Super Museum Sunday Savannah, Georgia - Part 1

Today was Super Museum Day in Georgia.  There are so many museums and houses that I want to visit in Savannah so I figured this was my opportunity to squeeze in as many as I could since they were free.  My only challenge was going to be time as it was just on Sunday afternoon. I print out the ones I want to visit and circle each one on the map.  I have seven museums on my list.  SEVEN in four hours.  This was going to be challenging but not impossible.  I number them from 1 to 7 and go in order of location.  After all, I can’t be running back and forth.  Always have a research plan!  

I leave the house and get to Savannah right at noon.  The first house I go to is the Davenport House Museum.  I didn’t expect such long lines!  Wow.  That’s ok, I’ll wait.  I’m in line for about 10 minutes and I’m getting close to the door.  There are about 25 people in front of me when I heard a call for a single person to go on the tour right now.  Oh yay!  I speak up and say that I’m just one.  I get to cut the whole line.  There’s no photography allowed so I’m glad that I took my notepad and pencil.  The house was built in 1820 by Isaiah Davenport who was from Rhode Island.  Oh yay!  A fellow Rhode Islander, this is getting better and better.  He was married with TEN children.  Holy cow….  Then they say there were 9 enslaved people that lived in the house with the Davenports.  That’s where the better and better ended. 

This is when the ugly history of our country hits you square in the face.  I am in Savannah, GA.  This was a fact of life pre-Civil War.  It’s still hard to wrap my head around people OWNING people.  That’s just so messed up.  The house is a beautiful antebellum Savannah home. We go through the house and they point out all the beautiful aspects of it.  There are a lot of authentic items in the house that were owned by the family.   I take it all in.  I’m impressed by the beauty and craftsmanship of the house.  Then we go to the basement.  That’s where the kitchen is and where the enslaved people would have slept. It’s not beautiful.  It dark and dank.  People SLEPT in this basement.  They had names and they have documentation on them.  There were two male adults named Ned and Davey.  There was a woman named Bella with four children, the youngest was a year old.  There were two sisters name Peggy and Nancy.  Nancy was owned by the family first (again, that’s messed up to OWN other people) and she kept running away to see her sister Peggy.  They found multiple articles in the paper about Nancy that the Davenports were looking for her and they wanted her back.  So they ended up buying Peggy so they would be together.   They said that this was considered unusual.  I’m still trying to process all of this information.  So. Messed. Up.   We were also told that urban slaves had a bit of a different life than plantation living.  If slaves had to be ‘punished’ then it would not take place at these house in the city.  They would be sent to a guard house or jail to be punished or whipped there.  WHAT???!!!  At this point, my head was going to explode.  I realize that I’m on a tour and they are telling us the history of this home, good bad and ugly but for some reason, I didn’t think of this aspect of my tour.   I should have!  I’m visiting antebellum homes in Savannah, GA.  Duh….  The Docents were wonderful and very nice.  They are just reporting the history of the house. They ask if we have questions.  Oh, I have questions!  LOTS of questions.  This is when the genealogist in me comes out.  I ask if they know the descendants of the enslaved people they named.  They tell me that they have someone who is working on doing just that.  Ok, that’s good.  They go onto say that it’s hard to trace that.  Yes, I understand that.  So many questions!  There were many other facts about the house and the items that were talked about too.  But I’m still thinking about the nine enslaved people.  In the gift shop, there are all kinds of things.  I wanted to buy a few books!  I didn’t but I may have to go back to do that.  There were some brochures on the house and I see one called The Enslaved Servants of Isaiah Davenports Household.  There are 14 names on the front of the brochure.  14?!!  I thought they said 9?   14 or 9.   It’s all just bad.  No one should own another human being.  I’m not going to sleep tonight….

It’s weird, sometimes I can walk into a location and I feel those previous people.  I can’t explain it.  But today was one of those days.  My heart hurt for those poor souls in that house.  This is when I’m so glad that I can’t go back in time.  I would have been arrested for trying to free those enslaved people.  

The house was beautiful and the historical aspect was fascinating.   My thoughts are not at all directed at the docents or the museum.  This was just my own thoughts as they were telling us the facts. Kudos to them for publishing the brochure on the enslaved and for working to find descendants.  I’m so glad that the full history is revealed in the tour.