UC Berkeley's Stephen Small and the representation of slavery in contemporary heritage tourism

March 18, 2025

Stephen Small, African American Studies professor, speaks about his book, In the Shadows of the Big House.

In this interview, Stephen Small shares the inspirations behind In the Shadows of the Big House, a compelling and deeply researched work that examines the representation of slavery in contemporary heritage tourism. Drawing from decades of scholarly inquiry and on-the-ground research at plantation sites across the American South, Small investigates the ways in which histories of enslaved people are remembered, erased, or contested in public memory. With a particular focus on Oakland Plantation, Magnolia Plantation Complex, and Melrose Plantation in Louisiana, the book interrogates the intersections of race, tourism, and historical narrative. Small discusses his research process, the enduring legacies of slavery, and the role of plantation museums in shaping public understanding of the past, offering a thought-provoking exploration of how history is told—and who gets to tell it.

Stephen Small, Professor, African American Studies

Museums were important sites of contestation over who tells history, and who had the authority, resources, and power to do so.

Stephen Small

What inspired you to write In the Shadows of the Big House Twenty-First-Century Antebellum Slave Cabins and Heritage Tourism in Louisiana, and what led you to focus on the three plantation sites—Oakland Plantation, Magnolia Plantation Complex, and Melrose Plantation—for your study?

I first began researching museums as racialized institutions at the start of the 1990s when I worked as a guest curator in a gallery on trans-Atlantic slavery at the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool. The Transatlantic Slavery Gallery opened in 1994 and in 2007 it was expanded to become the International Slavery Museum, which has been expanded and still exists. There was controversy and disagreement over the scope of the exhibit on slavery, over whether it should look at legacies of slavery and imperialism, and especially on how Black women would be represented and by whom. Many white people asked why have a gallery on slavery at all, after all, they alleged, the British brought civilization to Africa, abolished the slave trade and forced other nations to do the same. Black people vehemently disagreed. It was clear to me that museums were important sites of contestation over who tells history, and who had the authority, resources and power to do so.

I relocated to the United States in 1995 and began empirical research at heritage tourist venues in Georgia. This led to a co-authored project with Jennifer L. Eichstedt in which we visited more than 120 heritage sites, all in what were the original structures of plantations, in Louisiana, Georgia, and Virginia. In that book--Representations of Slavery. Race and Ideology in South Plantation Museums, published by Smithsonian Institution Press in 2002--we focused mainly on the mansions in which elite white master-enslavers (a phrase I prefer to ‘slave-master’) and their families lived (the so-called big houses). We also noticed that many of these heritage sites had the remnants of slave cabins – about one third of the sites – which were typically unaddressed at the heritage sites at that time. I determined to do a book about these cabins. I began by asking the question – ‘What does tourism at these heritage sites look like if you put Black people first?’ After all, Black people, enslaved and legally free, were the majority residents at all these plantations.

Beginning in 2007, I spent several months traveling from Louisiana to Florida, and Georgia to Maryland identifying where slave cabins were located at a wide range of public and private heritage sites. This included Nottoway Plantation, Oak Alley, and Laura Plantation on the River Road (between New Orleans and Baton Rouge) in Louisiana, Springfield Plantation in Mississippi, Kingsley Plantation and “The Last Slave Cabin” in Florida, Br’er Rabbit Museum and Archibald Smith Plantation House in Georgia, Boone Hall and the Aiken-Rhett House in South Carolina, Horton Grove and Latta Plantations in North Carolina, the Booker T. Washington National Monument in Virginia and Hampton National Historic Site in Maryland. I even visited the so-called Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Josiah Henson Cabin) in Maryland.

I decided to focus on Natchitoches, Louisiana, because of the concentration of original slave cabins and other spaces in which the enslaved slept or lived at prominent tourism sites, the key role that the cabins played in heritage tourism at the three major heritage sites, and because it was clear to me that Louisiana, especially areas outside New Orleans, was relatively neglected in the literature on slavery and its legacies as compared with other regions in the South. Natchitoches is both a city and a parish, and it is a fascinating place. I was also gripped by the fact that significant numbers of legally free people of color across Louisiana themselves owned enslaved people and that Natchitoches was home to one of the most significant group of owners – the so-called Cane River Creoles. I felt strongly that a more comprehensive understanding of the legacies of slavery had to engage with a wide geographical terrain, and with the apparently puzzling issue of people of color owning enslaved black people.

The three heritage sites I researched in Natchitoches are Oakland Plantation, Magnolia Plantation and Melrose Plantation.

On the left: Oakland Plantation Slave Quarters, On the right: Magnolia Plantation Slave Quarters

Oakland Plantation slave quarters located in Natchitoches, Louisiana (on the left) and Magnolia Plantation slave quarters located in Charleston, South Carolina.

Your book discusses "social forgetting" and "social remembering." Could you elaborate on how these concepts manifest in the representation of slave cabins at these sites?

At the vast majority of these heritage sites across the U.S. south, most attention (the things that are remembered) is given to the lives of elite white men and their families - to their hopes and dreams, their homes and gardens, their children, their daily lives, and to what are regarded as their accomplishments. The men were presented as the driving force in the plantation’s establishment, growth, and success; they were the leaders, hard workers and innovators; they built and expanded the plantations; and it is men that struggled in hard times to preserve family and culture and traditions. These representations are all gendered – with a focus on elite white men as honorable, chivalrous, economically successful, and decent; and on women as mothers, dedicated to family, children and domesticity. Visitors to heritage sites were told how rooms and spaces in the rooms were arranged by gender, with boys and girls sleeping in separate rooms from a certain age.

The experiences of enslaved Black people are typically highly restricted. Overall, sites consistently avoid, disregard or sideline mention of slavery and the experiences of the enslaved, with information and details a very distant second in volume to the lives of the elite whites. Black people are typically represented as faithful, obedient, dedicated, complacent and happy. Or, they are ignored altogether. For example, there is almost never mention of violence, brutality or sexual abuse. There is also almost no mention at all of resistance, resilience, or of the humanity and dignity of Black people, enslaved or legally free. Thinking about what I remembered and what is forgotten, turns our attention to contemporary social values about American history. It also raised questions about differential access to resources in the telling and dissemination or narratives of U.S. history.

The three sites at Natchitoches reflect some of these general patterns, but they are also unique and distinctive in several ways. They certainly devote far more attention, in general, to the lives of elite white families, during and after slavery. But they are far more explicit and detailed on slave cabins than other sites across the South; and they pay more attention to the lives of the enslaved than most other sites. One site is highly exceptional in that three elite women get more attention at the site than anyone else, as I explain in a moment.

Thinking about what is remembered and what is forgotten turns our attention to contemporary social values about American history.

Stephen Small

How do gender dynamics inform the social organization and storytelling in these plantation museums?

I just mentioned some of the ways in which gender shapes representations at the sites. To this I can add that the predominant narratives at the sites describe the expected and practiced roles and experiences of elite white women and men, girls and boys. This includes a detailed focus on the social roles, experiences and aspirations of elite white men (in politics, economics and the military) and elite white women (in domesticity, family and philanthropy); and on the spaces inside and outside the mansions in which elite men, women and children lived, worked or socialized. There is also mention of how white women had primary responsibility for commemorating their dead husbands, brothers and sons. Elite white women took the lead – they organized private services and remembrance, and they tended and decorated cemeteries and churches. Visitors also heard passing mention of the constraints faced by elite white women—excluded from the political realm, even if they had extensive education.

There is some brief mention of gender roles of the enslaved, with skilled jobs like carpentry and blacksmith reserved for men, and cooking and waiting service reserved for women. The most common instance which enslaved Black women are mentioned is with regard to their roles as cooks in kitchens, and nannies for white children.

A key exception to this pattern was at Melrose plantation where the site is dominated by narratives of three exceptional women: Marie Therese Coin Coin (African), Cammie Henry (white) and Clementine Hunter (African-American, with Native American ancestry), each of whom is closely identified with the plantation. This site was more complex and convoluted on gender and women, than at the other sites I visited. To be direct, I argue that the site was explicit on exceptional women and evasive on gender. This meant we heard a great deal about exceptional women but almost nothing about entrenched gender roles or practices. There was some passing mention of the constraints faced by elite white women—excluded from the political realm, confined largely to the household, expected to be dedicated wives or mothers. But most attention was spent on praising white women’s initiatives, drive, and dedication in saving and restoring houses, organizing social activities, and promoting heritage tourism in the parish. We also heard about proud mothers who dedicated their lives to ensuring success for their offspring. These activities resonated with the gender roles typically assigned to (white) women.

How has writing this book influenced your own perspective on the intersections of race, memory, and tourism?

Yes, the change in my approach, understanding and appreciation is stark. As a teenager growing up in Liverpool, museums were only places of torment for me, and I visited them very infrequently. I saw only images of savage, barbaric and heathen Africans – men with bones in their noses, and women passive, docile and typically naked. I did not see any redemption for Black people in such places. When I began researching these issues – as a graduate and post-graduate student, I was far more interested in the dissemination of information and images via media like television, the press, and advertising. Again, museums were not on my analytical agenda. Since I began work on museums and memory in the 1990s, I have carried out research at hundreds of heritage sites in multiple nations, including the United States, England, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Brazil. I have come to see them as critically important institutions of social remembering and forgetting. And I continue to see how they function as an end in themselves (the authority and resources of museums, the role of museum professionals and the exhibits that they produce) and as a means to an end (how museums can open up questions about who controls the writing and representation of history, about access to resources, and about community representations outside the museum realm). These are questions to do with the sociology of knowledge production which necessarily link to the entire societal infrastructure of education.

We must still dedicate some of our time and energies to providing accurate, extensive and inclusive knowledge and information about slavery and its legacies.

Stephen Small

What do you hope readers take away from In the Shadows of the Big House?

In general, I would like the book to be seen as one that expands our knowledge of contemporary heritage sites, and provides a more comprehensive and inclusive account of how U.S. slavery is represented in southern heritage tourism today. I would like readers to be made aware that there is far more to museum heritage sites than the lives and loves of the elite white men and women that owned enslaved black people. That the majority of people at every one of these sites were enslaved black and brown people. And that the lives of elite whites could only be enjoyed based on the labour and blood, sweat and tears of the enslaved.

And I would like readers to come away recognising that slave cabins were ambiguous spaces, in the past and remain so at present. Under slavery they were built above all for the profit, power and aggrandizement of master-enslavers and their families; and they operated as locations of social control and violence against Black women and men. But slave cabins also functioned as a refuge for the enslaved; as the focal point of black agency including creative adaptations of language, religion and music; and as the location of numerous forms of resistance and rebellion.

Twenty-first century antebellum slave cabins also occupy ambiguous roles, and reveal the ambivalence of many managers and staff at plantation heritage tourism today. They are largely erased, neglected or sanitized in representations at most sites today. But they are sought after for the authenticity and originality they lend to contemporary sites and are coveted for the potential they offer in attracting increasing numbers of Black tourists. Many Black people are ambivalent too – heritage sites are not Black people’s priorities, given the perilous economic and political conditions confronting Black people in U.S. society at the present time. But we are fortunate that there are still dedicated individuals, institutions and communities who recognize that even in the face of such threats, we must still dedicate some of our time and energies to providing accurate, extensive and inclusive knowledge and information about slavery and its legacies. We should be thankful that they continue to mount a strong fight.

Slave cabins were ambiguous spaces in the past and remain so at present.

Stephen Small

Are you working on any other research or projects?

At present my main research focus is on two areas to do with my home city, Liverpool, England. The first is on museums and memory (including statues, buildings and street names). Liverpool has the dubious honor of being named the ‘slaving capital of the world,’ as it was responsible for transporting more Africans into vicious slavery in the Americas than any other city in England, especially in the final decades of the transatlantic trade. I’m exploring underresearched aspects of that history, especially the lives and voices of Black people. As part of that research, I’m on advisory committees at National Museums Liverpool, the University of Liverpool (with owns several museums) and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Each of these institutions has extensive archives, and more and more scholars and community analysts are investigating the evidence in these archives, to reveal a more accurate, comprehensive and inclusive history of their roles.

My second project is on what I call the predominant Black voices of imperial Liverpool, at home and abroad. After the slave trade was legally abolished, Liverpool then earned another dubious title - ‘second city of Empire’, with trade, immigration and emigration passing through the port at levels only second to London (and sometimes far greater than London). In addition, by the end of the 19^th century, Liverpool controlled up to 90% of British trade with West Africa. That’s because London politicians, businessmen and Christian leaders at that time were far more focused on India, Egypt (because of the Suez Canal) and Southern Africa (because of diamonds and gold). One little examined aspect of Liverpool’s role as second city of empire in this period, is that every major pan-Africanist, from the West Indies, the United States and Africa, arrived in Liverpool and stayed days, weeks, months or longer. Most of them went on to London and their experiences in London are well documented.

My current research focuses on what they did in Liverpool and the northwest of England, and how this related to activities in West Africa where African men and women were campaigning for independence. For example, the first presidents of Ghana and Nigeria - Kwame Nkrumah and Nnamdi Azikiwe - spent time in Liverpool on their paths to independence. And so did so many other pan-African politicians, educators, teachers, Christian leaders, intellectuals, and far more working class African men (and some African women). There are rich and textured firsthand primary materials available that have documented the voices of these men and women.

This research continues my lifelong efforts to foreground the lives and activities of Black people in patterns of social mobilization, social change and the unending quest for social justice. I seek to unsettle the ways in which research archives privilege the voices of elite white men – and to some extent elite white women.

Some of my recent publications are listed below:

‘Reparations for Imperialism: Legacies beyond Slavery in the British Empire’, in Adekeye Adebajo, (editor), The Black Atlantic’s Triple Burden. Slavery, Colonialism, and Reparations, Jacana Media, Auckland Park, South Africa, 2024, pp. 93-107.
‘De-Commemoration in Great Britain’ in Sarah Gensburger and Jenny Wüstenberg, (Eds.). De-Commemoration. Removing Statues and Renaming Places, New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2023, pp. 230-237.
‘Following Father’s Footsteps: slavery, imperialism and the William Ewart Gladstone Memorial Statue in Liverpool City Centre’, chapter in Fallen Monuments and Contested Memorials edited by Juilee Decker, 2023, pp. 12-27.
‘How Imperial Liverpool became an African city, and why it matters’, chapter in History Matters Journal, Volume 2. No. 2, Spring, 2022, pp. 19-34.

International Slavery Museum located in Liverpool, England.

What’s currently on your bookshelf or nightstand? (What are you reading for pleasure?)

Kamari Maxine Clarke’s Affective Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Pan-Africanist Pushback (more for insight than pleasure)

And for fun, Mel Brooks' All About Me! My Remarkable Life in Show Business

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