Weeks after a power-sharing dispute between descendants of enslaved workers and previous leadership was resolved at James Madison’s Montpelier, descendants at another former president’s home will formally gather for the first time. Organized by the Highland Council of Descendant Advisors, Descendants Day at James Monroe’s Highland will happen on June 11 from 1-4pm. The event is free and open to the public.
“It’s something that we’ve been talking about doing since Highland started collaborating with a group of descendants in recent years,” says Sara Bon-Harper, executive director at Highland, the former home of the fifth U.S. president.
The council formed in 2019, a few years after a major discovery at Highland: The home long assumed to have been a remnant of Monroe’s residence was actually a guest cottage built by two enslaved men named Peter Mallory and George Williams. At the time of that discovery in 2016, Bon-Harper says, researchers identified the archaeological remains of the foundation of the actual main house. That structure had been built in 1799, but was completely destroyed by fire just a few years after Monroe sold it.
It was the headline-grabbing nature of that discovery that prompted the formation of the council, says Bon-Harper, who attended a summit at Montpelier in 2018 with Highland descendant George Monroe, Jr. The summit, she says, “examined how we should share authority and how we should consider the perspectives of descendant communities in our work of research, public teaching or education, interpretation and governance.”
The Highland council has not yet formally incorporated, but Jennifer Stacy, one of the council’s 11 members, says the relationship with Highland’s leadership has been positive and includes frequent Zoom meetings during which the descendants give feedback on projects and offer oral histories passed down through their families.
“It’s our way of kind of giving a voice to the voiceless,” says Stacy. “I say that a lot because…it’s true, and because I think it perfectly captures exactly what we’re doing here, which is giving a voice to the voiceless and making sure that the descendants are not forgotten.”
Stacy watched the recent dispute at Montpelier unfold with a mix of worry and hope.
“In the end, the descendants were heard, they were respected, and now they’re in a position of authority that I think is what descendants deserve,” she says.
The first Descendants Day, Stacy says, is an opportunity to let the community see the work that’s being done at Highland, and facilitate new conversations.
“It’s step by step that this reinterpretation leads to a dialogue with someone who may have totally different ideas about this world than I have or any of the descendants have, but can stop this one moment in time and read the exhibit, see the difference, understand that it means something in this world,” she says.
Courteney Stuart is host of “Charlottesville Right Now” on WINA. You can hear her interview with Sara Bon-Harper and Jennifer Stacy at wina.com.
