Natchez: "It's What You Love About the South!"

I woke up this morning determined to bite the bullet and visit some of the gracious, stately homes of which Natchez is so proud.  Huge, incredible Greek Revival mansions with names like "Melrose" and "Dunleith" dominate the town here.  Longwood, the largest octagonal house in America, with its Byzantine-Moorish dome, or Magnolia Hall, with a Union cannonball still embedded in its kitchen, are filled with lovely antiques, original Italian marble fireplaces, still-working gas lamps, and magnificent gardens full of magnolia and live oak trees.  Natchez before the war had more millionaires per capita than any city in the US.  Many were northern bankers and merchants who came down here when cotton was king, bought plantations and slaves they never saw (they were usually purchased and supervised by overseers), and built amazingly ornate houses where they entertained the cotton buyers and held grand parties.  They had slaves, but they were called "house servants," and were supposedly treated relatively well.  Their "gracious way of life" was supported by the misery and oppression of thousands of other human beings, most of whom they never saw.  Still, I thought, it's part of history, so I should go look at some of these architectural masterpieces.  Sigh.

Dunleith, built in 1856.  A gracious mansion.

Natchez was named for the Natchez Indians, who lived here along the Mississippi for at least 1200 years before encountering French trappers and traders.  The French and the Natchez lived side by side for a number of years, apparently peacefully, but one day, for some unknown reason, the Indians decided to "revolt."  Isn't it interesting the way history is told?  We have a lot of written records from the French, but of course, none from the native peoples.  Why, do you think, they would just one day, after living with a relationship, decide it was time to make war on the French for no reason?  Hm.  We were, of course, joking around in these French accents: "I do not know, ze Indians, just one day, for no reazon, zey just revolted.  I would think zey would be happ-ey, we give zem ze little beads, and zey give us all ze furs..."  But it's really a lesson in who is telling the story, and what is omitted.  You have to think about that extra hard when you're down here in the South.  The French built a fort, defeated the Natchez, and they fled, never to return to their homes (although they left these big mounds that you can visit, one of which is the second largest pre-Columbian mound of its kind in the US).

For a long time, the story of these stately homes was told through "Confederate Pageants" and the "Pilgrimage," which started during the Depression, even before Gone With the Wind came out.  The ladies who lived in these houses, many of whom were descendants of the original owners (but who were now pretty destitute) were looking for ways to make an extra buck without going out to work (which of course would be horrible), so they started inviting tourists to come into their homes.  Right now it costs 12 bucks a person to tour most of these homes.  If you think I am going to pay any money to see places that were built from slave labor, unless they are something in ancient Greece or Rome, you are crazy.  We got into Dunleith for free because we had a free breakfast ticket at the restaurant there and a tour comes with the breakfast.  Later, we went to Melrose, which is part of the National Parks Service, so we didn't have to pay for that one, either.

Melrose, 1845-47

The ladies of the mansions created this entire big show for tourists, completely romanticizing and mythologizing the Old South.  I am inserting a link for you to watch a little bit of a show about the Pilgrimage, as they call it.  Click here to be nauseated beyond belief.  You may notice that there are only white people in this pageant.  You may wonder why anyone in his or her right mind would want to pay money to see something like this.  And of course, you would be correct.  The whole Pilgrimage thing is dying out; the old grande dames of the pageant today were the little granddaughters of the pageant's founders in the 1930s.  Attendance is way down; while there used to be four or five busloads of tourists a day, swarming through the streets on their way to these homes, there now might be one.  Nobody really wants to hear people tell a bunch of lies any more, or a whitewashed version of history, especially with real historians of African-American history starting to show up down here.  People have access to their smart phones, and can quickly fact check anything the tour guides tell them, a phenomenon that has apparently started to occur (and really offend the gracious ladies in their hoop skirts, let me tell you).

We suffered through part of the tour of Dunleith, in which the leering grandfatherly silver haired gentleman kept telling the blond 14 year old girl that she should really come back here and have a spectacular wedding in ten years, while he ignored us completely.  I did see the autobiography of John Roy Lynch, a man who had been born a slave into the house and become the first black member of the US Congress, on a side table, which helped me to get through a couple of rooms, but frankly we pretty much fled after about 15 minutes of the guy talking about the craftsmen who had built it, the Italian marble, the furniture that had been reinforced so that obese white tourists could sit and sip a mint julep "no matter what their size" (I kid you not).  After that, we decided to try Melrose, since it was right up the road, and was free to get in with the NPS pass we had purchased in Utah, and which has come in very handy, from Hovenweep to the Grand Canyon to Vicksburg.  The ranger told us that the house tour was an extra ten dollars, even for NPS card holders.  What a rip off.  But, he added, the slave exhibit is included.  Great!  I have been waiting to hear about slavery here in Natchez, place where they still display souvenirs like this in a restaurant shaped like a giant Mammy.

 We ate there, to my daughter's dismay, and I must report that "Mammy's Chicken Salad Sandwich" was unremarkable, served on less-than-fresh bread.  But in any case, we trudged over the grass (I am now scared of red ants because of Matt's warning) to the little slave outbuilding, to learn about the lives of these enslaved people, about 25 of them, who were owned by the McMurrans, who had several plantations in the delta and were some of the richest people in wealthy Natchez.  
The modest slave quarters had a pretty good exhibit, with some writings by the mistress of the house about the lives of the slaves, as well as some stories of rebellions and runaways.  They also directed us to the site known as "Forks of the Road," the second

largest slave market in the US.  After the international slave trade was supposedly banned in 1808 (although lots of people were smuggled in, especially by the pirate, Jean Lafitte), and after tobacco started becoming less lucrative in places like Virginia, planters started selling their slaves "down the river," sending them either by boat from Alexandria or in coffles across the land from Richmond, to Charleston (the largest) and Natchez (the second largest), the centers of the slave trade.  We went to check out the site of this market, but nothing was there except a sign and some very brief little interpretive plaques.  Now we were really hungry for more African American history, and pretty much at this point left the stately homes in the dust.  I mean, all those "magnificent original furnishings and decorative objects," the "poignant reminder of past glories," the "intricate moldings and graceful staircases" just run together after about five minues anyway, don't they?  And the bitter undertaste of all of them, that was the story I wanted to uncover and hear.  Luckily, the second part of the Natchez National Park site is the home of William Johnson, also known as "the Barber of Natchez," a free black who lived in Natchez from the 1830s until his death in 1851 and kept a daily diary that entire time.  It's over 2000 pages long and details, more than any other written document, daily life for blacks and whites, free and slave, during that time in the city.  Click here to read more about the Barber of Natchez. 

At this point, we were just so relieved to get away from the gracious way o' life

While in the visitor center, we met this guy who was the ranger there.  I started talking to him, first about William Johnson, and then about his own life, growing up in Natchez.  I told him my impressions of the two separate societies, and he pretty much confirmed what I said.  He told me he did not go to school with one white person, until he went to college at Alcorn State University, which is the first public land-grant institution in the US, the second oldest state-sponsored higher education college in the state of Mississippi, and was set up during - you guessed it - Reconstruction, for the education of freed black people.  Click here to visit Alcorn State University website. Maybe you can apply there!  This ranger, born in 1970, got a BA in History and an MA in History Education, and let me tell you he knew a lot!  He gave me some "Civil War to Civil Rights" trading cards (I knew they existed), although they were out of John Roy Lynch and Fannie Lou Hamer, my two favorite players (I guess they were a lot of people's favorites, which is why they were out).  He told me about his dad, who was a Civil Rights activist and NAACP chapter president. He said they used to get death threat phone calls from the Klan on a regular basis at his house, and we talked a little bit about the history of the "Silver Dollar Gang" in Mississippi.  If you don't know about the Silver Dollar Gang, or all the various killings that took place in Mississippi, read about them HERE!  I could have talked to him for hours but he had to go to lunch, so he sent us over to the African American History museum, where his dad's picture hangs on the wall.  We were met outside by the director, Darrell White, who asked us what we wanted.  We told him we wanted to know about black history in Natchez, to which he replied, "How much time have you got?"  We then proceeded to have a two hour conversation with him, in which I asked him a ton of questions about his personal life (I'm not shy about these things), and he showed us an unbelievable promotional video from the 1930s about the Pilgrimage, which features happy darkies dancing around in the slave cabins, and old "Aunt Jane," a former slave herself, telling the cinematic audience about "how much happier we wuz in those days."  I am not joking.

There was only one other visitor there, an older African American lady who said she had just come in to see the photo of her brother, the first black firefighter battalion chief in Natchez.  She said she didn't really have to listen to the history lessons because she had been there.  She then said something about "marching across that bridge" in Selma in 1965 and, as they say in the south, I like to fell out.  I wish I could have talked to her more, but once again, it's so hard for me to understand people down here!  Matt did a better job of having a conversation with her. We also met the other museum staff, including David Dreyer, who looked like the love child of Paul Raymond and Allen Ginsberg (you can see his photo in the Al Jazeera article at the end of this incredibly long blog entry), and took us around the various exhibits, including the "Richard Wright room."  We then went back to the William Johnson house and talked to the ranger again about modern day slavery, college parties, Reconstruction, and teaching.  It was so awesome.  What a day.  I was jazzed.  

You know, the real story of Natchez is that during the era of Reconstruction, the first black members of congress were elected.

These guys include John Roy Lynch and Hiram Revels, the first black US Senator, who then became president of Alcorn College, now Alcorn State University, where our tour guide went to school.  Many other schools were established for formerly enslaved people, who enjoyed the right to vote.  It was only after the disastrous Tilden-Hayes compromise that these rights were again denied, and the entire Civil Rights movement had to happen, with so much violence and so many deaths.  It was really moving to learn (well, re-learn and listen to) their history, the real history that is being uncovered slowly, one story at a time, one voice at a time, and people actually want to hear the true stories.   Maybe the tourist industry can be salvaged if the Pilgrimage becomes a true pilgrimage, where Americans can learn some of this amazingly brave and exciting history.  Natchez - I found what I do love about the South.  (Besides the food)

  Check out this article that I found - from just last week! - about the transformation of the Pilgrimage.