Day 3: I Don't Know So Much!

I got a bean burger here, the General
store across from Day's shop.

I woke up at 5 because that is when my roommate gets up to go work out. I made it all the way to 5:15 before I forced myself up. So I got in a workout, had fruit and eggs and tea for breakfast, and then I got on the bus to head out.

On our way over we were told about Moses Roper, who wrote a damning slave narrative: "Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery".

Our first stop was a tour of the Union Tavern, which really did use to be a tavern, a place that Thomas Day converted into his workshop and home. (Check out this audio tour of his shop!) This was an amazing tour where we got to see not only the beautiful objects that he created but also the workshop upon which he worked! You know I started touching all of his tools and standing at the bench like I owned it, and then the audio tour reminded me to not touch anything unless one of the museum guides was there to help me. I moved back, wondering how he could know I was going to do that!

Some facts about Thomas Day are these (There's a lot more, too!):

• His shop became the biggest producer of furniture in NC!
• In 1847 he won a bid to do a major job for the University of North Carolina; his bid was the highest!
• In 1827 NC passed a law prohibiting free black migration into the state, but in 1830 Day petitions the NC legislature to allow his wife-to-be, a free woman in VA, into the state.
• He owned slaves and he was an abolitionist that may have hid or transported self-emancipated slaves.
• In 1848 he bought Union Tavern, the largest building in Milton, NC.

The second stop was the Milton Presbyterian Church, where he built the pews that are still sat upon today! There was an explanation about how furniture that he made could only be called his if it had been in a family for some generations or there was a bill of sale. Well, there was nothing for the pews. But in the shop they found the template for them, so, yep; they're his! There was a reading of one of Day's letters by a reenactor. And, Ms. Twinkle was our guide through all of this!

Ms. Vanessa "Twinkle" Graves 

We then went to the Stagville Plantation, which was once the biggest plantation in NC. It encompassed 30,000 acres and 900 slaves. That is more black folks than live in Maryville, TN, our town of 27,000 persons!

We got to hear a lecture from Dr. Reginald Hildebrand, and, my goodness, was he good. Anyone who was lucky enough to sit through his classes is a bigger and better person for it if they were only a half decent student!

He gave us two documents. One was an outline of his lecture, and the other was a flyer for an estate sale. Spend a couple of minutes with these two documents and I dare you not to be moved.

His lecture was so stimulating. I came to the conclusion that slaves and emancipated slaves until around the 60s were an ethnic religion. He agreed, but said he'd never used that term before. Hope he gives me credit!

It was amazing to me how Dr. Hildebrand couched the journey of enslaved Africans in terms of a resistance to the desolation of the spirit. He said that once ripped from everything that was foundational to an individual, she'd have to replace that with something--or go mad! And he reminded us that there were many different peoples enslaved from different places and forced together. Out of this, he said, improvisation gave sense to the senseless and became a part of the DNA of the African American culture still to this day.

The way I took it is about art, obviously: The enslaved others would distill a thing through the remembrances, mis-remembrances, legends and myths of their previous culture, creating art in their craft. For them, creativity was a matter of survival because the hope that they had was meaningless to those who took, sold, and kept them.

After I talked to Dr. Hildebrand I walked away. There was another scholar behind me, a black guy from Mississippi. He got a full blown we are brothers handshake. I'm never gong to get the full black slap.

When we were done going through the Big House at the plantation we went a few miles away where the slave houses and The Great Barn are (The Great Barn in really great!).

There are so many remarkable things to see there, including Horton Grove, which were four room, multi level houses; this type of housing is anomalous in slave quarters across the south. The houses included brick nogging, which kept the places temperate and the rodents out.

Ok. Growth moment here. If you're a historian don't roll your eyes at my ignorance. If you don't know you don't know, right? Not all slaves were just cotton pickers or house servants! In fact, the wonderful structures that we saw--the biggest barn in NC--were built by enslaved artisans. How did that not occur to me before today?

But the barn for was the most remarkable. Not only was it a feat of construction, but to think that it was built on the eve of the Civil War by enslaved artisans who had the highest craftsmanship takes my breath away--literally! We had a guide, and she walked us through the types of slaves that would have produced this wonderful piece of architecture.

• the stone masons who laid the foundation
• those who cut timber
• those who carted it to the lumber mills to have it sawn
• those who sawed it
• the blacksmith who made the nails
• those who kept the animals that lived in the barn
• those who grew the food...

The list truly goes on. This was a subsistence farming situation where all of the individuals involved are enslaved.

I really did learn a lot today, and I'm developing ideas about how to get this wonderful and rich American history into my classroom next year!

Last fact for today: Nearly 1/3 of of  antebellum NC's population!