Searching for the Enslaved in the “Cradle of Democracy”: Virginia’s James River Plantation Websites and the Reproduction of Local Histories

Abstract

The websites of plantation museums along Virginia’s James River promise visitors unique experiences based on their place within this region’s history. Previous studies of plantation websites note that the enslaved are marginalized in promotional materials featuring romanticized stories of plantation owners or the mansion’s architectural significance. Such research, however, seldom places plantation websites in the context of specific local histories. As sites of local learning, these museums assert particular ways of knowing the past that reinforce exclusionary local and regional identities. Writing enslaved African Americans out of materials promoting these commemorative landscapes makes it possible for consumers of these sites to conclude that Black lives do not belong in the James River region’s past or present. To more fully assess how the enslaved are present or absent in promotional historical narratives, we perform content and discourse analyses of twenty-seven James River plantation websites. In so doing, we determine how these plantations deploy local histories to distinguish themselves and whether, in their selective appropriation of the region’s past, they detach themselves from local histories of the enslaved.

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