Much has been written about the history of Rosewell Plantation, the 18th century Georgian mansion whose majestic ruins stand today overlooking the York River in Gloucester.
But little if anything has made it into the history books about the men, women and children whose sweat and blood made Rosewell into one of the largest and finest of American houses of the colonial period, building the mammoth structure, tending to its crops and serving the whims and desires of the plantation’s owners—the thousands of enslaved people who once lived and died upon the land.
A group of about 75 people gathered at the site Sunday afternoon in an attempt to honor their memory in a “Blessing of the Ground” ceremony.
The ceremony was held to consecrate the ground where a Remembrance Structure will soon be built to recognize those who were held in bondage from the colonial period until Emancipation.
Led by Willie H. Wright, a historic interpreter from Colonial Williamsburg, who played a traditional African ...