The website has a slavery page somewhat hidden on the website. When I went through the page just through the homepage, there was no blatant indication toward that Shaw owned slaves. Even in the “Our History” page, the topic is barely brought up, only taking up one paragraph out of the eight-paragraph page. From this page, there is small text at the top that will take you to a separate page about the history of slavery and the garden. When I first read the page, I completely missed it. I was trying to find the page that was linked, and it seemed like a scavenger hunt just for the page.  

First you have to go to the garden website. Then, the main page is just the garden and how people should pay and see it. I agree that people should see it, but it is just the overarching idea of the main page. Then, you must click on the about us page, and read about that. Then, there is the page about their history, and that is the step just before getting to the slavery page. 

 

This is the URL to get to the slavery page. Notice how many different sub-sections there are for it. There are four things you need to click through before getting to the actual page about slavery. I feel that these should be closer than just four clicks. Plus, on the website, there are a bunch of other things that are more of a priority than the slavery page. 

The page itself talks about the purchase of enslaved people made by Henry Shaw. It also includes many pictures of the slave records, the purchases, etc. Although this information is helpful, it just does not seem to provide enough information about this. They just mention the subject and just want to move forward with the garden, not focusing on the history of slavery associated with the garden. Because of this, the problem is not resolved, and the garden does not want to acknowledge the existence of slavery on the garden grounds. 

Many workers of the garden seem to know about the history of slavery on garden grounds, but they do nothing with the information. The work that we are doing now is a good step towards more involvement and more being done about the history of slavery and the garden. That just seems wrong to not really display it for everyone to see. When the garden has a past of slavery, I feel that it should be really shown, and not just put behind links on the website. Also, if it is put on a website, it should be a main part of the website.  

This just shows how small the other page is compared to the words on the screen for their history. 

Because of the website, it furthers my motivation to put something physical on garden grounds to contribute to the history of slavery in the gardens. More light should be shed on this topic, and it should be talked about more and not hidden. This also makes me think that the part about slavery should not have this be so far into the website, rather one of the main things that you see when you first go onto the website. 

The website gives useful information about the garden, but also, they just do not provide enough information about the slavery aspect of the garden. Sure, it was in the past, but that does not mean that it did not happen. The garden founder owned slaves, and that should be recognized right now. Henry Shaw was the garden’s founder, but he also had a past that people do not really want to acknowledge. Just because people do not want to acknowledge the past, that does not mean that it should be hidden forever. Because of how the website seemed to put it behind many different things to cover it up. This is why there needs to be some type of physical representation inside the garden. Although it may not be clear what to put in the garden yet, there are multiple ideas that can be implemented easily. 

The garden is such a beautiful place, and it should stay beautiful all the time. But if this problem is not brought to light, then the garden will have a sort of stain on it that will not go away without the proper processes. Something that I believe should be added is some type of information board inside the garden, inside the basement because it is being worked on right now. An idea I had was a statue of Esther and other slaves owned by Henry Shaw. Although this may be a costly idea, I believe that it will help people to visualize what they looked like.