A traveling exhibit opening today (Oct. 22) at Alexandria’s Freedom House Museum (1315 Duke Street) examines American slavery through the complex life and legacy of one man who experienced both sides of that system.
On view until Dec. 31, “Monday Robinson: A Life of Thorns and Roses” was created by the Belle Grove Plantation in Middletown, where it made its debut in September. The exhibit is visiting museums and libraries in communities where its subject or his family lived, including Alexandria.
Born in 1778, Monday Robinson gained freedom from slavery, but he later held deeds enslaving his own family as a means of protecting them. There’s also evidence, though, that he “hired out his children to landowners in his area and used his wife and three of his children as collateral for a loan,” the Office of Historic Alexandria says.
After Robinson’s death, his brother, who was designated as the administrator of his will, was able to free nine of his children and grandchildren, who left Frederick County, Virginia, and migrated to Alexandria and other localities throughout the state.
The exhibit on Robinson is based on 16 years of research that started with the discovery of an old cemetery in 1990s during construction on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, according to reporting by The Winchester Star. The site was ultimately acquired by the city and turned into the Contrabands and Freedman Cemetery.
Tasked with identifying potential descendants of the approximately 1,800 African Americans buried in the cemetery, geneaologist Char McCargo Bah found records that led her to Alexandria resident Fran Norton Burton, the great grand-daughter of Hester Robinson Carter and granddaughter of Douglas Robinson Carter.
“The Robinson family can date its ancestry back over 250 years in Virginia and have the honor of being a 250th Anniversary family,” Bah said in a press release.
Robinson’s connections to both enslaved and free women in Alexandria as well as his later life in Middletown — where he became an active member of the community and a business partner with the Belle Grove Plantation — are detailed in the exhibit through census records, emancipation records, tax documents, deeds, court orders, wills, apprenticeship papers and other sources.
The exhibit will be supplemented by a lecture from Bah on Nov. 1 titled “Tracing a Child’s Heritage from the 20th century to the 18th century in Virginia.”
“This lecture explores the difficulties of researching enslaved persons, free people of color, and family ownership,” the Office of Historic Alexandria said in its press release. “This lecture will cover a child buried at Alexandria’s Contraband and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial, her enslaved relatives, and her mother and aunt from Middletown, Virginia. After sixteen years of research by Bah, their stories can now be told.”
While the lecture is free, space is limited to 30 people. Registration is now open for the event, which will start at 3 p.m. at the Freedom House Museum.
In addition to Bah and Burton, the team behind the “Life of Thorns and Roses” exhibit included Belle Grove Plantation Executive Director Kristen Laise, genealogist and historical researcher Brenda Burton Nelson, and digital public historian and exhibit designer Jess Pritchard-Ritter.
The Freedom House Museum is open on Thursdays and Fridays from 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Saturdays from 11 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sundays from 1-5 p.m. Admission, which otherwise costs $5 for adults and $3 for children aged 5-12, is free for Alexandria City residents.
The museum recommends that visitors reserve timed tickets in advance due to “high demand and limited capacity.”
Renovations to restore access to the basement of the building, which once housed the country’s largest slave-trading companies, are currently underway.
