There is something about this on Cafe Society, but I have a factual question.
My youngest daughter’s kids (twins, boy and girl) have been taught that slaves used patterns in quilts to communicate about escape routes before the American Civil War. They told me about this and I thought it was very interesting and no reason not to believe it.
Now I hear maybe that’s not true.
I am not so much interested in all the implications, but I do want to know if the schools here are teaching something that’s not true. I was never taught this and neither were my children. My wife never heard of it either.
I’ve looked at some links that say yes, and others that say no.
This is a hijack. But the last Antiques Road Show had a slave made quilt with with ‘African’ symbols with documentation appraise for $15K to $20K ( IIRC ).
Would hate to be accused of proving a negative, but I side with Giles Wright, who wrote a short refutation of the book “Hidden in Plain View” which got this idea to national attention after Oprah put it on her list.
When I visited the NSA museum a few years ago one of the exhibits they had was on quilt codes from the Underground Railroad. Reading astro’s link I’m not sure if it’s fact or fiction anymore but there they were.
Machetero, I saw that particular program with the slave quilt. I wondered why part of the pattern was different from the rest of the quilt.
As for whether or not children are taught things in school that are not true, I’m certain that they are. We were given incorrect information when we were in school too. (That Columbus discovered America, for example) Often these mistakes get passed on from generation to generation. Sometimes the teacher has been misinformed. Or maybe the textbook had errors
There is a really good thread discussion in progress about the misinformation that is out there.
If you know the teacher who is teaching the children about the slave quilts, you might make him or her aware of the controversy on the subject.
I would think that the Smithsonian would be a good source of info.
There are lots of things that are wrong that are taught in school. Tons. And if it might be able to be construed as a way to discuss interesting and easy to understand things about specific topics they cover (in this case slavery, Black History Month, civil war), it’s all the more likely to be taught.
There was a time when George Washington Carver being a black man who found many uses for peanuts was taught, but I guess that was too abstract, so somewhere along the way many places started teaching that he invented peanut butter. Kids understand peanut butter. Add in black scientist and you have the sweet spot.
I think it’s possible, but doubtful. I certainly don’t believe that it was a widespread practice. I’ve read Hidden In Plain View, and the scholarship of the authors is shoddy to say the least. As I recall, their original source for the story was an older African-American woman from Charleston, SC who said that her family used these codes. That may be true. However, it’s a big leap to extrapolate a nation-wide quilt code from that, which is basically what the authors did. They also made some pretty big leaps in logic. E.g., a quilt in Frederick Douglass’s home was made using a log-cabin pattern, but with yellow squares in the center instead of the traditional red. Somehow this proves a connection with the Underground Railroad. Uh-huh, or it proves that the quilter just liked yellow.
It takes a loooongg time to make a quilt - you’d better not be in a hurry to get your message across. And if you’re going to do much communicating, you’ll need a whole vocabulary of quilts - and it better not be raining, or the middle of the night, or a high wind or wintertime.
Btw, here’s the short Cafe Society thread which GM is referring to (I assume). The topic there is essentially the same, except it’s presented from a “this is a hoax/myth” point of view, rather than as an open question (so be warned, it’s biased).
In any case, there’s a little more info there and some good links.
That won’t answer your question, but it’s a good place to start.