Columbia, SC (WLTX) The Hampton-Preston Mansion near downtown Columbia, SC has gone through extensive renovations over the last few months.
The site is managed by Historic Columbia, who've been a driving force in how the stories of Columbia's history are being told.
Because the Hampton-Preston site is known to have housed slaves, the folks at Historic Columbia say they wanted to be especially sensitive to that. Many places from the antebellum period tell the story of the property owners, and often the stories about the individuals who were enslaved at those sites can go untold. But now at this site, that narrative has changed, mainly because more information has become available.
"We really have more names of enslaved individuals who were here at the site, and so we've been able to piece together some stories from that. We also know a little bit more about how the property owners managed the enslaved individuals who were here. And again, that helps us tell better stories and weave those narratives together," says Historic Columbia's Director of Education James Quint.
Now, for every story you will see about the "planter-class" owners of the Hampton-Preston Mansion, you will also see a story of the people who were enslaved there.
Quint says, "Now what we're trying to do at the site is really humanize these individuals. So talking about the enslaved people here, and referring to them as "enslaved" people, it allows us to really explore more about their attitudes, their aspirations, their intellect, the family units that they had. We really get to do that now in a way that we've never been able to do before."
One story is that of a man named Harrison. His name(only a first name) originally appears on an early baptism record from the Hamptons. The document says Harrison was baptized as a young man in 1837. Then the cold reality of how slavery worked, can be seen. 26 years later, Harrison's name appears again on a will. During that gap, he has become a husband and a father. The will documents the member of his family. But his family is being split up according to the will. Each family member is being distributed among the children of Mary Cantey-Hampton. The family unit is assigned a dollar worth, listed at $7,000 for the entire family unit, which includes Harrison(50), his wife Sarah(50) and their three children, Joseph(27), Elsina(20), and David(15). This will show that a human life is given less value than the family silver. The silver is listed on that same will as 427 pieces, with a value of $20,000.
Quint explains, "What might look like an equitable distribution of property in her will to the different descendants, for this family unit, for Harrison, his family is being broken apart."
The family being broken apart, after it was Harrison, and many other enslaved people, who were responsible for creating the wealth that bought the property in the first place.
"This place cannot exist without slavery. The enslaved individuals generated the wealth that the family used to purchase this property. This is not a plantation, so really this site consumes wealth. The other plantations that the family owned is what generated the wealth to purchase this property. And of course that labor was being done by enslaved people."
Now stories of enslaved people, like Harrison and his family, are being told. Stories that aren't as far back in our history as we might like to think.
2018 marks the 200th anniversary of the mansion. It's one of the oldest remaining structures in Columbia. If you'd like a tour of the mansion, they are available Tuesday through Saturday at 11:30 AM and 2:30 PM, and Sundays at 2:30 PM.