Last week I finally got to see the National Park Service’s new exhibit on the life of the enslaved at Arlington House, which still retains the designation, “The Robert E.
As frequently as we go to DC, it’s been several years since our last visit to Arlington House. Thank you for sharing your thoughts from your recent visit. Arlington House will be on the agenda for our next jaunt to DC.
Kevin, I'm glad you like the new interpretation at Arlington House. As a part of the team that created the new exhibits and the increased focus on the lives of the enslaved I am very gratified to hear they have the desired effect. We'd been building up to this for quite some time. In the 28 years I worked there I always believed it was necessary to confront visitors with the truth. Not everyone in charge agreed. I got in trouble a few times but for the most part we were able to center the story more and more on the difficult aspects of the history. It's finally gotten to that place. But there's always more work to do.
Hi Matt. I am so glad that you saw this post. The only thing better would have been the opportunity to talk with you about it all at Arlington House. It was great to finally be back in D.C. to work with the teachers. Thanks for all the hard work and leadership that you put into the new exhibit. Your name came up a number of times as I chatted with NPS staff. You've left an important legacy and it's one that will not soon be forgotten.
Thanks for the kind words. You know, we can talk any time. I haven't given up my ties to the place. I'm on the board of the Arlington House Foundation and am working to develop education programming - what I love the most. I could give you some insights into what's going on. Let me know.
Kevin, I am going to wander in to a perhaps dangerous place, but then Mom always did think I was the "foolishly brave one." I think you know me well enough to understand that I am not trying to defend the indefensible. Here we go:
There is an undeniable power dynamic (for lack of a better term) in the master-slave relationship. Also in the employer-employee relationship, and the teacher-student relationship. But that does not mean that actual, serious, passionate, real, emotion cannot exist in these (potentially dangerous) waters. I am not in the least suggesting that we should ignore the power dynamic in looking at historical liaisons of this nature. I am merely suggesting that, unless there is some documentary evidence out there, we really do not know. Might a slave woman have submitted to her enslaver simply because of his power over her (and her offspring, some fathered by him? Absolutely, and that would probably be the way to bet if that kind of issue ever came up for discussion. But I think we need to acknowledge that actual affection---perhaps born of a "Stockholm syndrome" kind of thing---might well have existed. Human emotions are incredibly complex, and our ability to justify/excuse is massive. (Yes, perhaps I am doing that here.) I am not in the least arguing to "excuse" any or all enslaver-enslaved liaisons, simply trying to point out that true affection might have occasionally been present. What is really needed is more evidence, which almost surely does not exist.
Thanks for the comment. I struggled with this very issue in my Black Confederates book. Camp slaves and their masters often spent significant time together away from home in the army. In many cases they shared a common experience between being separated from their loved ones, having to endure harsh weather, and disease/injury. A number of the letters I read point to moments of what I describe as "other-regarding concern." I am still not entirely sure what it means, but it at least acknowledges moments when master and slave were able to acknowledge a shared experience, challenge, etc.
The problem, of course, is that the accounts we must rely on were written by slaveowners. l would never describe the master-slave relationship as one of friendship given the fact that coercion defined the relationship and kept one person legally bound to another.
As historians we have to consider the complexity of individual relationships and follow where the available evidence leads, but we must be crystal clear about the institution as a whole, especially at historic sites like Arlington House.
The power dynamic in such relationships is very real and should never be ignored. And I suspect that virtually all of our inside knowledge of such relationships comes from the white side. My point simply is that emotional attachments can form in all sorts of situations. The power dynamic does not, IMO, negate the possibility of actual attachment.
Let me try another tack: The power dynamic between pets and their owners is very similar to that between masters and slaves. I loved, deeply, all four of our Border Collies, and I believe, by their responses to me, that they loved me. ISTM that the perspective you are putting on it would question the existence of that affection.
I don't think your pets example helps us to understand human relationships.
"My point simply is that emotional attachments can form in all sorts of situations. The power dynamic does not, IMO, negate the possibility of actual attachment."
Again, I agree with you. Our emotional lives are incredibly complex. The question is how we choose to define certain relationships based on the emotions/feelings that are experienced.
And I simply think that we can acknowledge the nature of the relationship (master-slave, teacher-student, employer-employee, etc.) and at the same time acknowledge that there *might* be some actual feelings involved.
How would "true affection" matter, even if it could exist, when one of the people who might have felt it held the power of life and death over the other?
I had a crush on my seventh grade math teacher. In eighth grade it developed into a relationship which continued through college. Thankfully it never went beyond heavy “petting” but in later years I learned he had several other young women students he did have sex with, and so far as I know he was never held accountable. I kept it hidden because my father would have murdered him and me, literally. There is a reason our culture prosecutes such “relationships” - the person in authority holds all the power of consent. I thought I was in love, and that distorted other relationships for a long time.
So. As you say, MSB, true affection has little to do with it, especially in any relationship between an enslaved woman and her enslaver(s). Mary Chestnut’s letters are quite revealing in this regard.
MSB: Human emotions can be awkward things, entering in to situations where they perhaps should not. By definition, a feudal monarch held the power of life and death over all of their subjects, including their spouse/consort/lover(s). Are you suggesting that none of these people had real emotional bonds or feelings for each other? I will grant you that many of these relationships were born of power politics and "faction-management," but that does not prohibit the possibility of true emotional attachment.
So, Jim - may I call you Jim? - what the actual (fill in the blank, your choice) are you trying to say here? You’re using a lot of words, but…
I see you are self-described as a “Retired mathematician and curmudgeon.” Perhaps you don’t have a clear understanding of the topic at hand. I used my personal experience as a young girl to add some additional insight into the discussion, as all the comments were from men. MSB very kindly expressed sympathy. Do you have a personal experience that might explain your lack of same?
You may call me Jim. I was too terse in my bio for Kevin's newsletter, but there is one online bio that describes me as a "child of the 60s (both 19th and 20th Centuries)" (quote approximate); I am active in several online Civil War forums, I maintain three websites associated with the war, and just returned home from a planning meeting for my CWRT. That was a multi-pixel way of saying that I consider myself well-versed in Civil War history. You are free to disagree with that, of course.
I noted your personal experience here and decided not to address it because, well, it was very personal, and I did not want to intrude on your privacy. I kinda have a personal connection here, but it is a minor one that I am not interested in sharing. (Sorry.) My basic point is that friendship and affection has been shown, in countless historical instances, to have grown in very challenging ground, and my sense of respect for other folks and their historical love for each other requires me to point that out. Thus my question to MSB about feudal monarchs and their marriages.
My point is not to deny any of the horrors of slavery, nor to excuse the rape of any slave by their enslaver. My point, in large part, is that when we don't know, we should say "we don't know," and leave it at that.
Consider Bogart and Bacall. (I'm serious; bear with me) It is considered one of the great love stories of Hollywood. (Tumultuous at times, no doubt, but I have never read that they did not love each other.) The power dynamic of that relationship is very close to the kind of employer-employee thing we are suppose to deprecate today. Did she begin the affair in order to use him to advance her career? Did he advance her career in order to have intimate relations with her? I think the record of their relationship shows that they were in love. Now, to make my point: Kevin points out that our knowledge of almost all of these master-slave liaisons comes entirely from the master's perspective. We don't hear the black woman's voice. We should not substitute our assumptions about their relationship for her voice (when we don't know, we should say "we don't know"). It is possible that every encounter was forcible rape. It is possible that she submitted in order to earn better treatment for herself and her children, and possibly gain their freedom in the future. It is possible that the two were actually attracted to each other, and it was a mutual affair of affection, constrained within and warped by the master-slave relationship. Sometimes there is some historical record or testimony that helps fill in these blanks. But that is what we should rely upon, not our assumptions as to what happened.
My apologies for being long. I wanted to be complete in response to your reasonable questions. (See also my response to MSB, below; I kept that one brief.)
An attachment affected or dictated by the power of the other person(s) is corrupted by that power. Considering expressions of feeling, without considering the power factor, is useless.
Perhaps Sally Heminges felt affection for Thomas Jefferson - after all, he didn't sell her or their children (low bar, huh? but many slaveholders failed to clear it). How seriously do you think expressions of loyalty and affection by enslaved people, made to or in front of slaveholders, should be taken? When those people were freed, former slaveholders often expressed shock at their "ingratitude".
(I'll not comment on the Jefferson-Hemings affair because there is a lot of recent scholarship that I have not read.)
Of course the power dynamic of two people in a relationship affects it. That doesn't mean that the two people cannot have genuine affection for each other. Actually, I know of one case where it worked backwards to that---the power dynamic was, in a sense, affected by the pre-existing affection. (Long story, omitted. Not mine to tell, frankly.)
Many royal marriages are arranged matters of foreign policy and intrigue. That does not mean that the two parties, thrown together by the insistence of their families and governments, cannot fall in love. Feelings of affection, loyalty, and even love can grow in very surprising ground. That is a big part of my point. And when we don't have data on the details, then we don't have data on the details. We can make inferences, but that is what they are: inferences.
I am not sure what you mean by "true emotional attachment." One could make the argument that all emotions are "true" in the sense that they are subjective and *being* experienced. As you point out our emotional lives are indeed complex. It seems to me the question is how we go about describing certain relationships.
What I mean in this context, both of my example and your post that spawned it, is actual, sincere, truly felt, feelings for the other person. One can then ask the question---quite fairly---that if the master actually loved the slave, why keep them as a slave? Human emotions are monstrously awkward things, popping up in places where we don't want them or shouldn't have them.
I would like to thank you for a wonderful review of history in all of its complications. I recently visited Andrew Jackson's home and I am honestly struggling to describe what I saw there. If possible, I would love some advice on how to deal with how the preservation of the estate deals with his legacy versus how the public deals with it.
For context, I am an opinion writer. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for reading and for the comment. I've only visited the Hermitage once and I am certainly no Jackson expert, but I understand exactly what you mean.
I highly recommend reading Clint Smith's new book, HOW THE WORD IS PASSED. Clint visits a number of historic sites that have in the past failed to interpret slavery and that are now working to correct this oversight. He focuses in on Monticello, but I think the book as a whole will help you to begin to place what you experienced in a broader historical/cultural context.
The non-negotiables are inspiring, especially, “Visitors will be heard but Confederate-supporting ideas (e.g. the myth of the Lost Cause) won’t be validated because they contradict the ideals of this site.” Hallelujah!! Thank you for telling us about this glimmer of hope.
Thanks for this, Kevin. So interesting, as usual. Arlington House park rangers were a great resource when I wrote my Lee book and I’m looking forward to visiting again soon.
Greetings. I looked for the bullet points or “non-negotiables” on the Arlington House website and did not find them. Was there a placard or pamphlet that summarizes the NPS's framework for the new interpretation?
As frequently as we go to DC, it’s been several years since our last visit to Arlington House. Thank you for sharing your thoughts from your recent visit. Arlington House will be on the agenda for our next jaunt to DC.
Glad to hear it. I look forward to hearing your thoughts about the exhibit.
Love the non-negotiables. Love your critique of the exhibits.
Thanks, Chris.
Kevin, I'm glad you like the new interpretation at Arlington House. As a part of the team that created the new exhibits and the increased focus on the lives of the enslaved I am very gratified to hear they have the desired effect. We'd been building up to this for quite some time. In the 28 years I worked there I always believed it was necessary to confront visitors with the truth. Not everyone in charge agreed. I got in trouble a few times but for the most part we were able to center the story more and more on the difficult aspects of the history. It's finally gotten to that place. But there's always more work to do.
Hi Matt. I am so glad that you saw this post. The only thing better would have been the opportunity to talk with you about it all at Arlington House. It was great to finally be back in D.C. to work with the teachers. Thanks for all the hard work and leadership that you put into the new exhibit. Your name came up a number of times as I chatted with NPS staff. You've left an important legacy and it's one that will not soon be forgotten.
Congratulations!
I hope you are doing well.
Thanks for the kind words. You know, we can talk any time. I haven't given up my ties to the place. I'm on the board of the Arlington House Foundation and am working to develop education programming - what I love the most. I could give you some insights into what's going on. Let me know.
That's great to hear. I will definitely take you up on that offer at some point.
Thanks for discussing yet another historical site that I need to visit.
You bet.
Very nice piece, BTW.
Thanks, Jim.
Kevin, I am going to wander in to a perhaps dangerous place, but then Mom always did think I was the "foolishly brave one." I think you know me well enough to understand that I am not trying to defend the indefensible. Here we go:
There is an undeniable power dynamic (for lack of a better term) in the master-slave relationship. Also in the employer-employee relationship, and the teacher-student relationship. But that does not mean that actual, serious, passionate, real, emotion cannot exist in these (potentially dangerous) waters. I am not in the least suggesting that we should ignore the power dynamic in looking at historical liaisons of this nature. I am merely suggesting that, unless there is some documentary evidence out there, we really do not know. Might a slave woman have submitted to her enslaver simply because of his power over her (and her offspring, some fathered by him? Absolutely, and that would probably be the way to bet if that kind of issue ever came up for discussion. But I think we need to acknowledge that actual affection---perhaps born of a "Stockholm syndrome" kind of thing---might well have existed. Human emotions are incredibly complex, and our ability to justify/excuse is massive. (Yes, perhaps I am doing that here.) I am not in the least arguing to "excuse" any or all enslaver-enslaved liaisons, simply trying to point out that true affection might have occasionally been present. What is really needed is more evidence, which almost surely does not exist.
That is all.
Hi Jim.
Thanks for the comment. I struggled with this very issue in my Black Confederates book. Camp slaves and their masters often spent significant time together away from home in the army. In many cases they shared a common experience between being separated from their loved ones, having to endure harsh weather, and disease/injury. A number of the letters I read point to moments of what I describe as "other-regarding concern." I am still not entirely sure what it means, but it at least acknowledges moments when master and slave were able to acknowledge a shared experience, challenge, etc.
The problem, of course, is that the accounts we must rely on were written by slaveowners. l would never describe the master-slave relationship as one of friendship given the fact that coercion defined the relationship and kept one person legally bound to another.
As historians we have to consider the complexity of individual relationships and follow where the available evidence leads, but we must be crystal clear about the institution as a whole, especially at historic sites like Arlington House.
The power dynamic in such relationships is very real and should never be ignored. And I suspect that virtually all of our inside knowledge of such relationships comes from the white side. My point simply is that emotional attachments can form in all sorts of situations. The power dynamic does not, IMO, negate the possibility of actual attachment.
Let me try another tack: The power dynamic between pets and their owners is very similar to that between masters and slaves. I loved, deeply, all four of our Border Collies, and I believe, by their responses to me, that they loved me. ISTM that the perspective you are putting on it would question the existence of that affection.
I don't think your pets example helps us to understand human relationships.
"My point simply is that emotional attachments can form in all sorts of situations. The power dynamic does not, IMO, negate the possibility of actual attachment."
Again, I agree with you. Our emotional lives are incredibly complex. The question is how we choose to define certain relationships based on the emotions/feelings that are experienced.
And I simply think that we can acknowledge the nature of the relationship (master-slave, teacher-student, employer-employee, etc.) and at the same time acknowledge that there *might* be some actual feelings involved.
At no point have I denied that feelings/emotions exist.
You never made that statement, but I got the impression that you did believe this. My error, and thanks for the clarification.
How would "true affection" matter, even if it could exist, when one of the people who might have felt it held the power of life and death over the other?
I had a crush on my seventh grade math teacher. In eighth grade it developed into a relationship which continued through college. Thankfully it never went beyond heavy “petting” but in later years I learned he had several other young women students he did have sex with, and so far as I know he was never held accountable. I kept it hidden because my father would have murdered him and me, literally. There is a reason our culture prosecutes such “relationships” - the person in authority holds all the power of consent. I thought I was in love, and that distorted other relationships for a long time.
So. As you say, MSB, true affection has little to do with it, especially in any relationship between an enslaved woman and her enslaver(s). Mary Chestnut’s letters are quite revealing in this regard.
I'm so sorry that that happened to you. An awful betrayal of the trust of a student in their teachers.
MSB: Human emotions can be awkward things, entering in to situations where they perhaps should not. By definition, a feudal monarch held the power of life and death over all of their subjects, including their spouse/consort/lover(s). Are you suggesting that none of these people had real emotional bonds or feelings for each other? I will grant you that many of these relationships were born of power politics and "faction-management," but that does not prohibit the possibility of true emotional attachment.
So, Jim - may I call you Jim? - what the actual (fill in the blank, your choice) are you trying to say here? You’re using a lot of words, but…
I see you are self-described as a “Retired mathematician and curmudgeon.” Perhaps you don’t have a clear understanding of the topic at hand. I used my personal experience as a young girl to add some additional insight into the discussion, as all the comments were from men. MSB very kindly expressed sympathy. Do you have a personal experience that might explain your lack of same?
You may call me Jim. I was too terse in my bio for Kevin's newsletter, but there is one online bio that describes me as a "child of the 60s (both 19th and 20th Centuries)" (quote approximate); I am active in several online Civil War forums, I maintain three websites associated with the war, and just returned home from a planning meeting for my CWRT. That was a multi-pixel way of saying that I consider myself well-versed in Civil War history. You are free to disagree with that, of course.
I noted your personal experience here and decided not to address it because, well, it was very personal, and I did not want to intrude on your privacy. I kinda have a personal connection here, but it is a minor one that I am not interested in sharing. (Sorry.) My basic point is that friendship and affection has been shown, in countless historical instances, to have grown in very challenging ground, and my sense of respect for other folks and their historical love for each other requires me to point that out. Thus my question to MSB about feudal monarchs and their marriages.
My point is not to deny any of the horrors of slavery, nor to excuse the rape of any slave by their enslaver. My point, in large part, is that when we don't know, we should say "we don't know," and leave it at that.
Consider Bogart and Bacall. (I'm serious; bear with me) It is considered one of the great love stories of Hollywood. (Tumultuous at times, no doubt, but I have never read that they did not love each other.) The power dynamic of that relationship is very close to the kind of employer-employee thing we are suppose to deprecate today. Did she begin the affair in order to use him to advance her career? Did he advance her career in order to have intimate relations with her? I think the record of their relationship shows that they were in love. Now, to make my point: Kevin points out that our knowledge of almost all of these master-slave liaisons comes entirely from the master's perspective. We don't hear the black woman's voice. We should not substitute our assumptions about their relationship for her voice (when we don't know, we should say "we don't know"). It is possible that every encounter was forcible rape. It is possible that she submitted in order to earn better treatment for herself and her children, and possibly gain their freedom in the future. It is possible that the two were actually attracted to each other, and it was a mutual affair of affection, constrained within and warped by the master-slave relationship. Sometimes there is some historical record or testimony that helps fill in these blanks. But that is what we should rely upon, not our assumptions as to what happened.
My apologies for being long. I wanted to be complete in response to your reasonable questions. (See also my response to MSB, below; I kept that one brief.)
An attachment affected or dictated by the power of the other person(s) is corrupted by that power. Considering expressions of feeling, without considering the power factor, is useless.
Perhaps Sally Heminges felt affection for Thomas Jefferson - after all, he didn't sell her or their children (low bar, huh? but many slaveholders failed to clear it). How seriously do you think expressions of loyalty and affection by enslaved people, made to or in front of slaveholders, should be taken? When those people were freed, former slaveholders often expressed shock at their "ingratitude".
(I'll not comment on the Jefferson-Hemings affair because there is a lot of recent scholarship that I have not read.)
Of course the power dynamic of two people in a relationship affects it. That doesn't mean that the two people cannot have genuine affection for each other. Actually, I know of one case where it worked backwards to that---the power dynamic was, in a sense, affected by the pre-existing affection. (Long story, omitted. Not mine to tell, frankly.)
Many royal marriages are arranged matters of foreign policy and intrigue. That does not mean that the two parties, thrown together by the insistence of their families and governments, cannot fall in love. Feelings of affection, loyalty, and even love can grow in very surprising ground. That is a big part of my point. And when we don't have data on the details, then we don't have data on the details. We can make inferences, but that is what they are: inferences.
I am not sure what you mean by "true emotional attachment." One could make the argument that all emotions are "true" in the sense that they are subjective and *being* experienced. As you point out our emotional lives are indeed complex. It seems to me the question is how we go about describing certain relationships.
What I mean in this context, both of my example and your post that spawned it, is actual, sincere, truly felt, feelings for the other person. One can then ask the question---quite fairly---that if the master actually loved the slave, why keep them as a slave? Human emotions are monstrously awkward things, popping up in places where we don't want them or shouldn't have them.
Hi Dr. Levin,
I would like to thank you for a wonderful review of history in all of its complications. I recently visited Andrew Jackson's home and I am honestly struggling to describe what I saw there. If possible, I would love some advice on how to deal with how the preservation of the estate deals with his legacy versus how the public deals with it.
For context, I am an opinion writer. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Conor
Hi Conor,
Thanks for reading and for the comment. I've only visited the Hermitage once and I am certainly no Jackson expert, but I understand exactly what you mean.
I highly recommend reading Clint Smith's new book, HOW THE WORD IS PASSED. Clint visits a number of historic sites that have in the past failed to interpret slavery and that are now working to correct this oversight. He focuses in on Monticello, but I think the book as a whole will help you to begin to place what you experienced in a broader historical/cultural context.
The non-negotiables are inspiring, especially, “Visitors will be heard but Confederate-supporting ideas (e.g. the myth of the Lost Cause) won’t be validated because they contradict the ideals of this site.” Hallelujah!! Thank you for telling us about this glimmer of hope.
You bet.
Thanks for this, Kevin. So interesting, as usual. Arlington House park rangers were a great resource when I wrote my Lee book and I’m looking forward to visiting again soon.
I'll be interested to hear what you think.
It’s great to see NPS staff excited with the new interpretations.
Greetings. I looked for the bullet points or “non-negotiables” on the Arlington House website and did not find them. Was there a placard or pamphlet that summarizes the NPS's framework for the new interpretation?
Like I said in the post, this will soon be made available on the park's website.
Great. Thank you.