Frictions at James Madison’s Montpelier
Under that change, the sixteen-member board has included five descendants of enslaved people, two chosen by the Foundation and three by the Montpelier Descendants Committee, formed by people whose ancestors were enslaved at the site. At the time, that was widely hailed as a progressive step by the site and its supporters, ahead of any other former slave-labor plantation linked to a famous Founder.
Last week the Washington Post reported that the Montpelier Foundation was preparing to unilaterally alter that arrangement after frictions between the Foundation’s current leadership and the Descendants Committee.
Under the new arrangement, the Montpelier Descendants Committee would no longer choose any new board members. The Foundation board says it will still consider the committee’s nominations and still work toward a goal of half of board members being descendants of enslaved people—but only descendants of the board’s choosing.
According to the Post article, the Montpelier Descendants Committee’s lawyer submitted the names of forty prospective board members whom that group would support, but the Foundation still wants to cut the committee out of the process.
The Post added, “Outside mediators brought in last year eventually quit, criticizing the foundation for taking actions ‘entirely inconsistent’ with a commitment to seek board parity.”
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which actually owns Montpelier, urged the Foundation not to proceed with this change. Most of the site’s full-time employees signed a petition against the change, made public at a new website.
On Sunday, the Montpelier Foundation announced that it had gone ahead with the vote, which it termed a “broadening” of the pool of descendants of Montpelier’s enslaved eligible to be on the board. Of course, everyone had been eligible before—the only change is that the Descendants Committee can’t choose board members.
The Foundation’s press release quoted one anonymous member of the site’s staff in support of the change and led with a supportive statement from “the Jennings family of Montpelier,” no individual identified. Presumably these people are descended from Paul Jennings, who published a memoir about being enslaved to James and Dolley Madison in 1865.
6 comments:
Thanks for addressing this important issue, John.
Some questions:
Who/what is the Montpelier Foundation? If the National Trust for Historic Preservation owns the property, how did this foundation gain the power to manage it? How are the directors of the foundation selected or appointed? By whom?
I can't find the answers to these questions on the internet. The Washington Post article doesn't address them at all. The Wikipedia page for Montpelier simply says that "In 2000, The Montpelier Foundation formed with the goal of transforming James Madison's historic estate into a dynamic cultural institution", and "In 2000, the National Trust established Montpelier as a co-stewardship property, administered by The Montpelier Foundation."
Yet this Foundation appears to have unilaterally made this decision, over the opposition of both the property owner and a majority of their employees. And from what I've read, the Foundation doesn't seem to have made any efforts at negotiation.
The answers to these questions would greatly inform the discussion of this topic.
Presumably the National Trust, as the property owner, has made some form of agreement or contract with the foundation. The next questions would involve whether, or how, the National Trust could get this decision reversed or modified, whether the National Trust has any power to abrogate or alter its agreement with the foundation, and whether the National Trust can force a change in the governance of the foundation, such as by changing the membership of the Foundation's Board of Directors.
I’ve struggled to figure out the lines of authority and responsibility myself.
I think that the National Trust for Historic Property owns the building and the real estate, but the Montpelier Foundation administers it. Most of the funding that propels the tours, the archeology, the educational programming, the website, and quite possibly much of the preservation probably comes through the Foundation.
At Monticello, an organization of Thomas and Martha Jefferson’s descendants owns the family graveyard. There doesn’t appear to be a similar organization at Montpelier. James Madison left no recognized children, and it doesn’t look like Dolley Madison’s surviving son, John Payne Todd, did either. So that’s not a factor.
One of the descendants on the Foundation board, supportive of the Montpelier Descendants Committee and therefore possibly named to the board by the Committee, is Dr. Bettye Kearse. She is the author of The Other Madisons and claims descent from James Madison. The question of how to assess and interpret that family story may be an issue.
The news articles suggest that the falling-out between the Foundation and the Committee occurred over a Montpelier statement on the murder of George Floyd. Since that event, however significant, is removed in time and space from interpreting the Madisons’ and their servants’ lives at Montpelier, I can’t help but think that was a precipitating incident but not the real cause of the rift.
I see that the National Trust for Historic Preservation has given grants to both the Montpelier Descendants Committee and the Montpelier Foundation to support inclusive interpretation and governance at the site. Its leadership is obviously not pleased with the Foundation board’s vote.
No one in this dispute appears to disagree that the Monticello Descendants Committee represents the majority of people claiming descent from those enslaved at Montpelier, or that the statement on the montpelierstaff.org website represents the majority of the site’s staff.
People on the Foundation board are saying that there’s an individual (not named) who disagrees with the rest of the staff, and that one family of descendants (no individuals named) who supports the bylaws change.
In other words, there were votes within those groups, and one side clearly won. The Foundation doesn’t like the results.
I first visited Montpelier 30 years ago and have visited it a number of times since then. It's located in the heart of Virginia wine country and on the way to Charlottesville. Unfortunately, COVID has prevented me from visiting it and the wine country in the last couple of years. Montpelier was a pioneer in establishing programs to document and tell the tale of the enslaved workers at the estate and its programs have been copied by other historical sites. I distinctly recall being impressed in what they were doing in this area many years ago. The Foundation has done a remarkable job in restoring Montpelier to reflect Madison's Montpelier. I can't help but believe that there is a backstory here that the Press is not reporting; perhaps it's a matter of control and a clash of personalities. In any event Montpelier is well worth a visit. One of its hidden attractions is a 200-acre magnificent old-growth forest that reflects what Virginia was like when the first English settlers arrived.
“…servants’ lives” ??? Really? Servants?
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