The Shadows-on-the-Teche is undoubtedly idiosyncratic, if not a little mysterious. The only site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the Gulf South and one of only four further south geographically than Virginia, the house sits in the city of New Iberia, Louisiana, yet its columns and gallery are more emblematic of a plantation ‘Big House’ than a city residence. Its original owner was not the stereotypical Southern gentleman, either, but a white woman—a planter and enslaver in her own right.

Its donor was equally non-conformative, eschewing gender normative activities of his era in favor of an art and domestic-centered life, restoring The Shadows and entertaining an varied circle of artists, writers, early historic preservationists and cultural figures, including many people from around the country who today may identify as LGBTQ+. And lastly, The Shadows—as with many antebellum homes—is a paradox: its beautiful architecture, lush grounds, and extensive decorative arts collection was all made possible by the enslavement of Africans and their descendants.

For all its complexity, interpretation at The Shadows for many years followed traditional models. Tours focused on the white proprietors David and Mary Weeks with a heavy emphasis on life as they and their descendants experienced it in the house. The considerable material available in the Weeks Family papers as well as The Shadows’ extensive collection were both applied to this interpretive framework, resulting in an experience that was well supported, but overwhelmingly exclusive in its focus and subsequently white in its narrative. A visit to The Shadows did not lack information, but was far from addressing the breadth of its history let alone highlighting the complexities that make The Shadows such an important historic site—a site of memory.

Doing the Research

In 2020, The Shadows engaged Kenetha Harrington to revisit the Weeks Family papers, the site’s collection, and to locate new material that could be incorporated into the visitor experience. Attention to primary documents had always been the core interpretive value at The Shadows, and Harrington applied it in the search (video) for those whose histories are integral to the site, but have been historically excluded. This included that of African descendants who lived and labored at the property both before and after the Civil War, as well as the role of the Chitimacha and Atkapan-Ishak, area Native American residents.

With Harrington and Ambroise’s work, The Shadows moved forward towards the creation of an ethical and comprehensive approach to the site’s interpretation. The staff installed signage across the site, marking points of importance, bringing into the visitor experience material on work yards, domestic labor and urban slavery. These signs highlighted and interpreted later-20th-century points of importance.

One early visitor facility now interpreted was erected on top of slave quarter foundations and was segregated until the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Its inclusion in the site’s interpretation provides a powerful point of discussion on racial inequality, symbolic erasure of Black histories at historic sites, and the potential of these sites to be agents of change. Certainly, The Shadows’ commitment to both its history and its legacies is now, quite literally, part of the visitor experience.

In the fall of 2021, The Shadows opened for tours for the first time since its reinterpretation. The work of scholars Harrington and Ambroise, the guidance of the Interpretive Advisory Board, and The Shadows’ commitment to the value of primary source material shaped a presentation that is quite a departure from what has been previously shared.

In the new tour, those rightful inhabitants of the land which became The Shadows, the Chitimacha and the Atakapan-Ishak, are now acknowledged; the house is presented as it was experienced by enslaved people and their white enslavers; the institution of slavery as the dominating social structure—one intended to be perpetuated—is put forward as fundamental; and lastly, the narrative embraces the complexity of the Shadows’ own particular history. Here, a woman stood as enslaver and planter; here, an enslaved woman resisted her enslavement by testing the limits of her bondage at every point possible, turning survival into resistance.