COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — It's too early to know how the terrorist horrors will be digested, distilled and interpreted in relation to world events yet to come. But it's safe to say that our children's children will view Sept. 11 in a context unimaginable to us now.
Such is history — and such is hindsight. And it is with a full load of both that 21st-century visitors come to the place where the ideals that underpin our nation were planted and took root.
In 1774, Virginia was Britain's largest and most prosperous colony. Williamsburg, its capital, was a hotbed of radical ideas. Here, as in colonies to the north, attempts by Britain to levy taxes had met with repeated resistance.
Simmering discontent soon would boil over into war.
Leading intellects of the day — Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Washington and Peyton Randolph, among them — were stalking the halls of Williamsburg, debating the merits of independence and the philosophical foundations of a nation yet to be born.
Yet little did the Founding Fathers dream that the political theories they set into practice in the late 1700s would remain so viable more than two centuries down the line. And they would have flipped their wigs to learn that a 20th-century philanthropist would make it his life's work to preserve the very ground they trod, the words they spoke, the styles they wore, the dishes they cooked, the trades they practiced and the houses they inhabited.
Standard Oil heir John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his team of visionaries created Colonial Williamsburg, back in the 1920s, for a single, highbrow purpose: "that the future may learn from the past." By buying up the historic town, restoring its 18th-century ambience and "freezing in time" the styles and mores of a society on the verge of revolution, they sought to create a kind of time capsule for the education of 20th-century visitors.
Operating today as the nation's most extensive living-history museum, the 173-acre Colonial Williamsburg historic area includes 88 original buildings and more than 400 others that have been reconstructed on their original footprints. A sort of thinking-person's theme park, the historic city prods the mind in all sorts of unexpected directions — and does so with unmitigated style and class.
Indeed, part of what Williamsburg teaches, in multiple dimensions and in often subtle ways, is how history repeats itself.
Walk the colonial streets, for example, and you'll see signs of a society caught up in a full-scale consumer revolution not so different from the "gotta have it" American buying frenzy of the 1990s. Imported goods were all the vogue in 1774, and even small planters could afford to sweeten their Chinese tea with Jamaican sugar and drink it from English porcelain cups.
Tour the colonial homes, and you'll be amazed at how familiar the furniture styles seem and at how many utensils, fabrics and knickknacks were imported from the far corners of the world. The windows of upper-class houses are shaded with wooden venetian blinds — as fashionable a statement in 1774 as today.
Other aspects of the colonial era are brought to life through walking tours, dramatic performances, historical re-enactments, classroom programs and informal events ranging from public auctions to demonstrations of 18th-century games for children. Open your ears and you'll hear costumed interpreters using idiomatic expressions authentic not only to their times but to ours. Attend a candlelight debate between Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, and you'll realize how close the nation came to taxing religious institutions, rather than separating church and state. Listen to George Washington expound upon the delights of domestic life and the sad necessity of war, and you'll hear echoes of every wartime president.
In its mission to interpret early American history, Colonial Williamsburg explores subjects as solemn as the institution of slavery and as lighthearted as the latest styles in powdered wigs. Guests can dine by candlelight in historic taverns where the menu may include such popular 18th-century offerings as game pie and Madeira wine. Entertainment is provided by troubadours who accompany their songs on pennywhistle, guitar and fiddle.
Throughout the historic area, more than 200 costumed interpreters interact with visitors, often to hilarious effect.
"Do you dress your hair and leave it the whole social season?" the wigmaker asks a teenage girl visiting with her school group. "Some ladies do. . . . "
Although Colonial Williamsburg opened to the public in 1927, it still is reinventing itself Historic homes and trade shops were made available for touring in the 1950s and '60s, while costumed interpreters first arrived on the scene in the 1970s.
Character interpreters taking on the persona of figures from Williamsburg history (Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Randolph and about 40 others) were added in the 1980s.
They manage to keep admirably cool and in character under a daily barrage of confrontational questioning.
"Madam," Gen. Washington addresses a tourist who challenges him on the subject: "Slavery is a British institution placed upon this country! At age 10 I inherited 11 slaves, without whom I could not be able to fulfill my filial duties! . . . If we are to see an end to this institution, it must be by imperceptible degrees. . . . "
One of the biggest changes at Colonial Williamsburg over the years has to do not so much with how character history is interpreted but with which subjects are chosen to explore or ignore.
In 1774, the year frozen in time for modern-day tourists, the city had a population of about 2,000, half of whom were black. Only 2 percent of those early African-Americans were free; the rest were enslaved to white masters.
Yet their vital roles — as masons, printers, carpenters, seamstresses, cobblers, silversmiths, blacksmiths, cooks, personal servants and field workers — were largely overlooked until the 1980s.
Since then, great emphasis has been placed on the African-American experience in Colonial Williamsburg. Black actors now portray tradespeople, lead interpretive walking tours and stroll the wooden sidewalks dressed as the caste system of the times would have dictated. "In everyday society, people were divided by class, more than race, and there was a lot of interaction," says Brenda Winston, who leads the tour that has been offered to the public for 20 years. "How did the colonists — many of whom came to America as indentured servants and had no hope of owning land — come to depend upon enslaved people? What were conditions like for those born into slavery? For those captured and brought here? Could the black community afford to take the risk of harboring fugitive slaves?"
The answers, like the questions Winston throws out to her audience, are thoughtful and provocative. And so is the perspective offered by the restored slave quarter at Carter's Grove, a historic plantation a few miles from the town proper that also is part of Colonial Williamsburg.
Here, Jean Mitchell, an African-American who has been working in the historic area for 18 years, is one of the tour leaders. Although dressed as an enslaved woman of the time, she does not assume the persona of one. "We don't do first-person here because of the sensitivity of the subject," she explains, showing visitors the crude, dirt-floored cabins where plantation laborers once lived.
"It was difficult, but they carved out a life for themselves," Mitchell says. "As we like to say, 'They came over here empty-handed but not empty-headed.' "
It is to Colonial Williamsburg's enduring credit that visitors to the historic city don't go away empty-headed, either.