Visitors Nicholas Slater and Terrah McCoy play shekeres at the Washington family's Popes Creek Plantation as Nikita Gilkey (in doorway), her mother, Vernice, and father, William, sing spirituals yesterday and interpreter Roberta Samuel looks on.

LaToya Lyburn, an interpreter at George Washington Birthplace National Monument, cooks hoe cakes in the kitchen house.

Visitors to George Washington Birthplace get look at how 18th-century slaves made plantation work

By PAMELA GOULD

Date published: 9/7/2004

Roberta Samuel spent Labor Day in period dress, toiling before an open fire to re-create the life of an 18th-century slave at George Washington's birthplace.

It was an experience not lost on visitors to the historic site in Westmoreland County.

They immediately noticed the intense heat and the risk of burning Samuel and LaToya Lyburn faced as they cooked over the wood-stoked fire in their long loose skirts and as they placed piles of embers on the hearth to fix several dishes simultaneously.

"It's certainly a lot of hard work," said Mary Sawers, who was visiting the area from Northfield, Ill., with her husband, Peter. "We just don't appreciate what we have have now."

Yesterday was the first time local volunteers and employees at George Washington Birthplace National Monument handled the living-history demonstrations that are part of each summer's African-American heritage day.

This year, budget constraints prevented hiring the Colonial Williamsburg interpreters used in the past. But employees were eager for the task.

"It's something we've gotten pretty excited about," said Samuel, who is a park ranger.

Workers at the national monument plan to use the information offered yesterday for a program that will travel to schools or be provided to visiting school groups. They will share details on slave cooking, music and storytelling, and how slaves and their masters interacted.

When George Washington lived at or visited Popes Creek Plantation--between 1730 and 1750--18 slaves and four indentured servants worked there, Samuel said.

"They were a little community of themselves--the slaves and the family," she said. "Everybody had to work together to get things done."

But that didn't mean it was a communal environment.

Slaves ate whatever their masters didn't want--such as the liver, kidneys, intestines and feet of the animals they consumed, and the bonier fish caught off the plantation's shores.

House slaves found sleeping space wherever they could--in an attic, a storage space or under a stairwell, Supervisory Park Ranger John Frye said. And field slaves slept in log quarters built around the plantation as different acreage was worked for tobacco.

Re-creating an accurate slave quarters is another project Frye said is under way.

Hague residents William and Vernice Gilkey provided yesterday's visitors a chance to experience the spiritual songs slaves sang in worship. Samuel spoke of other songs used to inspire slaves as they worked.

Date published: 9/7/2004