Montpelier, Founding Father James Madison’s former home and tobacco plantation, is breaking new ground as the nation’s first museum of its kind that’s governed by descendants of the people once enslaved there.
It’s also breaking ground, literally, in the search for evidence of the community where the enslaved people lived and worked. The goal is to move away from tours focused on the manor house and to treat the history of Montpelier’s enslaved people as a responsibility equal to the history of Montpelier’s owners.
Why We Wrote This
How do you tell history responsibly? Montpelier, the plantation owned by President James Madison, is expanding its focus to give more equal voice to the experience of workers once enslaved there – and to their descendants.
But first that history has to be found.
The staff has mapped out a giant grid and is surveying each square with metal detectors. They look for nails, coins, bullets, and other artifacts. A tobacco drying house would only need nails to support the wood and hooks to hang the leaves. So a plot of land filled with nails and hooks would probably be one of those. A home would have other items – like ceramics, animal bones, buttons, and bricks.
“If you tell a wider, more inclusive, and more accurate story, you invite more people to identify themselves with this important history,” says James French, a descendant of someone enslaved there and member of the board. “That’s a uniting force.”
Orange, Va.
The forest around Montpelier, James Madison’s former home and tobacco plantation, has miles of paved trails. But Larry Walker isn’t using them. Instead, he has strapped on a rucksack, laced up boots, and tucked his pants into his socks. No asphalt today – he’s ready for a walk in the woods.
For miles, he and a group of colleagues travel what feels like the opening scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” adapted to Virginia history. They walk in a line, carrying sticks at eye level to catch cobwebs. Out front, Matthew Reeves, Montpelier’s director of archaeology and landscape restoration, clears a path with a machete. He even wears a fedora.
Mr. Walker and James French, another foundation board member on the mid-August hike, are descendants of the more than 300 people once enslaved at Montpelier. The two men are scouting a permanent trail in the east woods, leading past former irrigation ditches, tobacco fields, and slave quarters. It’s part of a museumwide reimagining of Montpelier’s mandate, led by the nation’s first museum of its kind governed by descendants.
Why We Wrote This
How do you tell history responsibly? Montpelier, the plantation owned by President James Madison, is expanding its focus to give more equal voice to the experience of workers once enslaved there – and to their descendants.
This odyssey, over decades, has at times deeply tested relationships. Earlier this year, Montpelier’s governing board fought publicly over who should tell Madison’s story – part of it as Founding Father of the United States, part as an enslaver. But that fight has ended, and the museum is trying to expand Montpelier’s narrative of history. That effort has led staff beyond the big house and toward the backwoods, where artifacts of enslaved people sit undisturbed.
“For me to center the voice of my ancestor doesn’t diminish the voice of anyone else’s ancestor,” says Mr. Walker. “If anything, it amplifies.”
A.J. Maher/The Daily Progress/AP/File
Arlean Hill (right) of St. Mary’s County, Maryland, talks with Elizabeth Waters, then a member of the Montpelier Foundation board of directors, on April 28, 2001. Ms. Hill and a few dozen other descendants of those enslaved at Montpelier gathered there for the first commemoration honoring their ancestors.
The rocky road toward parity
Montpelier’s staff has worked with local descendants for decades. But in 2018, the museum hosted a summit on the topic, which helped create what’s called “the rubric,” a set of standards to help sites represent descendants of enslaved people. In 2021, Montpelier made national news when the board voted to create “structural parity” with the Montpelier Descendants Committee (MDC), which was formed in 2019. For the first time at any U.S. presidential site, these descendants would equally govern the place their ancestors lived.
The agreement never took effect. Within months, members of the MDC said, the existing board was imposing conditions on their autonomy, representation, and ability to speak freely. The relationship collapsed. In March, the board voted to change its bylaws, reversing the parity decision.
“I felt a lot of grief,” says Mr. French, attending the meeting over Zoom. “But I was also sitting in the house that was built by my three-times great-grandfather who was enslaved on that very property. As always, in difficult moments, I was inspired by what they went through.”
Within days, however, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which owns Montpelier, condemned the vote. The MDC hired a lawyer and pleaded its case in the media. Multiple board members told the Monitor that certain donors threatened to withhold gifts.
By May, several board members who had voted to revoke the MDC’s authority resigned. The Montpelier Foundation elected new members and named Mr. French chairperson. A large majority currently supports the MDC, and, going forward, the plan is for the bylaws to again guarantee parity. In the meantime, the staff’s work with descendants has resumed.
Moving beyond the manor house
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