NOTES FROM NASHVILLE - PART V - THE PLANTATION

We visited a plantation while in Nashville; the Belle Meade Plantation to be exact.

Belle Meade means "Beautiful Meadow," just in case you were wondering.

When we bought our tickets for the tour, we were given a little map of the grounds. The map showed the dairy house, the garden house, the mansion (of course), the carriage house, and the Enslaved African American Workers Dwelling. Seriously. That's what they called it.

Um....isn't that going a little far with the euphemism? ENSLAVED AFRICAN AMERICAN WORKERS DWELLING? Are you kidding me? Don't they mean SLAVE CABIN?

Strangely enough, this had left me pretty much without words until the next week when I found the brochure from the plantation in my purse and read it for the first time.

The brochure starts out like this:

Belle Meade, meaning Beautiful Meadow, was founded in 1807 by John Harding and his wife Susannah. Through their hard work and determination the farm grew from a log cabin and 250 acres of land into a massive operation that at one time covered 5,400 acres....

Are you kidding me again? Through THEIR hard work and determination? Don't they mean through the back breaking work of human beings captured like animals from their own country and brought across the ocean like freight, the farm grew blah, blah, blah? Don't they mean through placing other human beings in shackles, ripping families apart, and often keeping them at the mercy of a leather whip the farm grew blah, blah, blah...?

Un. Be. Lievable.

When I read that I went on a mini rant in the mini van and then calmly said "I'm afraid I'm going to have to blog about this..."

This is not an indictment against the South. I have seen in my kids' own history books, up here in the North, slavery described as "an essential tool in helping the economy in the Southern states to thrive...." or some such nonsense. And when I read THAT I went on a mini rant that went something like "....an essential tool in helping the economy to thrive?? The North managed to make their economy thrive with their new factories and businesses. They managed without slavery." Of course there WAS the whole sweat shop thing, and the garment district was a hot house of horrible child labor practices, as were many other industries. So the North wasn't exactly innocent in the realm of human rights during those years either. But slavery?

Ugh.

I just cannot wrap my mind around any words that try to soften it or make it seem less of an obscenity than it was.

Ironically, our guide on the tour was a young African American man who was working toward his PhD in history. He did tell us his friends give him quite a hard time for working at the plantation.

I imagine so.

The tour did allow our family to have some interesting conversations in the van as we drove back to the hotel, taking one of Daddy's um...short cuts...which always seem to take a really long time.

Like, what must it have been like for Christians who owned slaves? Did they truly believe it was ordained by God that they be slave owners? Did they ever feel any guilt over owning slaves? How did they reconcile being slave owners with their faith?

I was not as impressed with the mansion as I thought I'd be. Partly because all the stuff was really gaudy and, well, ugly; but mostly because I couldn't help but think how this family had "earned" their wealth. Also, there were a few photos of slaves that had actually been owned by the family. A couple of them had been given to John and Susannah Harding as wedding presents.

Ugh.

So, all in all, our visit to the Belle Meade Plantation made me sad.