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Showing posts with the label gem mining

US East Coast 2018: Of Buried Pasts & Hidden Treasure

We were privileged to visit the Sautee Nacoochee Cabin. This was an original slave cabin that belonged to one of the two slave-owning families in the region - the Williams family (the other being the Richards family). It was a fascinating place to be; given how the role of slavery is entrenched in American history; especially here in the south, which had quite a significant part of its economic system premised on slavery. It was also interesting to learn from our docent about the process of memory making and keeping alive some of the oral history accounts from the local landowners and former slaves - not everyone wanted to remember the past due to the haunting memories this entailed for some. One interesting story is that following the emancipation proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, Mr Williams, who was the owner of the slaves in the cabin, stood on a small stone wall nearby and read out the notice to the slaves, in the process freeing them. And after the end of the Civil War, ma...