Tour historic locations in the region on a new trolley tour with the Fredericksburg Area Museum.
In partnership with Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields National Military Park and Discover Stafford, the museum announced a new trolley tour called Sparking Freedom: Enslaved Resistance in Fredericksburg and Stafford, Virginia.
Led by Dr. Gaila Sims, the museum’s curator of African American History and Special Projects, the tour will incorporate stops at multiple National Park Service sites, several other local historic locations and the Fredericksburg Area Museum.
The stories presented in the program combine historical documentation and archival research and will feature accounts of enslaved resistance, including an uprising of enslaved men at Chatham plantation in winter 1805, the story of Anthony Burns, an enslaved man who escaped to Boston in 1853 but was later apprehended under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and enslaved individuals like Bethany Veney who resisted sales and auctions.
Riders will board the trolley at the Fredericksburg Battlefield Visitor Center at 1013 Lafayette Blvd.
Sparking Freedom will be held on April 13 and 27 from 1 to 3 p.m. This program is free and open to the public, but reservations are required.
Two additional trolley tour dates will be available in the fall. After the spring tour dates, a self-guided tour brochure with a video and map will also be available.
