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Case study of challenge of finding unrecorded/erased history of POC. Its so not about statues. So: Museum coll. I curate has woven coverlet donated 1929. Donor said it was woven by enslaved female, head weaver on g-granddad’s X Co, KY plantation B4 1800 (why then? Unclear.)1/
2/ I found her g-granddaddy in Y Co (X was formed later, when Y divided). Can’t find him in 1790 census but by 1800 his household includes over 20 enslaved people not separated by sex/age. Only head of house listed pre 1790, but whites at least sorted by sex/age categories. 2/
3/ Great Granddad (“Ggd” after this) died c1821, 1825 probate inventory enumerated enslaved, named them, “valued” them. 16 women. Listed after the men who begin the inventory and just before a few kettles before appraisers go on to livestock. Ggd had lots of cattle, sheep. 
4/ They had names. Hannah. Jane. Young Jane. Rachel. Milla. Young Milla. Tessa? (writing on microfilm unclear) Jade? (Ditto) Lucy. Lydia. Eliza. The rest...really hard to read, Maybe Maria? Nancy? Others maybe legible on the original.. Did they even choose these for themselves?
5/ No way to know, either, which of the men on the list were their fathers/husbands/brothers. Maybe some weren’t even on this farm. Several men and women were listed as not living on the property but “in possession of” Ggd’s son John or a neighbor.
6/Right here you have the disrespect for Black families. People sent off to other households; but also, no indication on paper that family ties even exist/deserve recording. Dudes making list only noted $ worth. $100-400 for women, up to $500 for men. No ID of their jobs/skills.
7/ what about finding weaver/proving weaving? No loom in inventory. Just spinning wheels for cotton and flax, clock reel (measures length spun, winds into skeins), heckle (combs flax; other tools needed 2 process flax not present). No weaving here in 1820s. So, 1700s? 
8/That was when donor tho’t it was done. Maybe she knew weaving stopped later. In North, plenty of women knew how to weave, did so small scale for self or on commission. On plantation? Mostly on v large ones. Still ISO land/tax records to see what’s grown/done on Ggd’s property.
9/ donor story could be true for earlier, if Ggd’s operation stopped doing weaving by 1820. Or quite possibly we have nostalgic post-Civil War rosy-colored tale of genteel upper class antebellum ancestral home (
, btw).
, btw).
10/ wish I knew whether the higher values placed on some women indictated skills like weaving, or just able-bodied youth and fertile years. But doubt there’d be any way to learn. Haven’t done much genealogy rsch in KY b4; still seeking whether records of sales of slaves were kept
11/or survive, or whether tax/land records might give specifics on the identities/jobs/ages of the people listed. Or what the farm produced (crops/otherwise). (Any KY experts out there, lmk!).
12/anyway, I wish I could triumphantly announce Eureka, solved, proved, found, named the weaver...but the moral of the story is the erasure of history when those in charge of recording it didn’t give a f&$ about the people we are now trying to find and name.
13/ and what do we put in the online catalog record? We aren’t supposed to put speculation, or info not directly tied to the object. So Hannah, Milla, Lucy et al don’t get listed there. How do we remember them? Where are their statues?
14/ and this record is the rare one that mentions the enslaved labor behind the object. How do we honor the labor behind others? If you’re still here, thanks for joining my ponderings on how to do justice to the stories that haven’t been told. End.
