By Sophia A. Nelson
When you stand atop the 200-year-old mansion portico at Madison’s Montpelier your breath is literally taken away. Set on a beautiful sprawling 2500-acre landscape of lush property in Orange, Virginia, one cannot help but be in awe that our nation’s fourth President crafted many of the ideas that would help shape our fledgling nation here.
To the right front, hidden behind trees you can see Madison’s Temple to Liberty which was built around 1810 as an architectural nod to the “sacred flame of liberty” that burned in the Roman Forum’s Temple of Vesta above a well turned into an ice house to preserve perishable foods.
The sights, the sounds, and the smell of fragrant gardens force the senses to take note of a once storied place in American history. Yet, when you move toward the back of the mansion overlooking the south yard, you get another sensation: the reality of slavery sets in as your eyes gaze upon the small structures, and smoke house that would have housed Madison’s domestic slaves.
The slave quarters sit less than 50 yards from the mansion itself. You can see how close James Madison and his family were to the very people whose freedom they stole, and yet who they relied upon for their very survival and way of life.
The enslaved community that once lived at Montpelier were human beings. They had hopes, dreams and desires too. In Part II of this series we talk with some of their descendants and the staff at Montpelier that created and crafted the powerful and provocative new exhibit, “The Mere Distinction of Colour,” which opened to the public on June 4, 2017.
The goal of the exhibit is to bring truth-telling and healing to our nation on the issue of slavery, and the role it played in the founding of America and in the economic prosperity of the new nation in the 17th, 18th and mid-19th centuries.
“Buildings tell stories. Faces and voices bring stories to life. For years, the team at James Madison’s Montpelier has been on a journey. It was a mostly unlit path, one where archaeologists, historians, genealogists, and descendants were called upon to illuminate the past,” said Montepelier CEO Kat Imhoff. “Along the way, we gained a new understanding of what the past on these hallowed grounds represents. It stretches far beyond a timeline and recitation of fact. Instead, it represents a critical part of the fabric of who we are, as Americans, today.”
The enslaved community that once lived at Montpelier were human beings. They had hopes, dreams and desires too. In Part II of this series we talk with some of their descendants and the staff at Montpelier that created and crafted the powerful and provocative new exhibit, “The Mere Distinction of Colour,” which opened to the public on June 4, 2017.
The goal of the exhibit is to bring truth-telling and healing to our nation on the issue of slavery, and the role it played in the founding of America and in the economic prosperity of the new nation in the 17th, 18th and mid-19th centuries.
“Buildings tell stories. Faces and voices bring stories to life. For years, the team at James Madison’s Montpelier has been on a journey. It was a mostly unlit path, one where archaeologists, historians, genealogists, and descendants were called upon to illuminate the past,” said Montepelier CEO Kat Imhoff. “Along the way, we gained a new understanding of what the past on these hallowed grounds represents. It stretches far beyond a timeline and recitation of fact. Instead, it represents a critical part of the fabric of who we are, as Americans, today.”
Read the entire story here.
