Prologue

The prologue opens in present-day New Orleans, with an epigraph taken from historian Walter Johnson, who once claimed that “the whole city is a memorial to slavery.” Smith describes how, although he grew up in New Orleans, it was not until much later in his life that he began to fully realize and grapple with how deeply enmeshed the history of the American slave trade was with the architecture, statuary, and culture of his hometown. Similarly, it has not been until recently that the state and federal government have begun the task of actively dismantling monuments that glorify slave owners and proponents of the confederacy.

This gargantuan project is a tacit acknowledgment that America’s past of slavery—and perhaps more importantly, the ways in which we engage with and remember that past—are inextricably linked with the racial inequality that persists to this day.

Monticello Plantation

The Monticello Plantation is most famous as the home and primary residence of Thomas Jefferson: the principal author of the Declaration of Independence; the third president of the United States; and, throughout the course of his life, the owner of over six hundred slaves. In this chapter, Smith reckons with the duality of Jefferson’s personal philosophy and national legacy, as well as how the historical team at the Monticello Plantation try to communicate this complex characterization to visitors.

It is clear from his personal writings and public actions (such as outlawing the transatlantic slave trade in 1807) that Jefferson understood the moral complication inherent within one human being owning another. However, it is also true that Jefferson’s lifestyle of leisure, which directly enabled him to put his mind toward the formation of the modern world’s first democratic republic, would never have been possible without his reliance on slave labor. Smith highlights the idea that Jefferson knew slavery was a morally abhorrent institution but that its abolition was an unpopular policy in the Southern states, and Jefferson ultimately chose political security and his own material comfort over moral discretion.

The ways in which the Monticello Plantation has engaged—or chosen not to engage—with Jefferson as a slave owner is indicative of the sociopolitical climate in which the site has operated. When the site first opened its doors to visitors as a public museum, Smith recounts that guided tours were given exclusively by Black men dressed in slave’s livery in order to give their primarily white guests the “full-experience” of the estate. Indeed, some of the tour guides were the descendants of people who had been enslaved at the Monticello Plantation. The museum transitioned to primarily white, female hosts in 1951, a transition that was not well received by the public, who “resented [the tours] becoming more factual and less entertaining.”

Only over the past decades has the Monticello Plantation, however, begun to actively incorporate the presence of slavery and the story of Jefferson as a slave owner into their public-facing work. Niya Bates, Monticello’s director of African American history, established a program called Getting Word that attempts to record oral histories that may have been passed down through generations, in order to fully capture the experiences of Monticello’s slave population. This is one part of the site’s attempt to emphasize the importance of telling the stories of all of Monticello’s residents and not just that of the internationally renowned Jefferson.

Analysis

In both the Prologue and the first chapter, Smith strives to highlight the connections between America’s past and its modern sociopolitical landscape. These connections are important because they reveal that racism is not simply a matter of bigoted individuals but rather a systemic issue perpetuated by...