Observances this weekend commemorate The Weeping Time
Mar. 4—Amid the wails and lamentations from more than 400 enslaved people being torn apart from family and friends during a harrowing 1859 slave auction in Savannah, it is said that God also wept.
Like teardrops from heaven, rain fell continuously over Ten Broeck's racehorse track — from the inhumane auction's opening gavel on March 2 to the last cold-blooded transaction of humans selling humans on March 3. The auction that saw 429 men, women and children sold off from the Butler Plantation in McIntosh County and the Hampton Point Plantation on St. Simons Island has been imparted to us by history as The Weeping Time.
Lest we forget, a Brunswick group has put together a series of virtual events to commemorate the 162nd anniversary of this sad day in American history. The observances are sponsored by Brunswick-based Windsward of Georgia, a nonprofit organization dedicated to enriching and preserving Gullah Geechee heritage.
The events can be followed on Facebook Live by going to The Weeping Time's Facebook page. These include a commemoration ceremony beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday. The one-hour ceremony includes the reading of the names of those enslaved people who were sold. Additionally, there will be a libation ceremony, the traditional African observance that reveres the ancestors. Shouter Griffin Lotson, local African American historian Amy Roberts and others will speak as well.
At 11 a.m. Sunday, the service from Solomon Temple Church of God in Christ in Savannah will be broadcast virtually on The Weeping Time's Facebook page. The sermon and the service will be geared toward remembrance of The Weeping Time.
Additionally, at 5 p.m. Friday some 436 candles will be lit at the site of the Butler Plantation on Butler Island in McIntosh County.
Organizers also are asking people to take part in The Weeping Time Umbrella Challenge. People are asked to step outside over the weekend and raise an open umbrella for 4 minutes, recognizing the enslaved who were sold away from loved ones and for the tears that God is said to have spilled. Folks are further encouraged to video their participation and submit the video to The Weeping Time's Facebook page.
The Hampton Point and Butler Island plantations were the holdings of Major Pierce Butler. The planter and Revolutionary War veteran grew wealthy on the cotton and rice produced by the forced toil of more than 900 enslaved people. Upon his death, the plantations were inherited by his two grandsons, John and Pierce Mease Butler.
Pierce Mease Butler lived in Philadelphia — lavishly, if not irresponsibly. By the late 1850s, a series of gambling debts and ill-advised investments left the scion of Philadelphia society virtually broke. He turned to the only thing of value he had: 429 enslaved human beings on the Butler and Hampton Point plantations. (His brother's half of the enslaved people remained.)
Thus, the notorious slave auction at the Savannah racetrack. As reprehensible as slavery was in all its forms, the enslaved on Hampton Point and Butler Island at least had a sense of place, family and community. Rarely were slaves sold off these plantations. This sense of permanence allowed these enslaved people to observe traditional African rites and traditions, observances that were preserved in the Gullah Geechee culture that would take root here on the Georgia Coast.
Buyers came from all over the slave-holding South for the auction, from Louisiana to Tennessee to Alabama and Virginia. Of 436 enslaved people brought to auction, 429 were sold to new owners, new lands. Many were torn from families, spouses and parents.
It is important that we not forget such a horrific event took place on American soil, said Delores Polite, a descendant of enslaved people from The Weeping Time auction and an organizer of the event. More importantly, she said, let us not forget those who endured its inhumanity.
"We need to remember that they had lives," she said. "Me being a direct descendant, it's touching to me that we recognize our ancestors. It's horrid, but it's part of Georgia history and it's part of American history. It's important that we keep history alive for future generations of Americans to understand the enslaved experience of Africans away from Africa."
