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LILITETERARARYRYAUAUSTSTININ

‘ENTERTAININGJUDGMENT:THEAFTERLIFE INPOPULARIMAGINATION’

Greg GarrettOxford University Press, $27.95

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D4 AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN | SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2015

Page 4 CMYK

Answer :

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PUZZLE SOLUTIONS

Patents — Patent No.31252, issued to J. J. Mc-Comb for his “CottonBale Tie” on Jan. 29, 1861.Boyd sent the informa-tion to archaeologists atTexas A&M University’sConservation ResearchLaboratory who had sta-bilized the trove of arti-facts excavated from thefarmstead.

“They were thrilled be-cause they had recovereda whole batch of theseitems wired togetherfrom the shipwreck of theUSS Westfield, a Uniongunboat that sank in Gal-veston Bay in 1863,” Boydsays. “So the ties foundat the Williams farmsteadnot only provided proofthat RansomWilliamswas growing cotton, butour discovery helped theA&M archaeologists in-terpret the history of aship that used to cap-ture Confederate block-ade runners and confis-cate their cargo, includ-ing cotton bales.”

A unique findTexas is pocked with

archaeological sites. Fewhave proved as rich asthis hardscrabble farm.Previously reported bythis newspaper: In 2003,a Texas Department ofTransportation surveyordiscovered an old chim-ney while working onthe right-of-way for theplanned Texas 45 South-west corridor, locatednot far from the border ofTravis and Hays counties.

That lucky find trig-gered a decadelong in-vestigation by a team ledby archaeologist Boyd,vice president of the Aus-tin-based cultural re-sources managementcompany Prewitt andAssociates, which washired by TxDOT to de-termine the site’s signif-icance. The Texas Antiq-uities Code requires suchstudies.

The highway couldn’tbe stopped, but Boyd andhis team, which includ-ed historian Terri My-ers and archaeologist Ma-ria Franklin, who teachesanthropology at the Uni-versity of Texas, had timeto excavate the site thor-oughly, comb the publicrecords and interview thedescendants. Thus, theycould piece together theunprecedented story offreed slave RansomWil-liams and his wife, Sarah,almost certainly a freedslave, and their children.

All the artifacts, mostof them fragmentary,were saved for posteri-ty. A few things made thesite all the more exem-plary.

Few intact Texas sitestell the lives of any Afri-can-Americans from thisperiod. Also, Williams,only a few years afteremancipation, had accu-mulated enough resourc-es to buy more than 45acres as well as a corralfull of horses. Later, thefamily could afford deli-cate jewelry and import-ed dinnerware.

And, nobody lived onthe land after the Wil-liams brood moved intothe city, so diggers couldbe certain that almostanything found there be-longed to the family.

Boyd and Myers firstvisited the site — locat-ed in a glade among an-cient and younger trees,reached down muddybackways off Bliss Spill-ar Road — in August2005. Most of the fieldwork was done between2007 and 2009. Franklinjoined the team in 2008,reaching out to the Afri-can-American communi-ty for descendant stories.

UT anthropology grad-uate student Nedra Leecontributed crucial piec-es to the puzzle. Amongother tasks, she exam-ined the African-Ameri-can newspapers from thelate 1800s housed at theBriscoe Center for Amer-ican History. These pro-vided context about thefreedmen’s communitiesin Travis and Hays coun-ties. She finished her dis-sertation on the projectin 2014.

The group’s final ar-chaeological report willbe published in a monthor two.

It is already the subjectof a meticulous chapteron the Texas Beyond His-tory website — designedfor the general publicand archaeologists butincluding resources forfourth- and seventh-grad-ers who are studyingTexas history in publicschools — put together bySusan Dial and her teamat UT’s Texas Archeolog-ical Research Laborato-ry, where the artifactswill eventually live. (Goto www.texasbeyondhis-tory.net.)

“I have been doing ar-chaeology in Texas forover 30 years,” Boydsays. “And the Williamsfarmstead project is themost exciting and re-warding research that Ihave ever participated in.The collaborative natureof the project, the multi-ple facets of research, thequality and dedication ofthe research team, andthe direct involvementof the African-Americandescendant communitywere the keys to the suc-cess of this project.”

Imagining theWilliams family

Evidence collected onthe historical websitesuggests that when newsof emancipation arrivedin Texas on June 19, 1865— celebrated far and wideas Juneteenth — RansomWilliams was a slave ofthe Bunton family, whichran a plantation at Moun-tain City in Hays County.

Born around 1846, Wil-liams, who might havepreviously used “Bun-ton” as his last name,purchased the Bear Creekfarm in 1871 in the wilder-ness of the John G. McGe-hee League for $3.55 anacre. He married SarahHouston in 1875, and theyhad nine children.

“Williams was one ofthe first inhabitants ofthe league,” the histor-

ical website explains.“Except for his neigh-bor, John Wilkins, Wil-liams was entirely iso-lated in 1871; there wereno roads, no bridges, nofarms, and no easy accessto dry goods or mills.”

Hays County tax re-cords show that Williamsacquired a good manyhorses and registered hishorse brand with TravisCounty in 1872.

RansomWilliams diedin 1901, but his wife andsome of his children con-tinued to live on the farmuntil 1905, when ma-ny moved to East Austin,part of the Great Migra-tion of African-Americansfrom the countryside tocities. Renters farmed theland after that, but thereis no evidence that peo-ple lived on the property

after 1905.Like many former

slaves, Sarah and Ran-som Williams were illit-erate but sent their chil-dren to nearby segre-gated rural schools andmade sure they read andwrote at home. Althoughthey were surroundedby a white farming com-munity, they sidesteppedthe Jim Crow-era violencethat threatened blacks atthe time.

Myers says that Ran-som Williams is not list-ed as “Colored” in a late19th-century rural di-rectory of the area. He islisted as “Mulatto” else-where in public records.It is also possible that hewas related to his formermaster, Bunton, whichmight help explain hisapparent material advan-tages over other freedslaves.

The remaining rockchimney and foundationstones showed the prob-able location of a wood-

en house near giant oaks,where the Williams fami-ly likely harvested honeyfrom bee colonies housedin their trunks. Also onthe farm was a possibleoutbuilding, a big trashdump and — currently inruins — limestone rockwalls.

“You can just see Ran-som plowing the fieldsand bumping into theserocks,” Boyd says as hetraces one of the walls.“Then coming over hereand dumping them.”

Historic and modernaerial photos indicatethat some cleared fieldscurrently on the siteare very old. They wereprobably used for cornand cotton, while thewooded area was usedfor livestock pastures.Items found on the farmdemonstrate that the Wil-liams family participat-ed in the consumer cul-ture of the time, probably

Farmsteadcontinued from D1

Frank Weir (left) and LeeDell Bunton discuss an iron artifact found at the Williamsfarmstead. The letter R came from a branding iron that belonged to Ransom Williams. InApril 1872, Travis County registered the letters R and A as the“horse brand”of RansomWilliams. CONTRIBUTED

This is what is left of a wall at the Ransom WilliamsFarmstead. CONTRIBUTED BY PREWITT AND ASSOCIATES INC.

Farmstead continued on D5

AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN | SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2015 D5

Page 5 CMYK

opera nerd.”Though she began vo-

cal music studies at 13, itwas trips to the public li-brary to check out op-era recordings that reallyshaped her interests.

“I realized pretty ear-ly on that I was interest-ed in comparing differentproductions of the sameopera, finding new re-cordings and then identi-fying and thinking aboutdifferent choices singersand directors had made,”she says. “Then I wouldimagine what I would dowith a certain opera.”

She studied music, firstat Lawrence University inWisconsin and then land-ing at the University ofTexas’ Butler School ofMusic for a graduate de-gree in opera directing,racking up a number ofdirecting credits there.

And she hasn’tstopped.

Last year, along withopera singer Liz Cass,Herman co-founded LO-

LA, or Local Opera LocalArtists, a nonprofit effortthat stages opera in un-conventional venues andtaps into Austin’s consid-erable talent pool of clas-sically trained musicians.

In June, Herman direct-ed LOLA’s “La FemmeBohème,” an all-femaleversion of Puccini’s “LaBohème,” a productionstaged cabaret-style in adowntown club. All threeshows sold out, as didLOLA’s Valentine Day’sproduction of a pared-down, cabaret-style “Car-

men.”However, over coffee

early one morning re-cently before rehearsal,Herman’s focus is trainedexclusively on “DonGiovanni,” Mozart’s op-eratic spin on the DonJuan legend.

Baritone Morgan Smithsings the opera’s titularrole with soprano Dan-ielle Pastin as the love in-terest, Donna Anna, andbass baritone MatthewBurns as Leporello, DonGiovanni’s servant.

With its blend of darkcomedy, drama and ro-mance, “Don Giovan-ni” is a swirl of theatricalmoods.

The Pittsburgh Op-era production that Aus-tin Opera is present-ing places the action in abull-fighting ring.

For all the art form’smelodramatic traditions,today’s contemporaryopera audience — accus-tomed to seeing smallgestures and expressionson screen — demands atheatrical nuance fromsingers.

“We’re so used to see-

ing performers up close,we expect more subtle-ty from them even whenthey’re on a stage. Andwe recognize overly styl-ized acting,” says Her-man.

Shaping a portrayal ofa character requires Her-man to coax nuancedgestures from the sing-ers, a process that emerg-es from a close collabo-ration between directorand performer.

“Sometimes it’s just asimple movement — theshift of a shoulder, thetilt of a head — that canmake a difference in howa character is perceived,”she says.

Bringing a contempo-rary sensibility to an op-era’s often outsized andold-fashioned characterscomes naturally to Her-man — and the perform-ers who, like Herman, arein the earlier phases oftheir careers.

Pastin, for example, issinging the role of Don-na Anna for the first time.And, says Herman, thediscussions she and Past-in have had have focusedon rounding out the fe-male lead role.

“This Donna Anna isvery much her own wom-an, less a victim,” saysHerman. “She’s com-plicated, not crazy, and

we’ve tried to make thatclear.”

Mozart’s music maybe a constant, essential-ly unchanged in the morethan 320 years since theopera’s debut.

Yet bringing a fresh ap-preciation and under-standing to a master-piece like “Don Giovan-ni” is something Hermanhas been dreaming aboutsince, well, she was a lit-tle girl.

“I’m doing exactlywhat I always wanted to,”she says.

Contact Jeanne Claire vanRyzin at 512-445-3699.

MOZART’S‘DONGIOVANNI’When: 7:30 p.m.Saturday and April30, 3 p.m. May 3Where: Dell Hall,Long Center, 701 W.Riverside DriveCost: $15-$200Information:512-476-5664,austinopera.org

VanRyzincontinued from D1

MOREAUSTINHISTORYFor 25 years,Michael Barneshas written aboutAustin’s cultureand history. Amonghis recent storieshave been reportson ancestral Austinfamilies, localdesegregation andlife on East Avenue.To sample morethan 100 of hishistory stories, go tomystatesman.com/austin-history.

through mail order cat-alogues, and also inter-acted within an informaleconomy among area Af-rican-Americans.

Conflicting recordsand missing documentsmake a complete portraitof RansomWilliams im-possible. His name rare-ly shows up in census re-cords. We know that thefamily’s social life wastied to African-Americanchurches, schools andother groups in AntiochColony near Buda — thelargest all-black enclaveclose to the Williamsfarm — and the small-er Rose Colony in Man-chaca.

“While this projectchronicles the life of asingle freedmen farmfamily in Central Texas,”the historical website re-cords, “in a larger sense,it represents thousandsof other African-Amer-ican farm families allacross Texas whose sto-ries cannot be told.”

What becameof the family

Sarah Houston Wil-liams lived to be about 70years old and was listedas “Negro” and a “Wid-ow” living in San Marcoswhen she died on March11, 1921.

Before her marriage,the 1870 census indicatesshe was a 15-year-old liv-ing in Austin. She alsohad worked as a live-inservant in the Albert Rob-erts household. After anexhaustive search, histo-rians found no evidencethat she had been a slaveof Sam Houston despiteher last name before mar-riage.

So why did they leavethe farm? The histori-ans point out that Ran-som Williams had do-

ne back-breaking work,first as a slave, then as afreedman farmer, for de-cades. In 1901 he was55, an old man for thattime. Droughts hit Texasduring that period, likelymaking agriculture evenmore difficult.

Then, too, Afri-can-Americans weremoving into the cities,in part for safety, but al-so for the amenities of ur-ban life.

Sarah Williams was50 when her husband

died; their oldest chil-dren were Will, 25; Char-ley, 23; Mary, 19; Hen-ry, 18; and Mattie, 16.They also helped raisetwo younger siblings,John, 12, and Emma, 8.Will married Clara Frank-lin and moved to Creed-moor, and they had theirfirst child by 1903. Char-ley might have died ormoved away from the ar-ea by 1906, and Hen-ry died in 1911. Two oth-er siblings are missing inlater records and mighthave died very young.

Ransom and Sarah’schildren had sold off theland in pieces by 1941.

To find out more abouttheir descendants, Frank-lin and Lee interviewed27 people, almost all withdeep roots in Hays or Tra-vis counties. Their oralhistories, recorded onthe Texas Beyond Historysite, are revealing. Threeare direct descendants ofthe Williams family: JewelAndrews, Lourice John-son and Corrine Harris.

“The individuals weinterviewed for the oralhistory project were gen-erous with their time,”Franklin says. “And sowilling to share their fam-

ily histories and experi-ences with us. They trulyenriched the project.”

More than half of the in-terviewees had grown upin farming households aslandowners, tenant farm-ers or sharecroppers.They talked about howthe rural families weremostly self-sufficient.Women took care of thehouse and children butpicked cotton as well. Ma-ny took in laundry fromwhite families, or cooked,cleaned or cared for chil-dren. Yet their descen-dants remember happychildhoods surroundedby caring families.

Despite all the re-newed interest in this his-tory, the grave of RansomWilliams has never beenfound.

Sharing the puzzle“This project was like

a great mystery or puzzleto be solved,” historianMyers says. “Early deedrecords were obscure,and we couldn’t identifythe site with any particu-lar landowner. The highpoint of the project, forme, was finding the brandof RansomWilliams, oneof several possible own-

ers, in the county marksand brands records. Hisbrand was an ‘RA’ thathad a little flourish on theletter ‘R.’ A few days later,the archaeologists foundthe actual brand on thesite. It matched the coun-ty record perfectly! Wehad our man! From there,we were able to tracehis descendants to pres-ent-day Austin.”

Andrews is agreat-granddaughter ofRansom and Sarah Wil-liams. She lives in EastAustin and visited the sitewith Boyd and Franklinon Aug. 11, 2011.

“I will never forgetthe look of amazementon Jewel Andrews’ faceas Maria and I gave hera tour of the farmsteadwhere two generationsof her family once lived,”Boyd says. “The histo-ry of the Williams fami-ly and their Central Texasfarmstead is not one youwill find in any Texas his-tory book.”

Once the pieces of thepuzzle fell into place, Di-al knew that its story be-longed on the Texas Be-yond History website.

“The project concernsa time and people that

have largely been for-gotten in Texas histo-ry,” she says. “We havelearned from teachersthat the subjects of slav-ery, Reconstruction andJim Crow in Texas are dif-ficult to teach; many peo-ple are unaware of thescope and impact of slav-ery in Texas and the de-fining challenges faced byfreedmen.”

She has been grati-fied by the army of col-laborators from differentgroups that worked onthe project. Although theproject is officially over,she suspects that some ofthe participants will con-tinue searching for cluesand more informationabout this family.

“It gets in your blood,”she says. “For example,Doug just recently foundSarah Williams’ gravein an African-Americancemetery in San Marcos,after many weekends ofscouting other locations.I think everyone else hadgiven up on ever find-ing it.”

Contact Michael Barnes at512-445-3970 or mbarnes@statesman.com.Twitter: @outandabout

Farmsteadcontinued from D4

Archaeologist Doug Boyd shows where honey could havebeen harvested on the Williams farmstead. MICHAEL BARNES /

AMERICAN-STATESMAN

An artist’s rendering of the Ransom Williams Farmstead.The original 16 x 20-inch oil painting by Frank Weir wasdonated to the George Washington Carver Museum andCultural Center of Austin.

This mystery artifactdiscovered at the RansomWilliams Farmstead inremote southern TravisCounty turned out to be acotton bale tie. It proved,among other things, theWilliams family farmedcotton. CONTRIBUTED