BAILEY QUINLAN

When we were spending time in coastal Maryland during the early months of the pandemic, we took as many day trips as we could to break up the monotony of quarantining at home and get out of the constant paranoia plaguing our minds.

We found a spot on the map less than an hour away called “Wye Island Natural Resources Management Area”- it had nature trails and was by the water which we figured would be fun for the dog to run around.

As we turned off the main road toward the nature preserve, a sign on the side of the road caught my eye and I decided to pull over to read it: “Historic Points,” which included “Wye Plantation.” I hoped it wasn’t what I thought it was and we kept driving... Further down the road we encountered a similar sign posted near a bunch of mailboxes, as if it were a voice for the community: “Wye Plantation: home of William Paca, signer of the Declaration of the Independence and twice governor of Maryland. Born at Chilbury hall, Hartford county 1740, died and lies buried here, 1799. The unusual house probably dates about 1740.”

Our nature walk quickly shifted to something dark and troubling. The more I learned, the more I realized it was quite an unusual house indeed…

For over 300 years, Wye Island was privately owned and managed for agricultural use, including livestock and tobacco, corn, wheat farming. Wye House Farm was settled in the 1650s by Edward Lloyd, a Welsh Puritan. A century later his great-grandson, Edward Lloyd IV, built the late-Georgian, seven-part mansion known as the Wye House. The unique greenhouse on the property is the oldest of its kind still in existence, and the home itself was designated as a National Historical Landmark in 1970.

For many historical accounts of the Wye House, this is where the story ends. However, the Wye Plantation was not only the home of the incredibly wealthy Lloyd family for generations, but also thousands of enslaved individuals. At its peak, the plantation covered more than 40,000 acres and enslaved roughly 700 people at a time. The Wye House Farm was one of many massive plantations that fed much of the United States up to the Civil War, and even exported their surplus crops overseas.

The Lloyds were the biggest landholders and slaveholders on the Eastern Shore, and by the end of his life, Edward III was one of the richest men in Maryland. (Case in point, among its many valuable possessions, the estate contained a set of silver candlesticks- each equal to the value of three “prime male slaves, with money to spare for a youngster.”)

The immense intergenerational wealth accumulated by the Lloyd family- whose descendants still reap the benefits of today- would not have been possible without the exploitation of forced labor by the thousands of enslaved people working on their farms over a span of hundreds of years. In fact, accumulating land and enslaved people was the dual driving force in their financial strategy to invest in their children’s future wealth, since both land and enslaved people (under state law) could be traded, mortgaged, sold, and handed down generation to generation.

A 1667 will stated: “Upon reaching lawful age, the child was to receive three Christian indentured servants, five ‘negro’ slaves, an assortment of livestock, and two feather beds, with [crops] valued in total at 4,000 pounds of tobacco.”


At Wye Plantation in 1770, over 90% of the enslaved population was made up of families. When a slaveholder died, their “property” (including land AND enslaved people) usually needed to be split up amongst their heirs, potentially causing unrest when families were split up. Going against the convention at the time, the Lloyds granted certain enslaved people the “privilege” of deciding which heir to go with. The consideration of family ties was seemingly the only acknowledgment of enslaved people’s humanity- but even that was rife with financial incentive for the heir. Families were strategically kept together to ensure a “smooth transition,” a more reliable workforce, and prevent rebellion. The appearance of a well-ordered household for guests was also important to the head of household's reputation. Birth rates were another key consideration, since it was thought to be more “efficient” to rely on “natural increase to grow their enslaved workforce,” rather than to participate in the African slave trade as their forefathers had. Although, Edward IV often “sold women and children… to reduce surplus labor and increase productivity.”

Frederick Douglass was actually enslaved at Wye Plantation as an 8 year old child for about a year before being sold to a family in Baltimore. In his autobiography he describes the extraordinary brutality he observed and experienced at the hands of the overseers, and Edward Lloyd V (who actually served as Governor of Maryland from 1809-1811 and U.S. Senator from 1819-1826.) Douglass described the “Long Green,” a mile-long expanse from the Great House to the Wye River where the majority of the plantation’s enslaved people — many with specialized skills, such as blacksmithing and carpentry — worked, lived and died. Douglass writes of an especially cruel overseer, nicknamed Mr. Severe, who lived in a small red cottage at the end of the green, who once whipped an enslaved woman, "causing the blood to run half an hour at a time... while her crying children pleaded for her release."

The descendants of the original owner of Wye Plantation- the 11th generation of the Lloyd family- opened the grounds in 2006 to archeologists from the University of Maryland, who’ve been trying to piece together information about the daily lives of the enslaved residents. ”I don't think anyone in the family is going to say we're proud that our family were slave owners. But on the other hand, it's our heritage, and the African-American people who come here — that's part of their heritage.” (NPR)

The excavation uncovered many personal effects from where the slave dwellings once stood on the Long Green, and even revealed that the greenhouse was built by enslaved people, with slave quarters built into the back of the structure. Spiritual objects were found in the doorway to ward off unwanted spirits from the Lloyd family cemetery, which was eerily located right outside the greenhouse.

Douglass, describing the greenhouse: “This garden was probably the greatest attraction of the place. During the summer months, people came from far and near—from Baltimore, Easton, and Annapolis—to see it. It abounded in fruits of almost every description, from the hardy apple of the north to the delicate orange of the south. This garden was not the least source of trouble on the plantation. Its excellent fruit was quite a temptation to the hungry swarms of boys, as well as the older slaves, belonging to the colonel, few of whom had the virtue or vice to resist it. Scarcely a day passed, during the summer, but that some slave had to take the lash for stealing fruit. The colonel had to resort to all kinds of stratagems to keep his slaves out of the garden. The last and most successful one was that of tarring the fence all around; after which, if a slave was caught with any tar upon his person, it was deemed sufficient proof that he had either been into the garden, or had tried to get in. In either case, he was severely whipped by the chief gardener.”

Not surprisingly, the red cottage, and all of the dwellings and workshops where enslaved people lived and worked have been torn down. It’s no accident that the grounds are essentially devoid of any evidence of enslaved people ever having been there. The house itself is set far back from the road, the long private driveway lined with tall old trees making it impossible to even get a glimpse of it- even furthering the cognitive dissonance of the reality of what took place here. There’s no signage or acknowledgment of the horror that happened there for centuries, contributing to the opacity of that history. Scholar Alan Rice argues this amounts to a “‘symbolic annihilation’ of black presence” on the estate, which contributes to the erasure of slavery from the traditional historical narrative of the site.

The extent of the records of the people who were enslaved at Wye Plantation over the years is limited to the census records that overseers kept of enslaved people’s names and ages scribbled into notebooks dating back to 1770. The University of Maryland digitized these records into a searchable database. Many descendants of the people who were enslaved at Wye Plantation now live in the nearby towns of Easton, Unionville and Copperville, and with the accessibility of these records may now be able to trace a more complete family tree.

I was also able to access an extremely well-researched dissertation written in 2011 with many of the statistics and historical references included above. Note: in many of the sources I found the term “slave” was used, which I’ve changed to “enslaved person” in order to center the human being discussed. I’ve kept the original text when quoting sources. 

It’s unsettling to discover that so many people visit this site and have no idea of the context.

I was alarmed, but not surprised that this history had been glossed over.

This erasure is harmful. We cannot move forward if we do not understand our past.

What constitutes a historic site? Who gets to designate one? And what information is included (and more importantly left out) from the version of the story they want to tell? In some way I’m glad that it was marked, rather than not at all. But WHY places are marked is another issue entirely… Their sheer existence signals to passersby the significance of these locations and individuals to society. But the indigenous and enslaved people of this land have suffered irreparable generational trauma, harm, and erasure at the hands of these colonizers who justified their actions by dehumanizing them, and enriched themselves with no consequence. Many of them served in government, and were memorialized. In this white-centric colonial way of thinking, land and people are resources to be exploited and benefited from. And the more we internalize and normalize this narrative, the more we perpetuate the status quo for future generations. Until, we’ve totally forgotten our past.

We cannot just leave out the parts from history that don’t look good in retrospect, and simply move on- but unfortunately most representations of American historical and cultural identity attempt to do just that. Which is why we’re still left with exorbitant wealth inequality and systemic racism to this day.

When we were spending time in coastal Maryland during the early months of the pandemic, we took as many day trips as we could to break up the monotony of quarantining at home and get out of the constant paranoia plaguing our minds.

We found a spot on the map less than an hour away called “Wye Island Natural Resources Management Area”- it had nature trails and was by the water which we figured would be fun for the dog to run around.

As we turned off the main road toward the nature preserve, a sign on the side of the road caught my eye and I decided to pull over to read it: “Historic Points,” which included “Wye Plantation.” I hoped it wasn’t what I thought it was and we kept driving... Further down the road we encountered a similar sign posted near a bunch of mailboxes, as if it were a voice for the community: “Wye Plantation: home of William Paca, signer of the Declaration of the Independence and twice governor of Maryland. Born at Chilbury hall, Hartford county 1740, died and lies buried here, 1799. The unusual house probably dates about 1740.”

Our nature walk quickly shifted to something dark and troubling. The more I learned, the more I realized it was quite an unusual house indeed…

For over 300 years, Wye Island was privately owned and managed for agricultural use, including livestock and tobacco, corn, wheat farming. Wye House Farm was settled in the 1650s by Edward Lloyd, a Welsh Puritan. A century later his great-grandson, Edward Lloyd IV, built the late-Georgian, seven-part mansion known as the Wye House. The unique greenhouse on the property is the oldest of its kind still in existence, and the home itself was designated as a National Historical Landmark in 1970.

For many historical accounts of the Wye House, this is where the story ends. However, the Wye Plantation was not only the home of the incredibly wealthy Lloyd family for generations, but also thousands of enslaved individuals. At its peak, the plantation covered more than 40,000 acres and enslaved roughly 700 people at a time. The Wye House Farm was one of many massive plantations that fed much of the United States up to the Civil War, and even exported their surplus crops overseas.

The Lloyds were the biggest landholders and slaveholders on the Eastern Shore, and by the end of his life, Edward III was one of the richest men in Maryland. (Case in point, among its many valuable possessions, the estate contained a set of silver candlesticks- each equal to the value of three “prime male slaves, with money to spare for a youngster.”)

The immense intergenerational wealth accumulated by the Lloyd family- whose descendants still reap the benefits of today- would not have been possible without the exploitation of forced labor by the thousands of enslaved people working on their farms over a span of hundreds of years. In fact, accumulating land and enslaved people was the dual driving force in their financial strategy to invest in their children’s future wealth, since both land and enslaved people (under state law) could be traded, mortgaged, sold, and handed down generation to generation.

A 1667 will stated: “Upon reaching lawful age, the child was to receive three Christian indentured servants, five ‘negro’ slaves, an assortment of livestock, and two feather beds, with [crops] valued in total at 4,000 pounds of tobacco.”


At Wye Plantation in 1770, over 90% of the enslaved population was made up of families. When a slaveholder died, their “property” (including land AND enslaved people) usually needed to be split up amongst their heirs, potentially causing unrest when families were split up. Going against the convention at the time, the Lloyds granted certain enslaved people the “privilege” of deciding which heir to go with. The consideration of family ties was seemingly the only acknowledgment of enslaved people’s humanity- but even that was rife with financial incentive for the heir. Families were strategically kept together to ensure a “smooth transition,” a more reliable workforce, and prevent rebellion. The appearance of a well-ordered household for guests was also important to the head of household's reputation. Birth rates were another key consideration, since it was thought to be more “efficient” to rely on “natural increase to grow their enslaved workforce,” rather than to participate in the African slave trade as their forefathers had. Although, Edward IV often “sold women and children… to reduce surplus labor and increase productivity.”

Frederick Douglass was actually enslaved at Wye Plantation as an 8 year old child for about a year before being sold to a family in Baltimore. In his autobiography he describes the extraordinary brutality he observed and experienced at the hands of the overseers, and Edward Lloyd V (who actually served as Governor of Maryland from 1809-1811 and U.S. Senator from 1819-1826.) Douglass described the “Long Green,” a mile-long expanse from the Great House to the Wye River where the majority of the plantation’s enslaved people — many with specialized skills, such as blacksmithing and carpentry — worked, lived and died. Douglass writes of an especially cruel overseer, nicknamed Mr. Severe, who lived in a small red cottage at the end of the green, who once whipped an enslaved woman, "causing the blood to run half an hour at a time... while her crying children pleaded for her release."

The descendants of the original owner of Wye Plantation- the 11th generation of the Lloyd family- opened the grounds in 2006 to archeologists from the University of Maryland, who’ve been trying to piece together information about the daily lives of the enslaved residents. ”I don't think anyone in the family is going to say we're proud that our family were slave owners. But on the other hand, it's our heritage, and the African-American people who come here — that's part of their heritage.” (NPR)

The excavation uncovered many personal effects from where the slave dwellings once stood on the Long Green, and even revealed that the greenhouse was built by enslaved people, with slave quarters built into the back of the structure. Spiritual objects were found in the doorway to ward off unwanted spirits from the Lloyd family cemetery, which was eerily located right outside the greenhouse.

Douglass, describing the greenhouse: “This garden was probably the greatest attraction of the place. During the summer months, people came from far and near—from Baltimore, Easton, and Annapolis—to see it. It abounded in fruits of almost every description, from the hardy apple of the north to the delicate orange of the south. This garden was not the least source of trouble on the plantation. Its excellent fruit was quite a temptation to the hungry swarms of boys, as well as the older slaves, belonging to the colonel, few of whom had the virtue or vice to resist it. Scarcely a day passed, during the summer, but that some slave had to take the lash for stealing fruit. The colonel had to resort to all kinds of stratagems to keep his slaves out of the garden. The last and most successful one was that of tarring the fence all around; after which, if a slave was caught with any tar upon his person, it was deemed sufficient proof that he had either been into the garden, or had tried to get in. In either case, he was severely whipped by the chief gardener.”

Not surprisingly, the red cottage, and all of the dwellings and workshops where enslaved people lived and worked have been torn down. It’s no accident that the grounds are essentially devoid of any evidence of enslaved people ever having been there. The house itself is set far back from the road, the long private driveway lined with tall old trees making it impossible to even get a glimpse of it- even furthering the cognitive dissonance of the reality of what took place here. There’s no signage or acknowledgment of the horror that happened there for centuries, contributing to the opacity of that history. Scholar Alan Rice argues this amounts to a “‘symbolic annihilation’ of black presence” on the estate, which contributes to the erasure of slavery from the traditional historical narrative of the site.

The extent of the records of the people who were enslaved at Wye Plantation over the years is limited to the census records that overseers kept of enslaved people’s names and ages scribbled into notebooks dating back to 1770. The University of Maryland digitized these records into a searchable database. Many descendants of the people who were enslaved at Wye Plantation now live in the nearby towns of Easton, Unionville and Copperville, and with the accessibility of these records may now be able to trace a more complete family tree.

I was also able to access an extremely well-researched dissertation written in 2011 with many of the statistics and historical references included above. Note: in many of the sources I found the term “slave” was used, which I’ve changed to “enslaved person” in order to center the human being discussed. I’ve kept the original text when quoting sources. 

It’s unsettling to discover that so many people visit this site and have no idea of the context.

I was alarmed, but not surprised that this history had been glossed over.

This erasure is harmful. We cannot move forward if we do not understand our past.

What constitutes a historic site? Who gets to designate one? And what information is included (and more importantly left out) from the version of the story they want to tell? In some way I’m glad that it was marked, rather than not at all. But WHY places are marked is another issue entirely… Their sheer existence signals to passersby the significance of these locations and individuals to society. But the indigenous and enslaved people of this land have suffered irreparable generational trauma, harm, and erasure at the hands of these colonizers who justified their actions by dehumanizing them, and enriched themselves with no consequence. Many of them served in government, and were memorialized. In this white-centric colonial way of thinking, land and people are resources to be exploited and benefited from. And the more we internalize and normalize this narrative, the more we perpetuate the status quo for future generations. Until, we’ve totally forgotten our past.

We cannot just leave out the parts from history that don’t look good in retrospect, and simply move on- but unfortunately most representations of American historical and cultural identity attempt to do just that. Which is why we’re still left with exorbitant wealth inequality and systemic racism to this day.

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