Maeve Higgins: A rare reminder of an enormous and horrific part of America’s past

The Whitney Plantation Museum: The grounds of this historical sugar, rice, and indigo plantation make up a museum of slavery and pay tribute to the Black people who were held in bondage there for more than 100 years. Picture: whitneyplantation.org 

Do you remember being seven? I do; at least I have brief flickers of memory from that time. I remember being too small to see over the front of the pew in church, and I know the heaviest thing I was required to lift was a book.

I loved reading and my parents and teachers encouraged me to read as widely as possible. I think back on my seven-year-old self’s experience as a secure and healthy child with access to healthcare and education, then I learn about how life was for other less fortunate seven-year-olds and it makes me feel some combination of fury and sadness.

That is what happened during a recent trip to Louisiana, where I visited Whitney Plantation, established in 1752. Today, Whitney Plantation focuses on the lives of the people enslaved there. The grounds of this historical sugar, rice, and indigo plantation make up a museum of slavery and pay tribute to the Black people who were held in bondage there for more than 100 years.

The history is clear, reported in figures impeccably presented to visitors to the website and the plantation, but is still difficult to comprehend.

“In 1795, there were 19,926 enslaved Africans and 16,304 free people of color in Louisiana.

“After the United States outlawed the Atlantic slave trade in 1807, many captives came to Louisiana from the Upper South through the domestic slave trade. Thousands were smuggled from Africa and the Caribbean through the illegal slave trade. Over the course of the nineteenth century, the population of free people of color in Louisiana remained relatively stable while the population of enslaved Africans skyrocketed.

“Just before the Civil War in 1860, there were 331,726 enslaved people and 18,647 free people of color in Louisiana.”

Placed with great care throughout the original slave cabins, outbuildings, and the owner’s house, stand memorials honouring these people held in slavery in Louisiana.

Some are tributes to resistance and rebellion, symbolising the courage, intelligence, and tenacity of the people held against their will. Some of the memorials are to children, beautifully detailed clay sculptures of little ones with curls cropped short, sitting outside their cabins and ready to work in the fields. These are a series of sculptures by Ohio-based artist Woodrow Nash, called The Children of Whitney, and are so expressive and gracious it is impossible not to feel moved.

The children these statues represent were denied an education and proper healthcare.

Records show that 39 children died on this plantation from 1823 to 1863, only six reaching the age of five.

The Whitney Plantation archivists point out: “The level of this death toll can be better understood when one thinks of a house where a child dies every year.” 

They explain that some of the children on this site and elsewhere died in tragic circumstances such as drowning, epidemics, being burned, or hit by lightning while out in the fields.

Others died because they were denied medical attention when they needed it, not seen as worthy of care by the white people who controlled their lives.

Fury and sadness

I found my hand going out to rest on the heads of the statues, the same way I do with my little nieces of the same size. I felt that fury and sadness. Of course, my emotional response to the visceral reminder that human beings, including children, were enslaved and forced to work is not important in the scheme of things. At least, it shouldn’t be.

It’s just that I was struck by how rarely that has happened in all my time living here and by how few reminders there are of this enormous and horrific part of US history.

This place is a solid, solemn reminder of the people who lived through the daily grind of horror that was slavery, in the form of a physical site laid out in soil, granite and paperwork. I took a bus from New Orleans for just over an hour to reach Whitney Plantation, and once there, I downloaded an app that offers a self-guided tour with explanations of what I was seeing as I walked the grounds and looked into the original buildings.

I learned that there was no end to the work, indoors and outdoors. Here is a description from the guide of the work within the owner’s home: “The Big House was the domain of the domestic slaves who performed several duties such as cleaning, serving food and drinks, fanning the masters while they eat, toting water from ponds and outdoors cisterns or even from the river for domestic needs, washing and ironing clothes, taking care of all the needs of the children, etc.

“The male slaves also performed miscellaneous duties such as gardening, raising poultry, and driving the family around on carriages, etc.

“The female slaves also served as cooks, spinners, weavers, seamstresses, midwives, etc. Young slaves would always be handy for the needs of each member of the master’s family during daytime and at night they slept on pallets near the beds of their owners or in adjoining rooms.”

During the time enslaved people worked at Whitney Plantation, they were forced to produce indigo, cotton, and sugar — three massively physical and often dangerous industries at that time. There are entire books devoted to each of these commodities and how their ‘free’ production helped create the massive economic engine that powered the founding of the US.

Visiting Whitney Plantation was a heavy start to the series, but I think necessarily so. Picture: whitneyplantation.org

Standing on the grounds of the plantation, listening as a soft breeze wound through the trees, I looked at the enormous bowls used to boil sugar cane. The bowls lie mute, just as silent as the little statues of enslaved children, but these monuments tell an enormous and tragic story with lasting significance.

February here is Black History Month. The roots of this annual time set aside to recognise African Americans lie all the way back in 1925. That year saw the first ever “Negro History Week” organised by historian Carter G Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life. Their goal was to raise awareness of African American contributions to civilisation, and it was a huge success.

Almost a century later, I am using that focus for this column, which is already about America. Visiting Whitney Plantation was a heavy start to the series, but I think necessarily so.

It’s important to note that chattel slavery is just as much about white history in America. Slavery is American history, and Black history in America is about much more than slavery. In the coming three weeks I will explore Ireland’s connection to the Black American experience, and celebrate and reflect on that experience with people who live it. I plan to include plenty of joy and resilience in columns to come this month, because those essential elements are a huge part of the Black American experience too. I hope you’ll check back in to see what I find.