We went to the area of town where Percy had met Wil the day before and asked another interpreter where we could find him. The colonial man gave us directions to a building where we could find his office -- he was probably doing research. We followed the (rather convoluted) directions to find ourselves near the blacksmith, where we asked yet another interpreter for aid. She went inside and a few minutes later, Wil emerged.
It didn't take me long at all to figure out why Percy had been blown away. The man introduced himself as "Wil -- one dubbya, one eye, one el." His words and mannerism seemed to come straight from the 1700s, from his accent to his habit of looking over his shoulder to make sure "Mister Anderson" wasn't coming around. He told me he was an hostler and explain that he took care of horses -- but I got to feel smart a moment, because I had known that from "The Highway Man."
Then, at Percy's prompting, we got into the really fun material. Wil told us about the activities that slaves did together. Among other things, they sang songs. And he burst into a few lines of song before us. Apparently, slaves would gather around huge kettles and sing into them to absorb the sound! He told these stories furtively, pausing every now and then to ask Percy if he could trust me. I gained his trust after he told us that the Irish came to some of these gathering; I knew then to tell him I was Irish. (Which is something like 12.5% true.)
One of Wil's talents is putting everything into the context of 1776. So Irish meant Irish in a day and place where Irish weren't the most popular. And when I mentioned that I had just moved down here, Wil asked if my father had driven me down. He assumed that since I had come from far away, I was gentry, and he asked if my family owned slaves.
Best of all, when Percy asked Wil about his research, he paused to think for a few seconds, then launched into an explanation without breaking character. He was looking into the case of a slave whose master had taken him to Britain. While there, the slave sued for his freedom -- Dred Scott, anyone? Amazingly, the judge sided with the slave, and he was a free man! In the reading of the newspaper articles about this event, Wil came across something else amazing. One paper reported a ball that was held afterward. The paper referred to the attendees as "Negro men and ladies." At that point in time, only white women were ever called "ladies"!
After chatting for a little while, Percy and I let Wil get back to his research. He gave us an elaborate and protracted bow. Percy asked ("besides Mister Anderson") where he could direct compliments. He got one name and address, but as we were leaving Wil called us back to introduce us to someone in charge of something in CW. I don't remember his title, but he seemed to have something to do with the diversity element -- i.e. how to portray a slave society for tourists looking to be happy. We chatted with him for a few minutes about the challenges of this task and the progress CW has made over the past few years.
As we kept walking, now in search of hot cider, Percy and I ran across the building to which Wil had originally directed. We stepped inside and Percy began telling the receptionist: "I've been coming here for... a while now. And the past few times I've been here, there is this one interpreter, I ran across him yesterday, and then I came back today..." And after that he got into how awesome Wil was. (I assumed Percy knew he was setting it up like he had a major complaint. Apparently he hadn't.)
The receptionist directed us to her boss who "loves compliments." We then got to talk for a few seconds with a CW big-wig who was glad to hear compliments and heard Percy's introduction the exact same way the receptionist had.
Albeit belated...
ReplyDeleteA little historical context, just for fun:
"He was looking into the case of a slave whose master had taken him to Britain. While there, the slave sued for his freedom -- Dred Scott, anyone? Amazingly, the judge sided with the slave, and he was a free man!"
Regarding antislavery laws (we're looking at the nineteenth century here), created paradoxes like this. While Dred Scott is the well-known American case - his master brough him from a slave state to a free territory out west, after which ensued the court battles - there were others that took place in Britain. Britain outlawed the international slave trade in 1807 after a twenty-year struggle (if you recall, we stipulated in the constitution that no decision could be made on the subject until 1808, at which point it wa also outlawed.) This is the setting of the wonderful movie "Amazing Grace." Now, Britain outlawed the slave trade for good at home and in all its colonies (with a few exceptions) effective in 1834, but the court case Wil was referring was that of James Somersett (1772). There were others, like the case of Mary Prince, who was a slave in the caribbean early in the 1800s, who was taken to England in the 1830s and gained her freedom there, though she could never return home. Her narrative was influential in the passage of the 1833 act.
:)