kids go into the kitchen and prepare 

 meals. 



"I did really inexpensive things 

 like put up areas with cast iron pots so 

 that you understand that plantations 

 were places of work; they were not 

 places where only owners lived," she 

 says. 



The site now 

 offers a unique 

 hands-on educa- 

 tional program that 

 is a national model. 

 And Somerset 

 Homecoming, writ- 

 ten by Redford and 

 Michael D'Orso, is 

 not only a beautiful 

 outline of Redford's 

 search for her heri- 

 tage, it is being used 

 in classrooms to 

 inspire others to 

 explore their ances- 

 try. At Somerset, 

 school groups get 

 an integrated lesson 

 of slave history and 

 go back in time to 

 experience work 

 1 8th-century style. 



"It's not role-playing, but it's as- 

 suming a role 150 years ago, and each 

 kid has to assume it," says Redford. 

 "There's a difference in a child being 

 able to watch someone and actually 

 participating in the craft. The learning 

 experience is entirely different when 

 they come out of the kitchen sweating 

 or come out with a bucket and 

 they've got to haul the water. When 

 they come out of that experience, they 

 certainly understand the difference 

 technology has made." 



On a muggy Wednesday morn- 

 ing in May, a steady breeze off Lake 

 Phelps rustles Somerset's sycamores 

 and cypresses. Company's coming, 



and Redford and her staff are getting 

 ready. Busloads of ninth-graders from 

 Northeastern High School in Elizabeth 

 City and fifth-graders from a Virginia 

 private school are on the way. 



No slide projectors are warming 

 up. No exhibits are being roped off. 



Scotl D. Taylor 



Broommakers work toward 

 their daily quota. 



Instead, Fred Spear stokes the fire un- 

 der a cast-iron pot in the yard. He 

 drops bricks of paraffin in the kettle, 

 and carefully drapes wicks one-by-one 

 over a nearby railing. In the kitchen, 

 seasoning for a pot of beans simmers 

 in a pot hanging over the brick hearth. 

 A wood fire crackles underneath. Out- 

 side the laundry, empty chairs circle a 

 big basket of raw cotton. 



At 10 a.m., the ninth-graders ar- 

 rive. Redford greets them outside the 

 Colony House with a basket filled 

 with bits of colored paper. She in- 



structs each of them to take one be- 

 fore stepping inside the visitors' 

 center. 



"You have just traveled back in 

 time to 1786, a time in which if you 

 were thirsty you'd have water out of 

 the well," she says, as the students 



pack into the ori- 

 entation room. 

 "And you 

 wouldn't have a 

 lot of choice 

 about your daily 

 work." 



She begins to 

 tell the story of 

 the plantation, 

 which began as a 

 business venture 

 between three 

 18th-century 

 Edenton entrepre- 

 neurs — Josiah 

 Collins I, 

 Nathaniel Allen 

 and Samuel 

 Dickinson. These 

 men had a vision 

 to develop a large 

 rice plantation. 

 Under a partnership called the Lake 

 Company, the three bought 100,000 

 acres of land, including Lake Phelps, 

 through land grants. It probably cost 

 them 10 pounds for each 1,000 acres, 

 says Redford. 



"So you have two elements of a 

 plantation: number one, land, and 

 number two, a plan for development," 

 she says. "What's the third element 

 that characterized plantations in North 

 Carolina?" 



Some of the students respond: 

 "Work!" 



"And what kind of labor force 

 characterized plantations in North 

 Carolina and in most of the South?" 

 she asks. When no one responds, she 



12 JULY/AUGUST 1993 



