs it allowed them to have a greater degree of specialization and that's what made the plantation work another part of what made that work was the work that enslaved women did on the plantation in terms of domestic production so being able to cultivate and then process all of the food needed to keep everyone fed the textile production keeping everyone clothed on the plantation that was work that enslaved women performed under the supervision often of the plantation mistress and that also is what made this a viable economic operation George's wife Jane and his mother Mary oversaw much of the day-to-day operations at Wessington maintaining detailed journals of every activity in the livestock collar and basket book you can see where Jane made notations where some slaves word whipped because they had lost their basket or turned in their basket in poor condition I haven't seen such documents showing how much managerial Duty the women's slaveholders had and they were directly involved with the discipline there's been a general fuss among the Negroes arising out of some lie Emily said Lavinia had told upon Jo not content with quarreling at lavinius house they came on the hill which ended in Jim Lavinia Jo and M being whipped the chastisement brought down their tempers and all is now calm physical punishment was not at all unusual or infrequent on slave plantations fear of violence and the use of violence - whipping and other kinds of of corporal punishment was actually integral and intrinsic to the whole system of slavery even in situations and arrangements that that appeared humanitarian there was always hovering over those arrangements the threat of violence that threat became a reality for Wessington slaves found participating in religious gatherings several of Joseph Washington's former neighbors in Virginia were killed during that Turner's infamous slave rebellion which may have led to Wessington strict ban of the practice grandma Sarah told us that prayer meeting said to be held in secret on the plantation and that slaves put overturned kettles and pots at the doors to muffle the sound of praying and singing grandma Sarah had seen slaves whipped and salt & straw was rubbed in the wounds if they were caught praying for their freedom the slaves would be held by the slaves and others would be summoned to observe yet she said this still didn't stop him from holding the meetings this is a list of Wessington rebels these are individuals who ran away from the plantation they attack overseers they pretended to be sick they were told to go to work they refused to go then these are individuals from 1838 up to the silver war who ran away from the plantation and it states how long they were out where they were captured and so forth that was their rebellion against slavery they ran away and there were other types of resistance as well there was sabotage they were slowed down and there were just some slaves that slave owners were compelled not to go too far with they knew to pick on they knew who depressed they knew what buttons to push with whom and so there are all kinds of ways in which slaves were able to resist and to put some limits around themselves and draw some lives beyond which even slave owners dared not to transgress boundaries of human decency were often ignored by masters and white overseers who preyed on female slaves and Wessington was no exception one slave named Airy and possibly others had several children by Benjamin Simms a slave overseer and when he was 15 Joseph Washington's son George allegedly fathered a child Granville with a teenage slave it is one of the most shocking aspects of slavery and one that abolitionists pointed to consistently as evidence of the hypocrisy of any claim that it was a morally acceptable institution Granville's story is not unique it's quite common for slave people to have parents who were white and free as one of the descendants called if you were a an enslaved woman the white man told you to lay you had to lay down to contemplate what that meant for individuals who were in that position someone like Granville or his mother think about what that would have meant for them for Grandville it meant living his life as an outcast of sorts a child of two different worlds belonging in neither his fate was complicated further when he was appointed personal servant to the man who fathered him but would never claim him the spring of 1862 heralded the beginning of the end of the long cold winter of slavery Nashville just 30 miles south of Wessington became the first Confederate capital to be reclaimed by advancing Union forces understandably the news spread through the Washington family black and white like wildfire prompting the first of many Self emancipations several would eventually join the United States Colored Troops and fight to protect their newfound freedom while others would help construct Nashville's Fort negly Tennessee's capital was second only to Washington DC as the most fortified city in the nation after the war broke out a number of the men were the first to leave the plantation some of them who had been born on the plantation in the probably never left the grounds in their entire lives so many of them came to Nashville they later went back to plantation got their wives and children and brought them to Nashville during the war many of them would go back and forth the mistress of the plantation would tell Grandville to tell all the slaves if they weren't going to work that they'd have to leave in the end they would send word back by grandma to tell her that they're not going to work and they're not going to leave either so it was very turbulent for a number of years during the war she had a lot of run-ins with some of the former slaves especially some of the house servants she was constantly in squabbles with him Clinton and Victoria spoke to Grandma just like she was a Negro Miss Vic is the most impudent one of all she and grandma are quarreling right now the Negroes aggravate grandma nearly to death Wessington was not spared from the mayhem that swept across Tennessee during the war the Washington's endured foraging armies both blue and gray as well as outlaws one particularly violent encounter would end with an ironic twist of fate George a Washington shot a horse thief who was a deserter from the Union Army he was accompanied about another man who went back to the outfit that he deserted from and told them that this guy on this plantation killed one of our men so the whole outfit stormed to the plantation put a noose around Georgia snake why his wife mother and children pleaded for his life granted or managed to get word to a regiment of African American troops in Springfield they got there just in time to save George's life Granville George's son servant and now Savior would prove his loyalty time and time again the Washington's even entrusted him with the security of the plantation when George fearing for his life spent the last months of the war in New York the good old times will never be again the glory has departed and the fading light of those times shines but upon ruined homes and blasted hopes Jane Washington's selfish hopes for the continuation of slavery had been crushed at an enormous cost but her mansion was far from ruin while many homes were left smoldering in the war's wake Wessington emerged virtually unscathed in fact due to wise investments made in the north the Washington's had never been richer secure in the knowledge that their former master could afford to pay them several freedmen returned as employees or sharecroppers but there were other reasons as well when someone has been a slave on a farm or on a plantation for thirty years you know each other yes you're in a new circumstance and yeah you do negotiate new relationships but that doesn't mean that I'm going to suddenly betray the secret that I know about you or that you're going to betray the secret that you know about me the human relationships that have developed over time it's complicated we have all kinds of strange ambiguous relationships with each other that have nothing to do with race but throw race into it and then you can understand Grandville and why says no I think I'll I'll just stay right here among those returning was family matriarch Jenny Washington along with several generations of her descendants Jenny's long road to freedom had begun more than 60 years before and although it ended at Wessington it was not the Wessington of her youth no longer forced to witness her children's lives and labor being stolen from them she could now watch with pride as they built lives of their own several Wessington servants including Granville never left at all the loyal valet remained on the plantation until George's death in 1892 after which he moved to Nashville haunted by a secret hidden in plain sight Granville had been free for 30 years but was unable to escape the demons of his past to think that people to Mew were related first hadn't enslaved you and members of your family and still saw you as a second-class citizen someone that they could accept but only as much as they wanted to were needed to but can that had to hurt and I think that does show in some Granville's last statements before he dies Granville Washington was born in Robertson County On January 17th 1831 a slave of George a Washington and was with him constantly his body servant until after the war and long after freedom was given him on August 22nd 1898 he died by pistol shot fired by his own hand slavery is a difficult part of our nation's history but it is a part of our nation's history and Americans still wrestle with that as part of our national identity what the history of weselton plantation and all of the people there helps us do is to understand it as a human experience and to contemplate what that means for us today the Washington's of Wessington will live on through the efforts of John Baker jr. in the papers portraits and photographs handed down through the years and most importantly through the lives of generations of descendants inspired by stories of their ancestors to fully realize the promise of freedom the Tennessee State museums exhibit slaves and slave holders of Wessington plantation provides a unique opportunity to learn their stories and view that not so distant past from two entirely different perspectives one of the purposes of the exhibit is to honor the enslaved families in Wessington we were just trying to tell the story and show how with in bondage slaves were able to build lives and sustain families I've also seen very strong reactions when visitors get towards the end of the exhibit and they find out what happened to the enslaved families after the Civil War we can see how the descendants and sometimes these former slaves themselves were able to own property we're able to start businesses go to school build their own institutions such as churches and schools and you get to see the story after the story it's a fabulous exhibit it shows the diversity of the plantation experience it shows as much of a family life as I've ever really seen exhibited as a part of a plantation experience how people live together how families existed it feels in real gaps in the story of slavery I'm thrilled to see that when there's so much attention to the battles of a civil war that we're looking at the lives of people in the Civil War and the great untold story which is the African American story I hope that visitors to the exhibit will have found stories there that inspire them I hope they will find stories there that give them pause and make them think twice about not just the past but also about the contradictions in our own world today how many of you here are today know that you are descendant of someone who lived in Weston I'd like for you to stand up a raise your hand before y'all go I'd like to get a group picture so don't get out of here you're joking right okay good to see you a number of people that I've come in contact we feel like extended family because our ancestors you know lived under the same conditions so it's just like a big family reunion as I reach out and people reach out to me reaching out to those long past sharing their stories of pain and perseverance of hardship and hope of freedom and family you what's going on in your mind while you're reading about this culture of which your family is so intimately apart it's amazing that they survive to everything that they went through in Plantation slavery but so they must have been undoubtedly very strong people and I'm sure their faith in God helped them to do those times the preceding program was made possible in part by the Tennessee Civil War national heritage area

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Views: 1,605,298

Rating: 4.747416 out of 5

Keywords: Wessyngton Plantation, NPT, Nashville Public Television, Tennessee Civil War 150

Id: bdce9dud1c0

Length: 29min 40sec (1780 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 11 2014