History and Museums: The Slavery museum
This use of museums hits home with a plan to build a Slavery Museum close to Williamsburg and Jamestown, Virginia. These colonial towns tell the story of the colony from the white viewpoint, while the new museum will reinforce the revisionist view of the Founding Fathers as slave owners. The plan was presented at Howard University in an excellent address by Governor Douglas Wilder of Virginia, a very impressive individual who, in the curious American nomenclature is described as Black. Following him, another Black, Lonnie Bunch, president of the Chicago Historical Society, gave an interesting talk on the history of slavery, his special field. Both presentations were thoughtful and balanced. Both men are similar to Colin Powell in quality.
However, hell is paved with good intentions. Governor Wilder told of a tour of Africa he had made and of the effusively warm receptions he had been accorded everywhere. Not a word about the corruption of most black governments, which in many cases have simply wrecked the viable structures colonialism left in place. There was no mention of the fact that black tribal leaders often sold blacks to slave-traders, that slavery, which goes back to ancient times, still exists in some Islamic areas, despite Islamic protestations of human equality, and that many African leaders todays mistreat their people despicably.
All this is a buildup for the celebrations of 2007, marking the fourth centennial of the arrival of the "Susan Constant" (who was she?), "Discovery" and "Goodspeed", three ships sent by the London Company, established by Shakespeare's patron, Henry Wriothhesley, Earl of Southampton, with 147 settlers described as mostly "reprobates of good families". Governor Wilder referred to "indentured servants", a status similar to slavery. These were the origins of white Virginia. The guests at the grand 2007 celebrations will see at least the beginnings of the Slavery Museum and a replica of a slave ship, showing the horrible conditions in which the slaves were transported. What about those of the indentured servants?
The new museum, nest to the colonial settlements, can be justified as providing the historical balance WAIS preaches as an antidote to the propaganda so common in history textbooks. However, if the hospitality received by Governor Wilder in Africa is reciprocated and African leaders descend on Virginia, there may be trouble, as there was at the human rights meeting in Durban. If the celebrations degenerate into white-bashing, which is the last thing Governor Wilder has in mind, the American reaction will be nasty. We hear a great deal about the miseries of slavery. What about the deaths of the many white Northern young men who died to free them? Their descendants deserve reparations, if anyone does, presumably from the blacks. The Slavery Museum promises to be interesting. I have complete confidence in Governor Wilder to steer the Virginia ship of state through these dangerous reefs.
Ronald Hilton - 3/20/02
Museums used to be pretty dull places: just a lot of objects placed on shelves. Then the idea arose of using them to tell a story with a moral, thus joining history textbooks and movies as a device to propagate a version of history. There was in El Morro at Havana a small museum telling the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition; the aim was to convince Cubans of the joy of shaking off the Spanish yoke. The Inquisition was still a memory when I was a child. How much do present-day students know about the Inquisition? The Communists used historical museums for indoctrination in Moscow, East Berlin and elsewhere. The theme was the overthrow of capitalism and the victory of communism. I wonder what has happened to those museums now? In Mexico City's Castle of Chapultepec there is a delightful Museum of the Mexican Revolution. telling its story down to the 1917 constitution, to which a kind of shrine is devoted. It teaches school children respect for the constitution, but it also serves to legitimize the now discredited PRI. There are Holocaust Museums in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, intended to depict the Jews as victims, but for young people the Holocaust is history. rather like the Spanish Inquisition. For them the reality is Sharon and the Palestinians as victims.
| Webmaster |