Fire power

Winding up the day as Williamsburg prepares to declare independence from Britain - reviewing the troops and testing the firearms.

The 17 and 18th century setting is excellently recreated - albeit one detail that's not quite in keeping is that most of the re-enacters are white, whereas 52% of the population of Williamsburg in the early 18 hundreds was made up of enslaved black people. We had a very interesting one-and-a-half hour tour lead by an African American (I'm on PC watch here), talking about the reality of being enslaved in those days, the near impossibility of achieving freedom, and the dangers for even a free person of being captured and sold into slavery if they were outside their district - and then getting access to the documents or people who could vouch for their status. Another almost insurmountable task would be for a man or woman who had won or bought their freedom to achieve freedom for their spouse and children.

A number of people mentioned the film "12 years a Slave" about just such a situation - must go and see it.