Reparations and American Slavery No. 26

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

How we frame news stories matters. To frame is to divert and channel thought in a desired direction. Anyone who has written a brief understands the power of framing the issue. Once upon a time in a place far, far away, I taught Legal Research and Writing. Words were chosen with care and aforethought to advance the argument at all times.

Should journalism be in the same business of advocacy as my former law students?

Case in point — my good friend Dan (a shameless white oppressor/triple smile) sent me an article about ancestral homage to a slave ancestor. The article was titled, “She cherished the home where her family fled slavery. Then a stranger bought it.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/interactive/2023/richland-farm-slavery-maryland-gilbert/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f002 Now, if you know nothing else about the story, you are primed to focus on the words (1) cherish, (2) fled slavery, and (3) stranger. The title taps into our collective compassion while calling into question the role of the “stranger.” Who is this stranger? And is the stranger a force for good or for ill as the story is framed?

Before I suggest an alternative title for this story, let’s review the particulars, a plot line all descendants of American slavery can relate to and know all too well.

The heroine of our story is Stephanie Gilbert, a former AT&T executive “with fair skin, green eyes and curly blond hair,” who may be no stranger to the Black Elite in the United States of America. In 1848, nearly two hundred years ago, Gilbert’s great great grandfather, Oliver Cromwell Gilbert, escaped from slavery at Richland Farm in Clarksville, Maryland. Oliver made his way to freedom via the home of Pennsylvania abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, the offices of William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper The Liberator, and New Hampshire.

The chain of events are not clear but, eventually, Oliver found his way to Saratoga Springs and Philadelphia.

A moving part of the story is desire of the former runaway slave to present himself as a man, a man of success, to his former master’s family. Stands to reason and a powerful testament to human dignity. “In 1884, Gilbert’s great-great-grandfather purchased an expensive suit, donned a hat and a silk umbrella, and returned to (the land of his enslavement) in a horse-drawn carriage driven by a White coachman. He had something to prove.” Oliver wrote “When I left there I was very coarsely dressed in rags…Now that I am a freeman, I want those who are still at the old home, let them see what freedom has done for me.”

Oddly enough, the journalist Sydney Trent does not share the words exchanged between the son of Gassaway Watkins, Oliver’s first slave owner, and Oliver.

Oliver returned again to the place of his enslavement on an early February day in 1908 at the age of 76. This time, Oliver met with former Maryland Governor Edwin Warfield, the grandson of his former slave owner. It is not clear what words actually transpired between Oliver and Warfield. I would like to know. The grandson had absolutely no memory of Oliver in 1908. In fact, the grandson would only have had childhood memories of slavery since the Fifteenth Amendment abolished slavery in Maryland in December 1865.

That was the point of the Civil War by 1865.

The 1900s were prejudiced and bigoted times, so I do not trust the description of the meeting in the Baltimore Sun titled “Back to Massa Edwin”:

“It’s been a mighty long time since I runned away from your father,’ said the Negro in a quavering voice. ‘I reckon it was mighty 60 years ago, but I reckon you’ll forgive me this time.’ Warfield, according to the Sun, threatened Oliver to ‘send you around to ‘quarters’ and…cowhide you.’”

Instead, I credit the actual words of the grandson to Oliver:

“I am very proud of the fact that you and your children have been making such an honorable record in life, because it bears out what I have always asserted — that the relationship existing between the master and his servants in the old days was one of affection and loyalty,” the former governor, 16 years younger, wrote Oliver in 1908.

The words speak for themselves and do not need a gloss or spin.

I also credit with more force Oliver’s rejoinder in 1911 to the grandson:

“There are some very pleasant memories of the house, and some of that are not so pleasant to recall…You said, when I met you in Baltimore, ‘That I did not run away because I was treated so badly, but that I had a burning thirst for liberty, and could not resist the temptation.’ That was just it, a love of liberty, a desire to be free is an element inherent in man’s nature. When I saw your Uncle William Watkins sell poor cousin William Dorsey to the slave trader…his wife begging so hard, in vain…it set me to thinking.”

Oliver’s greatgreatgrandaughter, Stephanie Gilbert, quite naturally feels an attachment to the old home of slavery, Richland Farm. Gilbert and I are of the same generation. We are each greatgreatgrandchildren of former slaves. The difference is in how we interpret and make sense of the old family place.

And those distinctions are important because everyone is an individual. We respond to a common past of slavery in individual ways.

For Gilbert, the old home place, Richland Farm, has become a shrine, a part of her identity today. Over the years, Gilbert has “established a relationship with the White descendant who had inherited Richland….” To her credit and out of honor for her ancestor Oliver, Gilbert sought out the new owners of the Richland place in 2011. The occupants at that time, Dan Standish and Melanie Dorsey, were both attorneys and presumably appreciated the connection with the family history and history of the home. The couple gave Gilbert a tour of the home. Gilbert strolled through the grand staircase and imagined her ancestor, Oliver, attending to his work duties as a waiter.

Gilbert savored the irony of being served lunch by a descendant of Oliver’s slave master. A Hollywood moment of truth and reconciliation I applaud. More descendants of American slavery should seek out each other and break bread at the old homestead.

Now, here is where I begin to sense manipulation in the story. Gilbert is also related to the Richland Farm through her white ancestors, the Watkins family. Why didn’t Gilbert imagine her white ancestors as well in the living quarters? Clearly and from her physical appearance, Gilbert is not one hundred (100%) percent black. Why should her imaginings be 100% percent black? When I visited the ancestral home of the Twymans, Oak Lawn, I imagined my white 5x greatgrandfather George Twyman III and his family. George built the home in 1750 and I felt a pinch of pietas.

Query where is Gilbert’s pietas for her blood Watkins’ ancestors?

I don’t want to digress at this point. This essay has much more to say. However, I feel there was a weird erasure and dismissal of Gilbert’s white ancestors from the news story. What’s up with that? Could it be that Gilbert closes her eyes to the horrible ancestors in her blood line and can only imagine and perceive the victim ancestors in her blood lines? If so, this condition is cognitive dissonance enabled by the framing of the news story.

Allow me to paraphrase the writer Sydney Trent — “She was largely incurious about her family’s history…even more so after she learned…about her ancestors’ lives as enslavers.”

Back to Gilbert and her spiritual journey towards Oliver — the years passed and Gilbert continued to visit the old place and “commune with her ancestors on the land.” Gilbert even celebrated a Juneteenth picnic on the side porch. (And the Watkins’ ancestors remained invisible to Gilbert.)

One day, the occupants of the house divorced. A while later, Dorsey decided she could not keep the house. One thing led to another and the house was placed on the market.

“I was in shock,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert pleaded for anything she could take from the old place to remind her of her enslaved ancestors, whatever her ancestors might have held or gazed upon. By this point in the story, Gilbert is pushing the envelope just a tad. Richland is not your property. You should be grateful for the access you have been granted over the years but, at some point, things became creepy.

So, the Richland place was sold to a thin Asian woman, Jungsun Kim. Kim owns a liquor store in Ellicott City, Maryland. I bet you all a Suzy-Q Kim had no ancestors living life around the Richland place in the 1800s. Life has moved on from 1848.

And yet Gilbert decided Richland Farm had a history, a personal history, Kim must respect. Gilbert wrote a moving two-page letter about her unique family history, that she had a relationship with the former owner, that Gilbert, a complete stranger (italics added), continue to visit the 133-acre estate where her enslaved ancestors are buried (no official record of this by the way at the Howard County courthouse).

In so many words, Kim said, “No”:

After consulting with her daughter and son and a couple of her children’s Black friends about Gilbert’s request, she said she does not feel obligated to grant access. She knows the history of Richland and slavery in the United States, but that was “over a hundred years ago.” There are historic sites all over the country where Gilbert can go to engage with the enslavement of African-Americans, she said…This is independent, private property. It’s not open to the public.”

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There is so much to unpack in this story, the plight of Stephanie Gilbert.

Let’s flip the script for a moment. Like Gilbert, I have a greatgreatgrandfather who was a slave. And like Gilbert, I have felt a longing to walk the same long boards as my direct ancestor. But this is where our stories diverge.

Suppose it is a sunny May day in 1872.

James Williamson Randolph, Jr. and a Randolph cousin saddle up in downtown Richmond, Virginia. They ride south down the Petersburg Turnpike until they come to the Falling Creek bridge. The two Randolph cousins turn left and gallop towards the James River. At the same time, they see the good farm house by the waterfront. They ride up to the home and are greeted by my greatgreatgrandfather, Daniel Brown (1833-1885), with a shot gun in hand. See Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America by Winkfield F. Twyman, Jr. and Jennifer Richmond (May 23, 2023), Appendix IV: Inventory & Appraisement of Personal Estate of Daniel Brown (1833-1885), page 375. https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Black-White-Correspondence-America-ebook/dp/B0BVT37P5N?ref_=ast_author_mpb

For those who don’t know, the Randolph Family “is a prominent political family, whose members contributed to the politics of Colonial Virginia and Virginia after statehood…The Randolph family was the wealthiest and most powerful family in 18th-century Virginia.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_family_of_Virginia

Why are the scions of the most powerful family in 18th-century Virginia saddling up to a farm house owned by a black man and his growing family?

Like Stephanie Gilbert, the Randolph cousins cherish the home where their ancestors owned slaves. The caption to the story might even read They Cherished the Home Where Their Family Owned Slaves. Then A Stranger Bought It. Would the new owner of Chester Lodge let White cousins continue visiting to pay tribute to their enslaver ancestors?

In reality, the home is “Chester Lodge, a farm and good dwelling house.” It first appears in the historical record on February 3, 1797, as the residence of Henry Randolph. Henry published an advertisement in the local Richmond newspaper for a runaway slave. Henry’s son, James Williamson Randolph, who became the most prominent book publisher in Richmond, Virginia, was born at Chester Lodge on August 19, 1815. A public auction of the property occurred in March 1837.

On June 21, 1871, my greatgreatgrandfather Daniel Brown purchased Chester Lodge from Henry Clay Jenks, a grocer in Richmond. Chester Lodge included eight acres of land comprising all the old landings on the James River at Warwick.

Suppose the Randolph descendants made the same pitch to my ancestor Daniel Brown that Gilbert made to Kim about visits because of ancestral memories? Would we expect Daniel to say “Yes, let’s break bread together. I will give you two a guided tour of the home?” No, we would expect Daniel to be wary and disinclined to allow total strangers in his home, on his property. The Randolph cousins may have wonderful memories of Chester Lodge from their ancestors in the late 1700s but Chester Lodge is now Daniel’s property, free and clear. And Daniel owns a shot gun to enforce the point.

Flip the script. Replace Stephanie Gilbert with the Randolph descendants. Replace liquor store owner Kim with my ancestor Daniel Brown. Change the year 2023 to 1872. Doing so helps us to see the creepiness of the Gilbert plight in a different light.

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Where is the common sense anymore?

While I do appreciate the moving story of Gilbert’s connection to the place of her ancestor’s enslavement, there is a line between the reasonable and the unreasonable. Obviously, the Richland Farm is very meaningful for Gilbert. I’m glad Gilbert got a chance to establish a connection with the home. That is very important.

My wife and I have visited Congressman Joseph H. Rainey’s home at 909 Prince Street in Georgetown, South Carolina, his Bermuda home in the Tucker house during our honeymoon, and his country summer home in Windsor, Connecticut with our Bright and Morning Star in tow. It was important for us to feel connection with our ancestors.

All of the occupants were pleasing and accommodating as Gilbert experienced with Dorsey and her husband. Owning a national historic home carries certain responsibilities, although query whether the Richland Farm qualifies as a national historic landmark.

I also had a wonderful opportunity to visit the Twyman ancestral home, Oak Lawn, built in the year 1750 in Albemarle County, Virginia. Unlike Gilbert, I focused on my connection with George Twyman III (1731-1818) who built and owned Oak Lawn, not so much the slave connection for which I had no records.

I think Gilbert has every right to feel a connection to the home, Richland Farm. Remaining incurious about one’s white ancestors strikes me as unbalanced. Gilbert should also honor and respect the wishes of the new property owner, Kim. That’s just the nature of private property. While it is nice for the previous owners to have been accommodating for visits, there is no expectation that one open up one’s home or property for a total stranger.

Moreover, why didn’t Gilbert step up to the plate and purchase the house if she felt strongly about the matter? I have a distant relative on my mother’s side who purchased a former plantation in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. It’s not reparations for American slavery. It’s called home ownership. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/sharswood-air-force-veteran-plantation-ancestors-reclaiming-history-60-minutes-video-2023-02-12/

(Note there was no 60 Minutes reporter to interview my greatgreatgrandfather about his purchase of a former Randolph plantation in 1871…oh well.)

My wife’s family was offered a first bid on the Congressman’s home in Georgetown. No descendant was interested in buying the property which is a fine outcome. There is no moral imperative to purchase an ancestor’s home from the 1800s, although it is always nice to keep homes in the family as long as possible.

The Harvard Law School connection is interesting. Dorsey is a graduate of Harvard Law School. I do not support Harvard’s interest in reparations for American slavery as you know. Nor do I think the former owners, or the current owner, of Richland Farm owe a legal obligation for “reparations” to Gilbert. Time has moved on. It is time for Gilbert to feel grateful for her time at the house but it is a little weird…the overkill and expectation that a new owner would feel any legal obligation towards Gilbert.

Property rights are not encumbered by long ago slavery. I never felt any expectation of easement rights when visiting Oak Lawn (although legally under Virginia state law, I do have a legal right to view the grave of my ancestor George Twyman III). As for the Tucker House, the home is open to the public. As for the Windsor summer home, I wrote a nice letter to the current owners which was well-received.

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I began this essay by suggesting titles could manipulate one’s emotions. In all sincerity, might not a better caption for this news story be Gilbert and Muscular Memory of the Big House? I suspect Randolph family descendants never pined to walk the floorboards of Chester Lodge. Slavery was over, time had moved on and to quote Oliver Gilbert from 1908 “Old things have passed away and all things have become new.”