George Washington and His House

After having such a great time at Colonial Williamsburg we were in eager anticipation of our next days adventure at Mount Vernon. I had been there a long time ago as a teenager and had a memory that it was a beautiful house and a fascinating look at the life of the first president. The boys have an interest in George Washington. Eli did a report on him a couple years ago, and they are often acting out parts of the revolutionary battles that include Washington's army.

So, it was a bit of a surprise when we arrived at the Estate and realized that it was really not that kid friendly, and although beautiful, not that fun. The tour was heavily mediated and we were informed by one of the early tour guides--there was a new one in each room--that they didn't usually answer questions, but that he was in an unusual mood and so thought it would be fun for a change. Then too, all of the shops and out-buildings that were simply still tableaux of colonial processes, had been inhabited with real skilled crafts people at Williamsburg. As a result the kids were not as impressed by the empty gardner's house, and the empty shoe makers hut. For the children it wasn't particularly ironic that these functions in Williamsburg had been done by crafts people for an entire town, but here on the estate of George Washington these same skills were done for one plantation, and done by slave labor. I on the other hand found this endlessly curious.

I had remembered at my last visit being struck particularly hard by the horror of slavery in the midst of such an educated household. The weirdest part of this visit was that the slave quarters and all of the tableau displays around slavery and the slave quarters seemed to have been cleaned up and made humane since the last time I had been there. It seems that the reality of slavery on the Washington plantation could now only be discussed if the lives of the slaves, and their situation--which was specifically and openly stated in the signs placed around the slave quarter displays--was accompanied by a visual display that was inconsistent and seemingly at odds with the information written on the signs.

These elements of our tour made the visit to Mount Vernon less and less palatable as we continued on. By the time we reached the monument to the slaves anonymously buried in the woods far from the house, I had become seriously disturbed. Disturbed by the reality of slavery and racism in our country that is inescapable across the history and behaviors of the entire country, but also disturbed by the slippery double-speak of the historical displays that attempt to present a now aware and progressive culture while still amplifying, in a million small ways, the realities that scream loudly how much we still have to do, and how unresolved issues of race, class and gender still are.

Hannah did not want me to take a picture of the view of the Potomac River from the back porch.

She did everything in her power to keep me from taking a picture.

The boys and Elijah working out the puzzle presented to us at the beginning. We were supposed to have to go to each part of the estate to figure out the puzzle, but they were able to answer all of the questions except one without actually going there.

I finally got a picture of the Potomac when Hannah wasn't looking.

And then another for good measure.

When we had first told the kids we were going to Mount Vernon Izzy had said "you mean the house with the dove on the top?" I didn't know why he had asked that, so when I saw the dove with the olive branch in its beak I was completely amazed. "How did you know it had a dove on top Izzy?" He told me that it said so in Liberties Kids. That was a great series, my kids basically don't need to take US history now.

The house is very beautiful.

Izzy asked why the garden was cut like that. He suggested that it must have been for when people came in by airplane. I told him that it was a European tradition and had begun way before airplanes. He found it troublesome that people would make designs in a garden that were best seen from the air when they couldn't actually be in the air.

The kids assessing their puzzle books realizing that the only question they had not been able to answer required that they find the monument to the plantations (called an estate)  slaves.

These slave quarters were redesigned from the ones I had seen the last time I was here. The bunks are designed from the historical specifications of soldiers bunks, not from specifications of slave housing. The clothing hanging gives the impression that the house slaves had extra clothing when if you read the signs that describe the allotment of clothing and food for each slave it is clear that this is not the case. Near the hearth of the slave quarters is a display of abundance that does not match the description of the actual diet described on the displayed signs which openly state that the nutrition provided was not enough nutrients and minerals to sustain a person.

Before entering the path to the Slave Memorial one is confronted by a sign with a quote from George Washington's will. It reads, ". . . it is my Will & desire that all the Slaves which I hold in my own right, shall receive their freedom." The date on the quote is July, 1799 and yet the date of the dedication for the memorial to these slaves is Sept. 1983, fifteen years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. That the monument exists is lovely, that the slaves and then freed men who died and are buried at Mount Vernon are in unmarked graves is troubling.

This smaller tombstone-like marker is off to the side almost hidden in the trees.