Adinkra on Hudson

Adinkra on Hudson: Symbols Provide a Glimpse into the Past

06 April 2012

Oh Sankofa, high on the Heavens you soar
My soul is soon to follow you, back to yesterdays moon
will it remember me?
Back to yesterdays sun, It will rekindle me
Rekindle the spirit into tomorrow and high on the wind
Sankofa flies again and again

Cassandra Wilson, Sankofa, 1993

Cassandra Wilson’s Sankofa was high on the playlist when your friendly blogger made a trip to Ghana some years back.  You see, Sankofa isn’t just a pretty song; it’s a symbol, a proverb, a fashion statement, and even something of a meme.

Sankofa originated as one of many symbols used in the Asante art of Adinkra printing.  Long before Ghana existed as a nation, the Asante had lived around the Obuasi highlands for centuries.  Part of a larger cultural group known as the Akan, the Asante are famous for their beautiful and unique textiles—Kente and Adinkra cloth.  Scholars aren’t exactly sure when Adinkra cloth was first developed.  Some believe that the Asante adopted the technique from the Gyaman Kingdom in the early 19^th century.

Traditionally, Adinkra cloth was worn as mourning clothes by royalty and other spiritual leaders.  In fact, in the Akan language the word Adinkra means goodbye or farewell.  The cloth itself is both a work of art and a storyteller’s dream.  Skilled craftsmen weave cotton into cloth.  The fabric is then dyed, traditionally, red, black, or brown, although today there are many more choices.  Now comes the art of Adinkra.  Using a traditional stamp press technique, the cloth is decorated with myriad designs and patterns culled from dozens of Adinkra symbols.  Each symbol is carved out from the bottom of a calabash so it stands in relief.  Craftsmen dip the stamp in a special black dye and apply it to the cloth.  There are numerous design patterns and symbols.  Because each symbol has a specific meaning, each finished cloth has a unique narrative—a story to be read through the choice and placement of the symbols.

Sankofa is one of many symbols used by the Asante for Adinkra printing.  There are actually two symbols used to represent Sankofa—one that looks like a curly heart and another of a bird looking behind itself.  Sankofa’s literal translation, Se wo were fin a wo sanko fa a yennki, means “it is not a taboo to return to fetch something you forgot earlier on.”  For many (especially those of us into history), it has come to mean “learn from your past” or “to return from whence you came.”

Other common Adinkra symbols include Gye Nyame which means “except God” and refers to the omnipotence and immortality of God.  Adinkrahene is shown as a series of concentric circles and represents royalty and greatness.  Hene is the Akan word for King and this symbol forms the basis of all Adinkra cloth.  A personal favorite is Ntesie mate masie, a symbol for knowledge and wisdom.

 

 

It turns out that Philipsburg Manor shares some of its cultural identity with this small but historically significant region of West Africa.  Philipsburg’s enslaved community was quite diverse.  Captive Africans came to the colonies from numerous African ports, others were transported from the Caribbean, and others were born in America.  Researchers at Philipsburg looked over Philipse family wills and probate inventories and found naming patterns suggesting that some members of Philipse’s enslaved community were either first generation Akan or were descended from Akan forebearers.

Although no evidence has been unearthed that suggest Adinkra cloth or symbols existed at Philipsburg, debate continues nearby at the African Burial Ground National Historic Park in Manhattan.   Re-discovered in 1991, archaeologists found a heart shaped image on the coffin of an enslaved man who had died in the 18^th century.  The New York Times ran a story on this just a few years back.  Whether the symbol found on the coffin was a Sankofa or not, it serves as a fitting reminder that we continue to learn from our past.

CAPTIVE HISTORY
Philipsburg Manor Explores Enslavement in America’s Colonial North
© 2007 Michael A. Lord

SOLD: for £62 to Abraham DePeyster for a Negro boy, Sam, bought at the public vendue held at the Manor of Philipsburg on 19 April 1750. Sam was eight years old at the time of his sale. His father, Sampson, was sold in early March to Lawrence Cortwright for £75. By June, nearly half of the 23 enslaved individuals at Philipsburg Manor would be sold off, one by one, to different owners.

As an historian, I struggled with my professional objectivity when I first read about the separation of Sam and Sampson. Like Sampson, I too am a father, and the thought of being forcibly separated from my children is unbearable. When I speak to museum visitors about the plight of Sam and Sampson and the others enslaved at Philipsburg Manor, I see mothers and fathers, grandparents and children, grappling with the harsh realities of the past while making personal connections with the present. For those who visit, Philipsburg Manor can be an emotional as well as an educational experience.
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BACKGROUND
Located twenty miles north of New York City along the east bank of the Hudson River, Philipsburg Manor is a living history museum that tells the story of enslavement in the colonial north and its effects on the commercial and cultural development of New York. The outdoor historic site interprets a commercial-scale milling, trading, and agricultural complex in the mid-18th century and is one of six historic sites operated by Historic Hudson Valley.

For much of its sixty-plus years as a museum, Philipsburg Manor focused on the commercial and cultural role of the Philipse family—wealthy Anglo-Dutch merchants. In the 1970s, attention shifted to the everyday life of tenant farmers who rented the majority of the 52,000 acres owned by the Philipse’s in Westchester County. By the 1990s, however, Philipsburg Manor’s interpretive story was outdated and in need of reexamination.

The museum’s archival collection contained several documents such as Adolph Philipse’s 1750 probate inventory that indicated a sizable enslaved community as the only permanent residents of Philipsburg Manor. About ten years ago, museum staff decided to make this the central story. In 1996, Historic Hudson Valley commissioned research reports from consulting scholars to explore the relationships between northern enslavement and early New York commerce and culture. Two years later, a team of museum educators, curators, African-American historians, and a dedicated African-American advisory board began developing an interpretive plan for Philipsburg Manor. Federal, State, and local grants enabled the plan to be fully implemented by the spring of 2002.

Today, all tours, events, and programs offered at Philipsburg Manor are designed to initiate a conversation about the history of colonial-era enslavement and its continued relevance. When visitors cross the bridge into the historic core, they enter the year 1750 and are immersed in the sights, smells, sounds, and activities of a colonial-era provisioning plantation. Original and reconstructed buildings dot the landscape, rare breed animals roam the grounds, and interpreters in period clothing talk, tour, and set themselves to work with reproduction tools and materials. The buildings, the animals, and the hands-on activities all support the complex and emotional story of the enslaved community at Philipsburg Manor.

INTERPRETING SLAVERY AT PHILIPSBURG MANOR
The story we tell at Philipsburg Manor is a difficult one and those of us who crafted the interpretive plan agreed that it shouldn’t be sugarcoated. The people who lived at Philipsburg Manor in 1750 endured untold miseries, including unimaginable personal tragedies after Adolph Philipse’s death. Many visitors to Philipsburg Manor embark on a journey—not just from the present to the past—but also a more personal journey from observation to self-discovery.

Our challenge was to go beyond the traditional living history confines of showing “what people did back then” and “how they did it” and to help visitors understand the social, political, geographic, agricultural, and economic reasons that initiated and sustained enslavement in colonial New York. We wanted visitors to understand why enslavement occurred, how it was maintained, what (if anything) was unique about enslavement in the northern colonies, and why it remains relevant.

One could be forgiven for thinking that living history museums cannot teach complex and sensitive issues like enslavement because subjects such as these are not activity-based. However, museums like Philipsburg Manor are actually well suited to the task because activity-based learning engages the senses, thereby drawing visitors into the story. Once the visitor is “hooked,” we contextualize the issues and events of the day through the activities at hand. For example, in the Manor House dairy, interpretive staff demonstrate the process of making butter. Staff, however, are trained to contextualize this activity by noting that enslaved women such as Abigail, Dina, and Massey were responsible for butter production; that butter was a commodity exported, along with wheat flour, to the sugar islands of Barbados and Curacao; and that provisioning plantations like Philipsburg Manor were enormously profitable for slave owning families like the Philipses. When visitors tour the gristmill, they help grind wheat into flour. But they also learn about Caesar, Philipse’s enslaved miller, his crucial position in the profitability of Philipsburg Manor, and the potential he had to leverage his skills for the benefit of the enslaved community. In the lower kitchen of the Manor House interpreters discuss open hearth cooking skills while also noting that this is where enslaved elders taught their children and grandchildren about “the old country.” The concrete activities that visitors can relate to on a sensory level provide us with the grounding we need to talk about the larger conceptual issues of the day.

OTHER TECHNIQUES
Using objects and activities as a springboard to understand the size and scope of 18th-century enslavement has been very successful. It was clear, however, that alternative teaching methods were necessary to help personalize the institution and place it on a human scale. Philipsburg Manor introduced museum theater to assist visitors in “putting a face” on the past. Museum theater allows us to use available documentation to create a fictional interaction that helps make sense of the choices and dilemmas faced within the enslaved community. Several short scripted scenes, or vignettes, were developed from visitor-derived questions and common misperceptions. The vignettes address such subjects as the personal reasons for running away; a comparison of enslavement in the colonial north vs. the colonial south; methods of resistance practiced within the enslaved community; and the day-to-day interactions between a skilled enslaved community and unskilled tenant farmers.

Museum theater has been a successful part of Philipsburg Manor’s interpretive plan and has been made even more rewarding through the development of a high school drama internship program. Drama interns undergo a rehearsal process that not only prepares them for their performances, but also provides information on enslavement and the African community at Philipsburg Manor. Students must know their history as well as their craft because at the end of every performance the actors drop character and assume the role of interpreter, answering questions from the audience.

In an ongoing effort to attract students and teachers beyond the traditional fields of history and social studies, Philipsburg Manor recently reached out to local art students. The art contest Pretends To Be Free: Imagining Runaway Slaves asked high school students to deconstruct a runaway advertisement and recreate it as an artwork. The highly descriptive ads that formed the basis of the contest are a significant source for understanding the cultures, skills, languages and appearances of enslaved individuals. Moreover, the ads serve as evidence of ongoing resistance within the enslaved community.

Students from two school systems participated in the program, drawing inspiration from eight local runaway advertisements. Students were required to work with a mentor teacher to guide them in the development of their ideas. They also were required to submit a short commentary describing their artwork and the reasons they chose a particular advertisement.

The results exceeded all expectations. The caliber of the work suggested that, in the process of creating their artwork, students developed an understanding and empathy for the enslaved individuals described in the advertisements. One student commented that, “The ad that particularly struck me was the one proclaiming the theft of a nine-year-old daughter by her mother. This struck me as absurd—the fact that a mother could ever be charged with stealing her own daughter.” Another student who based his work on an advertisement about a man who staged his own fake drowning, wrote that he found the runaway’s “tactics admirable because they were a clear contradiction of the commonly thought notion of the time period that slaves were not smart.” A third student revealed that when she “found out that slavery was widely used in the north, even in Westchester, I was surprised.” An online version of the exhibition is available at www.hudsonvalley.org/runaway.

Using art and drama to learn about enslavement allows Philipsburg Manor to reach a very diverse audience. These programs provide an opportunity for students to develop personal connections between significant historical issues and events and their own passions and interests. Establishing relevance between 21st-century teenagers and an 18th -century enslaved community guarantees a fresh perspective on, and a new respect for, history.

MAKING A CONNECTION
Of course, establishing relevance holds true for all visitors. For history to come alive, we must bring the past into the present. One method we use is to show visitors how African cultures maintained by those enslaved continue to have a profound influence on Americans today. Although American culture has numerous African antecedents, visitors are often unaware of this fact. Philipsburg Manor staff are quick to note that West African traditions of call and response, polyrhythmic syncopation, and the blurring or sliding of particular notes form the basis of American popular music, and that American English includes West African words like tote, gumbo, goober, jitterbug, hip, dig, jive, juke, and okay. At Philipsburg Manor, visitors black and white get acquainted with their common African cultural connections, thereby personalizing the impact of enslavement.

By connecting the past with the present, Philipsburg Manor creates an atmosphere for students and adults conducive to the final step of the visitor experience—self-discovery. Establishing a personal connection between the visitor and the people of the past should result in visitors asking the question: “How would I have reacted in this situation?”

Being a rhetorical and personal question, museum staff cannot provide an answer, but we can provide some guidance. Philipsburg Manor staff are trained to anticipate emotional responses from visitors. Because we focus on enslavement, and because our story takes place at the time when families were torn apart, we expect visitors to feel anger, sadness, and resentment. However, by also noting that these men, women, and children survived against terrible odds, that they fought back through myriad forms of resistance both covert and overt, and that their culture is a part of all Americans today, we also expect visitors to feel proud of their determination and respect for their resilience. When the past is personalized, visitors can begin to understand the complexity of the time and the difficult choices made by real people. If successful, visitors should exit the museum thinking: “I never thought of it that way before.”

OTHER INSTITUTIONS
The decision to explore the life and labor of Philipsburg Manor’s enslaved community as a primary historic theme was groundbreaking for a northern museum. Fortunately, interest in this story is growing. Over the last few years, many museums have made a conscious effort to examine the lives of those historically underrepresented. In Williamsburg, Virginia, Colonial Williamsburg has been interpreting enslavement in the colonial south since the 1980s. Somersett Plantation in North Carolina now begins its tours in the slave quarters situated in back of the “big house” and examines plantation life from the perspective of the enslaved community. In 2005, The New-York Historical Society opened its largest exhibition to date; “Slavery in New York.” When it closed in 2006, the exhibition had drawn over 700,000 visitors and surprised many by showing how dependent New York was on slave labor. In 2006, Manhattan’s African Burial Ground, an archaeological plot excavated in 1991 that re-discovered an enormous 18th-century slave burial ground, was officially designated a National Park. In coming years, the Smithsonian Institution will open a Museum of African American History and Culture on land adjacent to the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., and a Museum of Slavery in Virginia is in the planning stage. For now, however, Philipsburg Manor remains unique in presenting a permanent exhibition about enslavement in the colonial north.

CONCLUSION
The story Philipsburg Manor presents is, in many ways, a starting point for visitors about a part of American history rarely examined in detail. It is our hope that visitors leave the site understanding something of the personal hardships faced by those living here during that tumultuous time; aware that the institution of slavery was not unique to the American south; and acknowledging that history is more than a listing of names, dates, and places, or a quest for the “truth.” At Philipsburg Manor, we show history as an accumulation of perspectives where multiple points of view help give shape to the past and inform the present.

Author and essayist James Baldwin noted that “American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.” We expect that a successful visit to Philipsburg Manor will result in a conversation—perhaps it will occur on-site with our interpretive staff, or in the car, or at home over dinner—about Mr. Baldwin’s notion of American history.