As Montpelier Goes Woke, Will Virginians Rescue James Madison From Cancellation?
Some have been noticing the shift in focus — and at times an ideological bias — that pervades many of our historic sites. Case in point: Montpelier, James Madison’s home, where politics has overtaken history.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the organization that owns Montpelier, has considerable resources, but Montpelier is not using its funds to preserve the legacy of James Madison. Rather, supported by the trust, Montpelier is diminishing Madison’s legacy and seeking to influence how history is taught throughout Virginia and how America itself is recognized on the world stage.
Though the trust owns Montpelier, Madison’s home is operated by the Montpelier Foundation. The mission of the Montpelier Foundation is to engage “the public with the enduring legacy of Madison’s most powerful idea: government by the people … to communicate Madison’s role in creating our modern, democratic government.” Incredibly, there are no exhibits at Montpelier dedicated to our nation’s fourth president, the man often called “the Father of the Constitution.”
In 2020, Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources gave $1,000,000 to the County of Orange for programming at Montpelier. Montpelier’s website states that the funding was for a memorialization project, which would include a memorial to enslaved people and the development of anti-racist curricula for use in Virginia public schools. No such memorial has yet been built.
Montpelier’s memorialization project now seems to encompass the Arc of the Enslaved Communities. According to the Washington Examiner’s Quin Hillyer, the original objective of that arc was to have the “whole area from Montpelier to Monticello declared a UNESCO World Heritage site,” all 850 square acres, and recognized as home to one of the “highest concentrations of enslaved Americans during the formative years of the United States.” The arc was conceived by the Montpelier Descendants Committee (MDC) and funded by the National Trust.
The U.S. has a fraught relationship with UNESCO and is currently not a member. In 1983, the U.S. left UNESCO; President Reagan’s administration stated that UNESCO “extraneously politicized virtually every subject it deals with. It has exhibited hostility toward a free society, especially a free market and a free press.” Some contended that UNESCO downgrading Yellowstone National Park because of plans to open a gold mine in the area was an attempt to undermine America’s “rights to govern itself and to destroy the fabric of US sovereignty.”
Transforming a Historical Site
The UNESCO designation could also further entrench Montpelier’s political shift. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) language is scattered throughout the UNESCO guidelines. In granting international assistance, UNESCO prioritizes, “the inclusive nature of the activity, in particular as concerns gender equality and the involvement of local communities and indigenous peoples.” The MDC claims to represent those whose ancestors were enslaved at Montpelier, but the majority of them are not actual descendants. The UNESCO designation could provide financial incentives to solidify the MDC’s power and encourage DEI programming at Montpelier.
Declaring a portion of Virginia a historic site on the basis of slavery is a complicated and politically fraught objective. It is certainly true that slavery existed in Virginia, and slavery is part of American history. Yet those who seek this designation diminish
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