Somerset Homecoming: Recovering a Lost Heritage

Summary: Somerset Homecoming, first published in 1989, is the story of one woman's unflagging efforts to recover the history of her ancestors, slaves who had lived and worked at Somerset Place.

Traveling down winding southern roads, through county courthouses and state archives, and onto the front porches of people willing to share tales handed down through generations,

Dorothy Spruill Redford spent ten years tracing the lives of Somerset's slaves and their descendants.

Her endeavors culminated in the joyous, nationally publicized homecoming she organized that brought together more than 2,000 descendants of the plantation's slaves and owners and marked the beginning of a campaign to turn Somerset Place into a remarkable resource for learning about the history of both African Americans and whites in the region.

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From Somerset Place State Historic Site:

Dorothy Spruill Redford embodies #ArchivesTrailblazers in the modern era of public history.

As a private citizen and descendant of enslaved people from Somerset Place, she not only traced her ancestry back seven generations, but also traced the lineage of the whole former enslaved community.

Dorothy Redford then reached out to other descendants and organized a unique reunion known as the Somerset Homecoming in 1986.

On August 30 of that year, approximately 2,000 descendants of the enslaved community and some descendants of the Collins family reunited at Somerset Place, making international headlines.

Yet Redford did not stop with the Homecoming. She recognized a unique opportunity at Somerset to interpret the lives of the enslaved community and eventually became the Site Manager.

The Homecomings she organized ushered in monumental changes at the site, which went from ignoring the contributions of the enslaved community to emphasizing them.

The Homecomings also changed the narrative at plantation historic sites across the country because Somerset Place was one of the first to include enslaved people and their descendants in its interpretations.

As a result, Dorothy Redford’s work has had national impacts in the fields of public history and genealogy.