Slavery, reparations, and redemption after our current Civil War?
I was watching a silly ghost show on U-Tube about The Wheatlands Plantation in Tennessee. I wanted to research a little bit more after an owner had removed some stones from the land that may have marked the grave of the slaves on this property.
I came across this article written by a family member of the former plantation Kristan Thomason.
"A review and reckoning part 2" July 3, 2022
This is the link to copy and paste in your browser.
https://viaexmachina.com/a-review-and-a-reckoning-part-2/
[/divWheatlands was second only to George Washington’s Mount Vernon in Virginia in whiskey production. Obviously, the Chandlers weren’t doing this on their own. Family records indicate 188 enslaved persons were laboring at Wheatlands at the close of the Civil War and the University of Tennessee archeology department has located 70 of their graves on the property along with the footprint of six slave cabins.]
[/divThe last heir to live in the house wrote that her ancestor was “known as a good master who didn’t believe in separating families,” and after the war it’s said he paid those formerly enslaved to stay on and work at Wheatlands. But “good master” is itself an oxymoron and sharecropping isn’t the same as freedom.]
We can change our present, if we continue to acknowledge and do better than our history, but first we must know it.
