This letter is from Kwesi DeGraft-Hanson of Savannah
It is tragic that arson incinerated the iconic Huston house on Butler Island in McIntosh County, on June 26. It had withstood nature’s vagaries for almost a century.
The flaming Huston house illuminates, poignantly, the many pains the island bears, including sorrows of the formerly enslaved: multiple miscarriages, several childbirths, and high infant mortalities, all tied to inhumane brutalities. The former plantation there is connected to the infamous "The Weeping Time," one of the largest slave auctions. The agonies of those who escaped from Butler Island, multiple times, only to be caught, and repeatedly flogged. Miserable lonely deaths in a drafty slave hospital. It is time to honor the sufferings endured by the former enslaved of Butler Island rice plantation.
More: Historic Huston House burned down; Weeping Time Coalition looks ahead
An 1836 rice mill chimney remains from the plantation era, predating and surviving the Huston House. Skilled enslaved brick masons built and managed the chimney and mill, and an older tidal rice mill. Relics like this rice mill chimney are rare, disappearing into America’s retreating landscape of slavery.
We must preserve the Butler Island chimney and period remnants; build a memorial to the former enslaved whose talents, toils, and lives were exploited to enrich the Butler family, the state, and country we all live in; and celebrate their descendants, even as we lament the Huston House.
The house’s torching should light a fire in us collectively — descendants of enslavers, enablers, and enslaved, to work towards reconciliation. Fire, while destructive, is also generative. After forest fires, new saplings sprout, find nourishment and space to grow from the forest floor into mighty trees. Let’s grow together.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Letter: Huston House fire shouldn't allow us to extinguish history of Butler Island
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