North Carolina People; Dorothy S. Redford, Director, Somerset Place Historic Site

Good evening ladies and gentleman. If you are a fan of PBS Universal Television I know you're familiar with the fact that PBS is running a series on slavery in America. The first one this Wednesday of this week. North Carolina has its own history of slavery and one of its most authentic offers its dark red. She won the state's highest recognition in the North Carolina award for her book Somerset plantation rediscovering their heritage. We're so delighted that we could meet and talk with her just a few second funding for North Carolina people as made possible in part by you're just about with you're. Really protect your

wealth and by contributions from UN see TV viewers like you. Dorothy It's a joy to see you again welcome back to North Carolina people have you been. Thank you so much for having me. All is well about it. Plantation extraordinarily loud. Yes. Well I want to talk to you about this wonderful book that you did. Somerset homecoming rediscovering I heard if you haven't seen this little volume you must go to the bookstore to get it because it's one of the most gripping stories that I've ever read. And this adventure on your part if that's the right word began when you had a conversation with your mother. And I found the

introduction here the very last few sentences that you ask. You know I want to read them to you. Now for the first time in my life I was asking and it was as if I had loosed a rainstorm. My mother's eagerness her pride and the details of her memory washed over me sweeping me into another time into a place peopled by men and women that I had never met. Neither of us knew it that morning. With this first step was what would become a ten year journey. Where did you go first. After talking with my mother and collecting her memories and memories that were in her mind's eye her physical descriptions of people their names their places. I'd then started on a journey to four small towns in northeastern North Carolina looking for the people she had named. She was one of a few of her generations who had left the

area but essentially many people down east of her generation remained there so they were there when I went to collect their memories and their visions. Now those four towns to our viewers will most where Plymouth Creswell North Carolina Columbia North Carolina where I was born and Eton Tenn.. So you went right ahead and visit with people and visited with people and the key to acceptance in northeastern North Carolina is carrying an old name. And I had the Littlejohn name which was my mother's and the Spruill name and that opens doors everywhere. If you were a part of the community historically you know from reading the book that this took you back into the early part of the 18th century and you were the Littlejohn name was the anchor point for you in the beginning of all this work but you must have had an exciting experience as one conversation led to another going another.

I don't mean that one individual led to one not there as you'd interview one family elder They would point you to another and say well that's your cousin too. And they live over here so that you wind up visiting eventually. I had to go to the public records. I felt the need at that time. I don't think I trusted the oral tradition as much as I do now. So I had the need to substantiate everything that was being said. I found in that process however that sometimes the oral tradition is truer than what the public records say because families know more about one another than they're willing to tell a cloak of court. Get everything located Somerset plantation is right out of Cresswell in Washington you know Washington County. So when you're going on 64 to the Outer Banks we want our viewers to know stop and stop and see what the what has happened here has a state of North Carolina really gotten interested in your work are they helping this restoration.

We've had I mean enormous success from the delegation of legislators of course supported by the general legislature in northeastern North Carolina who looked at what existed at Somerset place when I was there and understood that the Castree at any time any place that we appreciate or that we value as Americans or even globally we preserve in some tangible way. When I got to Somerset place though I may have known cumulatively more than 800 enslaved African-Americans lived there. There was absolutely nothing tangible of theirs there. No buildings no homes. The history in fact just focused on the plantar family. Now since that time we have reconstructed representative homes of the enslaved community. We've had an archaeological excavation uncovered the foundations we've reconstructed a

plantation hospital. So the legislator has been just incredibly supportive. We've created at Somerset The only plantation site in America that treats with equity both black and whites who lives there. And that becomes critically important. We value everyone in the same way. Dorothy your digging into this. Was Shaun Marsh a completely self-contained operation. It was and so were all these large plantation sites and they were only really for really large plantations in North Carolina. But they all were self-contained economic entities where everything needed to sustain life was produced on the plantation and everything needed to sustain the lives of the enslaved community the enslaved community produced food clothing.

They built the you know they built the homes that planters lived in and the homes that they lived in so that all of these structures are attributed to a slave community. The cleared fields are attributed to this enslaved community and everything needed to sustain life was produced on these plantations. So the children got to go to school them ospital cared for those who were sick. Well food and fiber which are educating African-Americans blacks was against the law. But it was in the family. It didn't become absolutely against the law until 1830 so that if a parent had any any idea of how you could read or write that of course was passed on to children but. Education education for everyone in North Carolina is relatively new. White women weren't educated white men into the third grade in slave blacks not at all. So that you had a ruling class that controlled all that the

social institutions political educational institutions who did read and write. And then there was everyone else including enslaved blacks. Did Joseph Collins family in the plantation hold together till the beginning of the Civil War. They held together until the beginning of the Civil War which point three sons to serve the Confederacy Josiah Collins the third died. They tried to resettle the plantation. But I don't think anyone understood foreign slaves former slaves were no such thing as the next best thing to freedom within six months because they could not come to an agreement and slave blacks wanted to rent land not work on shares on an owner's land. They left over 250 people that one time or in that six month period of time left the plantation. That

really signaled with the demise of the plantation system planters couldn't pay and slave workers. And if in fact they couldn't control the land they were planting they moved on. As you made all these discoveries I know you wrote down what happened. One lead led thing to another. You began to perceive how large this operation really was. Yes. For deep south states where cotton and cane were cash crops. Somerset place still wharf North Carolina plantations dwarfed deep south plantations but for noir or for YEAH THEY WERE you may have had two to three thousand enslaved people on Mississippi Alabama plantations Louisiana plantations but for North Carolina Somerset place was an enormous plantation in part because it was in a cold

area land could be acquired. For as land grants so that the original owners acquired one hundred twenty five thousand acres so there was room to grow as a plantation and develop Somerset place is also the only plantation in the state of North Carolina to bring 80 people in directly from the coast of West Africa because it was to be a rice plantation and because of that isolation there was a real preservation of African tradition African-American tradition and culture. So it's an important historic site even just to study it as a scholarly pursuit and reading about your return to Somerset. I was struck by the place religion played in the in the lovely hood of that whole region. Was it as much a force as you have found it up to be personally

religion was a force on the plantation. I don't think people realized that there were special sermon books that were written for congregations of negroes on plantations. And the sermon books essentially said if you would just debate your earthly master God will reward you later on. So that religion also became a tool of control children at Summerset place. And slave children were required to go to chapel and learn the catechisms by rote up until age seven. So that religion did play not only at Summerset place but you'll find as you're looking at other plantation settings that there were seats and regular churches for enslaved. For an enslaved population I was struck by that little scene that you wrote where you went after you'd been as a teenager in New York City for so long you came back to

the chair's room once the room and mom and others rolled the other and you had to participate and they met it was a place where oh yeah well within individual homes let me tell you in northeastern North Carolina to day in the little Hamel it's that I that I see religion still is a very important part. But with us it was prayer meeting and almost a competition between my mother and my grandmother who can pray the longest and pray the loudest that and pray the longest again. So their religion really did in fact the idea for the homecoming that that we had at Somerset in at 7:00 in 1986 was a spinoff from the homecoming they had at the black Baptist church that my mother and father attended in Columbia. But you had gone through this process over all these years. You were identifying all these arms of the family so to speak. When did you decide Well it's time to get together.

A part of that was playing breathing life into the paper process. Usually researchers will come will complete a process that because they are willing at historical records they never have the opportunity to bring it to life to bring history forward and make it visual. Because I was looking at generations born enslaved and up to this second generation born free and I'm just a third generation born free. There was the opportunity to lead and faced a face to the paper process. So organizing the homecoming was in part that organizing the homecoming also meant you could. Don't ignore the African-American presence at Somerset place historically if you've got 3000 of their standards looking at you. So a part of it was bringing attention to the fact that the descendants of the ancestors of all of these people is being completely ignored including all of my

you know if you ignore my family history you're imparted Norrin me if you diminish it then you're diminishing me. And if you ignore the relevance of anyone's history then in part you're ignoring their relevance. Logistically how in the world did you get all of this. This group together have the security should and being aggressive will you will you agree you know was larger than the state as well as a part of it is family members contacting family members there's no way I could have contacted everyone who came. But if you tell Cousin Odessa then Cousin Odessa is telling everyone in her family her next generation and they're passing the word verbal ie. No one could have organized that. And even in terms of the money to notify everybody except that it was word of mouth. Word of mouth though you had others that got interested in is what this

occasion really became a national of when you had coverage all over the country did. It was almost as if it was that destiny that was there and destiny whose time had come here. And anyone who tried to take credit for it was every major television station with satellite trucks and it was CNN and every major news entity. The role that you can think of. But I think part of it was that it simply hadn't been done before. No one had said we're bringing the descendants of an enslaved community back to the very place their ancestors were held in acknowledgement and recognition of their ancestors. We can also bring the descendants of the elders. We're going to bring the descendants of the overseers because you really have to confront the past to move beyond

that day moved just beyond it or not that occasion. You said something else about I want to read to you. But there was more to do here at Somerset here was a place a chance to build a monument to the lives and labor of my family. A barn in a monument that would have been others of what their families did at other places just like this all across us. I could see a completely reconstructed working plantation rising from the ground. The homes of the slaves themselves standing and glowing with the aura of a life that want to feel their room. Where are you. We've been able to. The significance of plantation sites is that there really is a standard way of presenting the history of planters and you do that by touring their homes. You don't want to reinvent a way to interpret African-American history there's an accepted way. So at Somerset

place we have reconstructed the home so that visitors can compare and contrast the way a planter family lived or an overseer family or an enslaved family so that there is equity there is balance in the story that we tell and that's critically. I often tell people you have no noble purpose if equity doesn't figure into it somewhere. If you're not talking about balance and viewing all of humankind in the exact same way and treating the stories of all humankind in the same way then it was isn't really a noble purpose or part of what we're doing at Summerset place is noble in that we're treating everyone who lives there with the same importance as you going around the country and reading about after you've traveled all over the United States. Are you sometimes surprised at the knowledge that these people hold in other parts of the region about what went on in this region of the country and Somerset plantations.

How much understanding there really is what you're trying to say is a chemistry thing. I'm always impressed by the fascination people have you know beginning probably in the 1970s there was a focus on studying Southern history. I think we're amazed at how many people are really interested in southern history. What I find as traveling in North Carolina or from as far away as St. Croix. People are really interested in the aspect of the story that says we're sure we're interpreting everyone's history. And that amazes me and it's very reassuring to know that that is generally what America wants to see. Ideally all of us want equality. And so even in that small venue Let's summarize that if we're doing that then the general public is very receptive to that.

Do these archaeological explorations that you have going on really introduce new things to you constantly. We we had what we call reconstruction archaeological excavations. So they revealed a bit about family life or what may have gone on in the chapel or even in the kitchen used by the slave community who were working in and around the area of the main house. We're at a point that we're not doing archaeology now because we still have three structures that have not been reconstructed one of them being. The largest actually the largest Episcopal Chapel in terms of congregation in the state of North Carolina. You know a marvelous external cistern and bake oven and so we have buildings that we still need to reconstruct at Somerset place each of which tells a unique

story. You know our hospital tells a unique story the chapel tells a unique story. The slave homes that we've we can each tell the unique story when analysts talk about the future a little bit over the next five years what do you want accomplished absorber sort of what do you want to accomplish telling the story where where do you think it's got there are you there are two things that we need to do. Three. One is to find the cemetery. And we're hoping by 2007 that is the most frequently asked question. Where is the slave community buried so that we do have leads and we're going to look for the cemetery. We need to look at reconstructing those other buildings that tell a unique aspect of antebellum history. And then most importantly we need to preserve what's there we've got an 1830s building and I know there are thousands of aging buildings all over the state of North Carolina. But because ours was built in

the swamp the Collins family home is having some real structural issues so it's important that you preserve what whatever your ancestors left. What history has entrusted you with that you preserve that and then develop so that you're telling those unique stories are the descendants of the columns columns that work you would you. Absolutely. From day one we have a wonderful and back she was recently included on a program talking about iit intern wonderful Collins descendant who when I first met her said you know you have to judge me for who I am. I don't take credit or responsibility for anything my ancestors did and I explained to her that I don't take credit or responsibility for what my daughter does. Joe so you certainly don't. And that's a marvelous attitude so yes descendants of the Collins family descendants of the enslaved

family the legislature plus members of that small community that I live in are all supporting the efforts because the truth is if in fact the community of Creswell had strong objections to rebuilding the slave community the ability to do it would have been much more difficult. Is there anybody else in America doing what you would absolutely know and it's not just me there's just no one else doing that does anybody come to talk to you about that. Yeah. I usually get calls fly in from everywhere for people who are thinking about representing slavery at their historic sites. I think it takes a unique combination of things to say we're going to reconstruct those buildings and everybody necessary is supporting it. Mention the fact that there were Indians in the region to salute Lee you know

we had a homecoming and we had the head of the Indian Nations. We had Africans native Africans African Americans and people of European descent there everybody honoring their ancestors who were there. I wouldn't risk offending anyone's and sisters. So that the Native American Indians is what they prefer being calling indians honored their ancestors who were there and so that every other group you know and it be again it becomes important to say this you know what is history in this young country. No one's history is more important than anybody else's history. I don't care how we choose to look at it it simply isn't including the history of Indians. What you tell all those young scholars while Lakers programa came to visit you that you get they get steeped in all of this. They not only got deep in that but I think they experience the

culture of a region and they talked about. I have to tell you the most important thing I think I passed on to them and it has to do with staying centered in understanding your relevance in terms of the world. There must be billions of people in the world and what I told them was sit down at the end of the year if you can write down 15 names of people you know definitively you have influence in a positive way. I'm sorry I've got to interrupt Darth you know heated up all of our time. But thank you so much and sharing all this with us. Friends when you're journeying east on Highway 64 get near Creswell. Take the time to go out to Somerset. You'll be very glad you did. Thank you for letting us visit with you this evening and until next week Goodnight funding for North Carolina people is made possible in part by the

elusive red like you. Reading what he teaches about unbiased wealth management that exists really together we can explore uncommon possibilities for coffee wealth management and by contributions from UN see TV viewers like you.