THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 27, 1995 TAG: 9508250288
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
If you picture the people in Colonial times in Virginia Beach as wealthy plantation owners and their families, you are seeing only a tiny percentage of the folks who lived and worked in old Princess Anne County - just 2 percent, to be exact.
Forty-eight percent of those who lived here were middle-class people, like you and I. They were tailors, teachers, blacksmiths and other tradespeople who traveled around from plantation to plantation selling their services or wares.
The remaining 50 percent of the population in old Princess Anne County were slaves. And they worked in jobs that helped keep the plantation going, too, from planting the crops and caring for the livestock, to cooking the meals and tending to the children.
Three years ago, historic Francis Land House formed an African American Committee to help interpret the story of the slaves who worked for the Francis Land family and who helped bring wealth and status to the family.
``You're just not telling the whole story unless you tell the story of African Americans in the community,'' said Vicki Harvey, education specialist at the Land House.
Thomas Sledge, a United States history teacher at Great Bridge High School, was among those who volunteered to serve on the African American Committee. A week ago Saturday, Sledge was at the Land House to help tell the story of how the other half lived and worked on the Land Plantation. The program was called ``All in a Day's Work: The Plantation Slave.''
Harvey and Sledge both spoke and then gave participants a tour of the house. This tour was different from most historical house tours because you learned not about what the gentry class would be doing in the rooms of this elegant home, but what the slaves would be doing instead.
When the tour group entered the house, Sledge commented that a slave would have opened the door. When the group entered the parlor, Sledge said a slave would be standing in the background waiting to be of service.
``The slave would be there all the time, and the master would treat him like the invisible man,'' Sledge went on. ``But the slaves had ears, and they knew what was going on.''
Sledge, who also does re-enactments of African American soldiers in the Civil War, said he was interested in such a program because when he came along in school, nobody made much mention of slaves, how they lived and the contribution they made to life in Colonial times. ``We want to look at the skills that made the plantation run,'' he said.
``Who do you think built this house?''
Without slave labor, the Francis Land House probably wouldn't be here today. And without slave labor, the Francis Land family probably wouldn't have been written up in our history books as wealthy, influential residents of Princess Anne County.
Whenever possible in the program, Harvey and Sledge used information from Land House historical records or other local records, such as news from the Virginia Gazette, the paper published in Williamsburg in the 1700s.
For example, Sledge passed around a lottery list published in the Gazette in 1768. Slaves, land and stock were among the items listed for sale. He pointed out the prices for slaves who were charcoal makers, known as colliers. Colliers for sale were listed with descriptions such as ``a very fine master collier,'' ``a very good collier'' and ``a good collier.'' The cost of the slaves ranged from 90 to 150 pounds, depending on how they were rated. If nothing else, the cost of a slave was proof of his or her economic value to the colonists, Sledge said.
Francis Land House records that help tell the story of the slaves include wills, inventories and guardian accounts. Inventories reveal, for example, that the Land family had four slaves in 1694 but that by the end of the 18th century had 22.
``The one thing we don't know about the slaves here is their job,'' Harvey said. ``But you can look at the value of the slave and the inventory and make a value judgment.''
You could guess that a female slave who cost more than other females might be a cook, or that a male costing more than others might be a carpenter. But carpenter or cook, field hand or nursemaid - without them, the Francis Land family could not have lived life as they knew it.
P.S. VISIT THE FRANCIS LAND HOUSE. The Tidewater Sampler Guild's juried sampler exhibit opens today. The exhibit is free with admission to the house, $2.50 for adults and $1 for students, 6 to 18. On Wednesday, try your hand at spinning, card wool and see how yarn is woven among other continuous, hands-on activities from 2 to 4 p.m. The Colonial craft demonstrations also are included in admission to the house. To find out more about these and other activities, call 340-1732. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY REID BARROW
History teacher Thomas Sledge takes part in the program ``All in a
Day's Work: The Plantation Slave.''
by CNB