Somerset Plantation
“Somerset Homecoming” at Somerset Place State Historic Site in Creswell, NC. The August 30, 1986 homecoming was the first-ever event of its kind: a reunion of descendants of the enslaved community of the large southern Somerset plantation in Creswell, NC.
Organized by then site manager Dorothy Spruill Redford–who also was a descendant of the enslaved community–the happening brought together hundreds of family members from around the country and garnered international attention.
Somerset Place was home to more than 861 enslaved people when it was active from 1785 until 1865.
Now as a historic site it was interpreted for years mainly in terms of the wealth of the slaver Collins family, which owned the plantation, and the fact that the operation was among the largest and most economically successful in the state.
Redford shifted the site’s focus and began telling the stories of all the families who lived there with focus on learning and telling the life stories of the enslaved Black people population.
Recognizing that the enslaved people’s forced labor was the central impetus for the success of the plantation, Redford was quoted by the New York Times during the homecoming, saying,
”From this day forward, there will always be a shared recognition. They’ll think of the Josiah Collins family, but they’ll think of my family too.”
She described the state historic site as ”a living monument to ordinary folks – to our toil, our lives, our lineage.
Image source: NO.55976-From the N&O negative collection, State Archives of North Carolina.
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Read More about the enslaved Black population and the Homecoming event Here:
Generations of Somerset Place: From Slavery to Freedom (Images of America)
August 31, 2005
by Dorothy Spruill Redford
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=294217801302809&set=a.169158510475406
And Here:
Somerset Homecoming: Recovering a Lost Heritage
By Dorothy Spruill Redford
Introduction by Alex Haley
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1022234008501181&set=a.169158510475406