Reckoning With America’s Past

Sketch from the plantation of the cotton gin and slave home.

On a road trip down south, my partner and I found ourselves staying at an Air BnB that was a former plantation. The plantation was the Massenburg Plantation, and produced mainly cotton and tobacco. The space in which the B&B was located was the former office for the plantation.

We found this out only after getting a bit lost on the property and noticing the defunct cotton gin and small outbuildings and suspecting the possibility that slaves were once a part of the property.

I was conflicted in staying there, immediately finding myself pretty upset at finding literature that clearly outlined Massenburg’s methods of managing and owning slaves. We stayed, sat, and discussed the discomfort, and I read what I could find about the property. We spent time acknowledging our American history and concluded by acknowledging the importance of teaching this side of history. Seeing the buildings, the soil, the fields and trees, and hearing the rooster crowing in the morning was nothing short of a strange experience, something akin to my stay in Berlin amongst the Holocaust and Cold War remnants. I also felt stunned by how important it felt that I experience something like this as an American, and how sad I felt that I hadn’t done so before.

In the morning, I sketched a couple of the buildings, including the cotton gin, amongst the loblolly pines, trying to connect further.