In addition to touring the grounds surrounding the Wessyngton mansion, National Black Arts Festival members and guests walked in the footsteps of Baker’s ancestor in the slave cabin area of the plantation. The group went inside a restored slave cabin built ca. 1830. In 1860, there were 274 enslaved African Americans on the plantation, housed in forty log cabins. At the onset of the Civil War, Wessyngton held the largest African American population in the state of Tennessee and was the largest tobacco producer in America.
Tags: African History, Antebellum Plantation, black history, Civil War, Dr. Collette Hopkins, National Black Arts Festival, plantation slavery, Plantations, Slave cabins, Slave Housing, Slave Labor, Slave Life, Southern Plantation, Tennessee slavery, Wessyngton mansion
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[...] I met John BAKER at an Atlanta AAHGS presentation and book signing, but missed the opportunity to tour Wessyngton Plantation as part of the National Black Arts Festival offerings in [...]