By Logan Langlois
NASHVILLE, TN — When most people hear about when slavery was practiced in Tennessee, they think of the tobacco field plantations that populated much of middle Tennessee, or maybe even the cotton plantations that ran as “king” in west Tennessee. However, in middle Tennessee, another king ran – one whose production brought about conditions even more brutal than those experienced by the enslaved peoples of neighboring plantations. “King Iron: The Untold Story of Enslaved Furnace Workers in Tennessee,” is a traveling expedition that digs deep to tell the forgotten story of those forced to work the hellish iron furnaces of middle Tennessee through artifacts, research, and surviving ledgers.
“You hear so many times the surnames of the enslavers, right? Like Montgomery Bell,” said African American Historical Group President Frederick Murphy said. “And all these different Bells, and Baxters, the Hillmans, all these rich, white enslavers, but you never hear about the people who afforded them the opportunity by force to be in the position in which they’re in.”
“That’s what this is about. It is paying homage, acknowledging, amplifying the lived experiences of those who were enslaved. Who made these folks money,” he continued.
Murphy said the King Iron traveling exhibition, created by the Tennessee African American Historical Group and funded by Tennessee Humanities, tells the story of these enslaved iron laborers over seven panels that are easily transported between locations that have offered to host them across Tennessee. King Iron’s Exhibit Director Tracy Jepson said within the panels also sits a diorama that depicts an iron furnace, as well as the 100 – 200 enslaved laborers who were required to operate the metal monsters of iron and heat properly. Murphy and Jepson detailed that the accompanying artifacts have been lent to the exhibition from across Tennessee, all of which are currently on display at the Clement Railroad Hotel Museum in Dickson County and are scheduled to be hosted in the McMinnville Black History Museum beginning June 27.
Murphy and Jepson said while the furnaces were operational, the enslaved workforces who were required to operate them were typically populated by both men and women laborers. Jepson said men would do most of the heavy lifting around the ever-burning furnace, whose hellish fires were kept raging seven days a week, while women took on more of a support role to keep the furnace self-sufficient.
Jepson said enslavers who owned the furnaces often leased many enslaved people who made up their workforce, rather than legally buying them. She said this oftentimes led to these enslaved people being treated even worse than those who had been legally purchased by enslavers of a different trade. Jepson said the experience often pulverized the body and mind of enslaved laborers, who were rarely recorded by discovered United States census archives surpassing the age of 50. She and Murphy said the mental anguish enslaved furnace laborers endured is evidenced not only by the numerous recorded examples of successful and failed escape attempts, but also by accounts such as one in which a young man seeing no other option, chose to force a situation which resulted in his death.
“Our stories are part of our identity and I think that’s why sometimes people combat the full … it’s maybe a scary or upsetting story,” Jepson said. “But it’s the truth, and in our group, we believe healing begins with remembering.”
Citizens interested in future hosting announcements for King Iron can check tnafricanamericanhistoricalgroup.com or on their Facebook.
Copyright 2024, TN TRIBUNE, all rights reserved.
