(2019-Ongoing)

Critical Places is about how the rebellions of the enslaved are remembered (or not remembered) in the landscape. In photographing these sites I mark them as critical places in a topography of national historical consciousness, showing how I see these rebellions still echoing in social patterns and economic structures, and also still echoing in the very landscape where these events took place, places now often transformed beyond recognition.

Some of the fifteen rebellions that I have selected to work on are better known, some more obscure. They span their general timeframe, roughly cover the geographic distribution, and also roughly cover the general typology of these rebellions —fight or flight, active or suppressed, real or falsely rumored. That said, this project is meant to be more a personal reflection on, rather than a historical representation of, the rebellions and their aftermath. I come to this project as an outsider, with all the advantages and disadvantages that might entail.

I have been traveling to these sites, photographing, and then where possible also returning to exhibit the work in a venue associated with the rebellion, presenting the photographs accompanied by a short text telling of the rebellion and of my experience visiting the site. In these exhibitions I work with people met locally to build awareness and initiate a reckoning around modes of remembrance and the values expressed thereby.

To date such exhibitions have been held at:

Saint Simon's Island, Georgia. 2021. The Igbo Landing Mass Suicide of 1803.

U.S.Highway 17 at Wallace River, South Carolina. 2020. The Stono Rebellion of 1739.

Astoria, Queens, New York. 2020. The Newtown Revolt of 1708.

Colorado County, Texas. 2022. The Slave Insurrection Panic of 1856.

La Grange, Missouri. 2022. The Lin Uprising of 1849.

York, Pennsilvania. 2019. The Margaret Bradley Conspiracy of 1803

Mike's Ice House. Eagle Lake, Texas. 2022. The Slave Insurrection Panic of 1856.

The Hanging Tree. Cherry Grove Plantation. Adams County, Mississippi. 2024. The Second Creek Conspiracy of 1861

15 Rebellions:

York, Pennsylvania. 2019. The Margaret Bradley Conspiracy of 1803
Protesting what the enslaved perceived to be an unjust conviction of one of their own, this rebellion started with a series of nighttime arson attacks and soon spiraled into further violence. Today we refer to such protests as No Justice, No Peace.

Ravenel and Hollywood, South Carolina. 2020. The Stono Rebellion of 1739
One of the few today acknowledged by a historical marker, it was the bloodiest rebellion of the colonial era, instilling a fear of rebellion that persisted throughout the time of slavery. One might even wonder to what extent the trope of Black "savagery" persisting to this day originated in this revolt.

Saint Inigoes, Maryland. 2020. The Easter Rebellion of 1817
A bar brawl that turned into a riot took place near the Jesuit slave plantation of St Inigoes Manor. Many descendants of the enslaved still live in the area today. One might point to this Easter Rebellion as an instance of overpolicing.

Astoria, Queens, New York. 2020-2021. The Newtown Revolt of 1708
While lesser know then other New York revolts, this rebellion draws attention to multi-racial slavery in the Dutch and British colonies. In the response to this revolt initiated by an enslaved Native American man and his enslaved African wife, we see the emergence of a racial definition of slavery.

Saint Simons Island, Georgia. 2021. The Igbo Landing Mass Suicide of 1803
Oral history tells us of this mass drowning of a shipload of captive Igbo Africans who refused slavery by walking into the creek. That it was long dismissed as legend speaks to the bias against non-archival evidence. The traditional site know as Igbo Landing is on private property.

Adams County, Mississippi. 2021. The Second Creek Conspiracy of 1861
Forty enslaved men were hanged in the course of this falsely suspected conspiracy that took place during the Civil War. Not wanting to inflame the situation, the plantation owners kept the hangings secret, and that remained so for 110 years, an example of how those in power control information. Today Cherry Grove plantation where the majority of hangings took place remains in the hands of the same family. Visiting, I was shown the stump of the hanging tree.

Cheneyville, Louisiana. 2021. The Cheneyville Conspiracy of 1837
Many rebellions were betrayed before they could get started. Here it was the man planning to lead the rebellion who turned himself in at the last minute. While his seven accomplices were hanged, he was awarded his freedom plus a hansom bounty. Considering how today everyone puts their self-interest first, one might ask: was he so different in doing whatever was necessary to attain his freedom?

Louisville, Mississippi. 2021. The Winston County Conspiracy of 1859
The abolitionist press ran a story about a traveling portrait photographer (a white man) hanged, along with others, accused of fomenting a revolt. Unable to verify the story in the local contemporaneous newspapers, I started to wonder if this particular incident was, unwittingly, abolitionist misinformation. Then visiting Louisville I found myself surrounded by contemporary disinformation. To mention a few: the public display of a swastika that was claimed not to be one, a civil war memorial that pretended not to be so, a resort with a false Indigenous name...

Madison County, Mississippi. 2021. The Madison County Rebellion of 1835
Mass hysteria over a rumored rebellion led to widespread hangings not only of the enslaved but also of white people alleged to be co-conspirators. Eventually it all died down, and even the town of Livingston where it all took place faded into obscurity, and disappeared. Recently a developer has recreated the frontier town as a shopping and dinning destination.

Colorado County, Texas. 2022. The Slave Insurrection Panic of 1856
An unfounded suspicion led to confessions made under torture, mass floggings and several hangings. Once things had settled down, the local Mexican population was scapegoated for having provoked the alleged rebellion, and expelled from the county. A resolution was passed "forever forbidding any Mexican from coming within the limits of the county."

Northern Kentucky. 2022. The Doyle Stampede of 1848
An example of disparity in sentencing, in which three enslaved escapee "leaders" where sentenced to hang, while the white abolitionist who led the escape was sentenced to 20 years hard labor. I came across a rare first hand account of the rebellion told by one of the enslaved escapees, given in an interview 50 years later.

Lewis County, Missouri. 2022. The Lin Uprising of 1849
The roll of women in rebellions of the enslaved has long been minimized if not ignored. I found that this little known uprising was led by an enslaved cook, Lin, who was inspired by a dream to lead an attempted escape to freedom. At the farm where she led her rebellion, the farmer had heard of there having been a rebellion, but not of Lin.

Suffolk, Virginia and Camden County, North Carolina 2023. The Maroon Raiders of the Great Dismal Swamp. 1823
Seen contemporaneously as dehumanized "murdering monsters in human shape," today we might admire these men and women who eked out a marginal survival amidst the simmering heat and swarming insects of that swampland. These maroon bands were one of the few successful forms of active resistance to the slave system.

Southampton County, Virginia. 2023. The Nat Turner Insurrection of 1831
Some 65 white men, women, and children were killed by Nat Turner's band of rebells, and 175 enslaved as well as free Black men and women were killed in retaliation, in this most infamous of all the rebellions. Its notoriety is such that it can be said to have been our first major media event. Today tours are offered of "Nat Turner Country." Four people, each with a unique personal connection to those events, guided me through the sites. Also of note are William Drewery's photographs taken in 1900 of all the rebellion sites, a rare photographic record made at a time when the rebellion was still a "living memory."

Prospect Bluff, Florida. 2024. The 1816 Massacre at Negro Fort
Over 300 men, women, and children were killed here in what may well be the first mass killing of civilians in modern warfare. In its aftermath we can see the first iterations of what is now referred to as Critical Race Theory. The site of the fort, though landmarked, is today closed to the public.

Installation Views