The Hermitage, Nashville TN

We're taking a short trip to Nashville as a precursor to our DC trip coming up in May. We went to the Hermitage yesterday and learned about General (and 7th U.S. President) Andrew Jackson. What a complicated man. Certainly not all good, but not all bad, either. I'll leave a complete analysis on him to the historians, except to say that our evolution as a civil society seems to be incremental. Jackson played a huge role in establishing rights for poor white men (which served as a model for others to follow to demand their rights), but he also is responsible for the Trail of Tears. Jackson is a study in contrasts, at best.

We toured the mansion, the garden, the slave cabins, the acreage where the crops were - the kids were able to relate what they had learned in class to what they saw. Mitch remembered seeing pictures of slave cabins in books at school and talking about how many people had to live in one small space - he said what we saw yesterday looked just like what was in the books. Sam remembered about Harriett Tubman and her role in helping slaves escape. Josie remembered details about the Civil War - when I asked her which side was for slavery, she said "the Confederates, because all of their wealth depended on slaves".




Sweet lady offered to take our picture; I didn't have the heart to tell her it was not in focus or to ask her to take another. I need to work on my assertiveness.







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