Patrick,
It isn't just privater or local sites in the US which have this
problem.  Two years ago I visited a presidential birthplace operated by
the National Trust for Historic Preservation where the guide kept on
refering to servants.  When pressed, she admitted to the fact they were
slaves, but made it a point to say that I was  rude yankee for bringing
the subject up!

Greg Koos
Boylan P wrote:
>
> Anyone who thinks this discussion has been worrying should spend a few
> days visiting Lower Mississippi Plantation Houses open to visitors but run
> by private owners or foundations as my (historic house curator) wife did
> just a few years ago.
>
> The source of the estates' wealth and even the purpose of house slave
> quarters were routinely ingnored and questions were either denied or at
> least brushed off with at best a quarter-truth.
>
> In perhaps a dozen visits we only once found a guide or costumed
> interpreter who actually raised and presented the issue openly without
> prompting.  Perhaps significantly(?) despite her (entirely natural)
> upper class Louisiana speech she turned out to be British by birth,
> (though brought up on New Orleans from childhood).
>
> Perhaps also significant she had been born in the notorious 18th -
> early 19th century Atlantic slave trade port of Bristol in the west of
> England (where - incidentally - there is currently a campaign for the
> removal of a 19th century public statue to one of the City's greatest
> benefactors, Edward Colson (1636 - 1721) because of Colson's role in
> setting up the London and Bristol slave trade).
>
> Patrick Boylan