“That exhibit would be very important for every black and white person, especially in Davidson County, to take advantage of,” Fuzz said. 1000 Rosa L. Parks Blvd To find out more about Facebook commenting please read the Conversation Guidelines and FAQs. Those whippings left permanent marks on his back, a grandson of the slave recalled many years later. It is now just behind the Farmer’s Market. It opens today at the Tennessee State Museum. ** The exhibit, which was two years in the making, is a close study of life and relationships on a 13,000-acre Robertson County tobacco plantation. Image: Belle Isle from Lyon's View, a view along the Tennessee River at Knoxville, by James Cameron, 1861. Let friends in your social network know what you are reading about. “There’s no doubt they were exploited, but they were able to build lives within that,” he said. January 7, 2016 — Brad Kavan, associate registrar, Tennessee State Museum, installs banners for “Slaves and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation,” a traveling exhibit at the Morton Museum of Collierville History Thursday morning. In recent weeks, exhibit builders put the finishing touches on displays featuring slave cabins, a slave auction platform and period reconstruction of a room inside the main plantation house. Enoch Fuzz, pastor of Corinthian Missionary Baptist Church, said the exhibit is part of a larger history that all people need to understand. It's OK to disagree with someone's ideas, but personal attacks, insults, threats, hate speech, advocating violence and other violations can result in a ban. You do not need a Facebook profile to participate. He later interviewed numerous children or grandchildren of slaves; wrote a book, “The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation,” which Simon & Schuster published in 2009; and worked with the museum as a paid consultant and guest curator. Featured artifacts and stories in this exhibit document a period that forced Tennesseans to take sides and make sacrifices. View more information on permanent exhibits at the Tennessee State Museum including First Tennesseans, Forging a Nation, and Change & Challenge. The museum is very informative with many artifacts and video presentations. The new Tennessee State Museum is now open on the corner of Rosa L. Parks Blvd. The wife of a wealthy plantation owner in 1858, Washington kept records of every shirt, shoe and piece of yarn given to hundreds of slaves on one of the country’s largest tobacco farms. Tennessee State Museum Ashley Howell, Executive Director 1000 Rosa L. Parks Blvd Nashville, TN 37208 615-741-2692 800-407-4324 museuminfo@tnmuseum.org FREE ADMISSION In 1839, Wessyngton’s owners paid $2,270 for Daniel, his mother, his father and two siblings, all of whom had arrived in Tennessee after their previous owner moved there from Virginia. It was organized by the Tennessee State Museum with support from the Tennessee Civil War National Heritage Area. Tennessee State Museum - Exhibit: Slaves and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation: Nashville : Feb. 11 : Tennessee State Museum : Slave and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation: Nashville: Feb. 10 : Salem AME - Presentation: The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation: Nashville: Feb. 9 : Salem AME Church Nashville, TN Those documents have inspired a new exhibit about the antebellum plantation in Robertson County. It opened at a new location. It has great exhibits on native Americans, slavery, segregation and the sit-ins protesting segregation, but also covers the many facets of Tennessee history including the very important musical contributions. While the exhibit highlights the stark differences in what brought the slaves and their owners to Tennessee and what their lives were like once they arrived, it also delves into the personal relationships and sense of community they were able to form on the sprawling tobacco farm, DeHart said. It captures the parallel lineage and progression of … Please see important information on our Plan Your Visit page regarding visiting the Museum during this time. When he was about 22, Daniel was whipped and chained after attempting to run away. The major battles and personalities are featured including the experiences of common soldiers. students will create a museum exhibit entitled “Journey towards freedom: slave experiences in tennessee.” then they will be evaluated on reading comprehension, a successful story map template, an artifact evaluation, exhibit construction, and overall successful completion of … Finally, Tennesseans struggled to find a place in a world without slavery during the era of Reconstruction. One of the items on display at the Tennessee State Museum exhibit Slaves and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation will be a family tree of an enslaved family. The Tennessee State Museum is setting up an advisory group following criticism of its presentation of black history, said a museum official. For Rob DeHart, the museum’s curator, the exhibit’s goal is to shed light on what life was like for the slaves and their owners. In preparation for the Tennessee State Museum exhibit, Slaves and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation, descendants have been asked to locate Wessyngton artifacts, photographs, paintings and other memorabilia.A descendant of the owners of Wessyngton living in Nashville recently discovered this photograph in an album that belonged to his grandmother. It talks about the founding, the wars, slavery, how Tennessee handle the emancipation of … © 2021 www.tennessean.com. A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. #1 of 3 Museums in Clinton. If you see comments in violation of our community guidelines, please report them. Tragically, Granville committed suicide a few years after George died. The family tree is part of the exhibit "Slaves and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation" at the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville. African Americans are highlighted as they seek their own freedom, and some eventually fight for the Union. About the Tennessee State Museum The museum currently occupies three floors, covering approximately 120,000 square feet with more than 60,000 square feet devoted to exhibits. She was still a teenager when she arrived at Wessyngton in 1849, the second wife of George. It tells the stories of slaveowners … Please be polite. The Tennessee State Museum is currently open to visitors. “It’s breaking down some myths that people have about slavery, humanizing a group of people that typically get glossed over, and humanizing and honoring these people who provided the labor that drove the economy of the South,” DeHart said. She slowly took on more responsibilities, including overseeing the clothing production for the plantation’s slaves. Learn more about the museum and plan your visit today. Press Esc or the X to close. Visitors also will be able to get somewhat of a bird’s-eye view of how the plantation looked from above with a small-scale model of the main house and surrounding slave cabins. Visitors start in the Tennessee Time Tunnel, from where they can enter each of the museum’s permanent exhibits: Natural History, First Peoples, Forging a Nation, the Civil War and Reconstruction, Change and Challenge, and Tennessee Transforms. Featured artifacts and stories in this exhibit document a period that forced Tennesseans to take sides and make sacrifices. It's a bold move to present an artifact from slavery's history in America front-and-center in an exhibit of art that never directly examines slavery's influence. Designing a museum exhibit around one of the most troubling periods in American history was no easy task. Jane Smith Washington carefully jotted the names of slaves in her journal. Origins and Evolutions of Tennessee Food, The State of Sound: Tennessee’s Musical Heritage, Between The Layers: Art and Story in Tennessee Quilts, The Life and Times of the First Tennesseans, Cherokee in Tennessee: Their Life, Culture, and Removal, The Age of Jackson and Tennessee’s Legendary Leaders, The Lives of Three Tennessee Slaves and Their Journey Towards Freedom, Understanding Women's Suffrage: Tennessee's Perfect 36, Transforming America: Tennessee on the World War II Homefront, The Modern Movement for Civil Rights in Tennessee. The Rev. Bell will be signing copies of Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home after the event. 20,768 were here. The Civil War and Reconstruction were monumental times of conflict and change for the people of Tennessee. and Jefferson Street at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, is home to 13,000 years of Tennessee art and history. A slave born on the Wessyngton plantation, Emanuel served as the cook and was known by the children for his stories. The tree spans eleven generations from 1760 to 2012 and includes more than 1,000 direct descendants. Orphaned at 13, Jane was raised by her aunt in Nashville. This is a test to see whether we can improve the experience for you. “It has felt like a project full of minefields,” DeHart said. After emancipation, he spent years as a sharecropper on the plantation. Clinton. “I ended up tracing every family that came from the plantation,” he said. Learn more about temporary exhibits and collections currently available for viewing at the Tennessee State Museum and plan your visit today. The Civil War and Reconstruction were monumental times of conflict and change for the people of Tennessee. For more information about the new Tennessee State Museum, visit tnmuseum2018.org. At the Tennessee State Museum, ... and in the South the whole culture was shaped by the institution of slavery.” ... executive director of the museum, calls “an exhibit … A link has been sent to your friend's email address. The museum made efforts to present the plantation people’s stories dispassionately, DeHart said. The Wessyngton exhibit at the Tennessee State Museum will include the survey from the slave cemetery and a film shot near the main home earlier this year. All rights reserved, Read or Share this story: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2014/02/11/museum-offers-window-into-slavery-at-tennessee-plantation-/5380941/, Police: Hillsboro football player, 15, killed in targeted shooting, Brentwood Academy headmaster under fire by alumni, Dickson's longtime servant, humanitarian David Shepard dies, Nashville waits to begin vaccinating those 70-75, Nashville teachers travel hours to get the COVID-19 vaccine, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. Welcome to our new and improved comments, which are for subscribers only. The Tennessee State Museum brings the story of slavery to Collierville in an up close and personal way. On exhibit in the Tennessee State's Museum as part of its Permanent Exhibitions. It opens today at the Tennessee State Museum. What: Slaves and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation, Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 1-5 p.m. Sundays, Where: Tennessee State Museum, 505 Deaderick St., Nashville. See more: 9 Tennessee History Facts From the Tennessee State Museum Thursday night, I went up to Nashville again for a curator-led tour and roundtable discussion of the Tennessee State Museum’s new exhibit, Slaves and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation. “We tried not to insert any sort of judgment in it and let people gain their own impressions out of it.”. “If we’re going to grow and become that ‘one city,’ then we ought to learn black history, white history, Native American history, Hispanic history. The African American Geography of Tennessee is an interactive map showing the landscape of emancipation as it unfolded from 1860 to 1890. The Tennessee State Museum features six permanent exhibitions that tell a variety of stories from the First Peoples to the Present Day.. Natural History introduces visitors to the origins of Tennessee’s amazing landscapes as well as its diverse animal and plant life, while also using fossils to show examples of life from long ago.. First Peoples (13,000 BCE to 1760 CE) tells … The only surviving child of Wessyngton’s founders, George greatly expanded the plantation, which at the time became the country’s largest producer of dark-fired tobacco. Learn more: Call 615-741-2692 or visit www.tnmuseum.org. In preparation for the Tennessee State Museum exhibit, Slaves and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation, descendants have been asked to locate Wessyngton artifacts, photographs, paintings and other memorabilia.A descendant of the owners of Wessyngton living in Nashville recently discovered this photograph in an album that belonged to his grandmother. Granville bore a striking resemblance to his master, and oral tradition passed through the years claims that George was in fact Granville’s father. John F. Baker Jr., a descendant of Wessyngton slaves, laid the groundwork for the exhibit with his research, which was inspired by a photograph he first saw in a seventh-grade textbook. As slavery and plantation life dissolved in the crucible of war and occupation, Tennessee became a laboratory of innovative social arrangements for African Americans. Hours: Monday: Closed Tuesday-Saturday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Sunday: 1 p.m. – 5 p.m. Oil on Canvas. Since it opened in October, the museum, which has 137,000 square feet of exhibition space, has received complaints about its slavery exhibits and the interpretation of that time period. Tennessee Women and the Right to Vote, Tennessee and the Great War: A Centennial Exhibition, Early Expressions: Art in Tennessee Before 1900, In Search of the New: Art in Tennessee Since 1900, Cordell Hull: Tennessee's Father of the United Nations, Lets Eat! Baker, 51, said the sheer volume of records that survived the 13,000-acre farm, including a trove of correspondence from the Civil War years, provided an unusually clear window into plantation life. My family went to the Tennessee State Museum this afternoon and had a fabulous time. He maintained a very close relationship with the family before and after the Civil War. The Tennessee State Museum brings the story of slavery to Collierville in an up close and personal way. Origins and Evolutions of Tennessee Food will run Aug.9-Feb. 2 in the second-floor temporary exhibit hall of the Tennessee State Museum at 1000 Rosa L. Parks Blvd. The exhibit, Slaves and Slaveholders of Wessyngton Plantation, looks at the lives of both the enslaved African Americans and their white owners on the 13,000 acre plantation in Robertson County, Tennessee. You will need to register before adding a comment. The Museum is closed on New Year's Day, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. He tried again a few years later. The Tennessee State Museum is fabulous. Those documents have inspired a new exhibit about the antebellum plantation in Robertson County. “Especially African-Americans in Nashville, we ought to be really diligent to learn and visit anything on black history, especially in this month.”. Her detailed journal from Middle Tennessee’s Wessyngton Plantation is among more than 11,000 documents that have helped give historians one of the most vivid pictures yet of slave life in America. The documents range from records kept by plantation owners of punishments and slave purchases to deeds and census records from the time. Museum of Appalachia. When she was 15 years old, a Wessyngton slave named Fanny gave birth to Granville, who would later become the personal servant and valet of plantation owner George A. Washington. About the Tennessee State Museum: The Tennessee State Museum, on the corner of Rosa L. Parks Blvd. Despite running away during the war with federal troops, Emanuel returned to the plantation to take up his job as a cook after the war and maintained a fairly close relationship with the plantation owners, who called him “Uncle Man.”. He said he was able to flesh out the slaves’ point of view by talking to their descendants, who ranged in age from 80 to 107 when he interviewed them. Nashville, TN 37208, Ratified! Enter a search request and press enter. As a 13-year-old, Josephbegan ministering to the slaves on Wessyngton despite the plantation owners’ prohibition against religious practice by slaves. In a bid to interest visitors accustomed to watching things on screen, the museum hired actors to portray several individuals from Wessyngton in video productions filmed at the present-day site of the plantation, which remains a private residence. Typed comments will be lost if you are not logged in. 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