Primary Sources – Plantation Life
Harvesting the Rice (1859)
The black worker in this picture could have been harvesting rice on Arthur Middleton's plantation, or one of many other rice plantations scattered throughout the lowcountry of coastal South Carolina by the min-18th century. This picture, however, comes from the November 1859 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine, about three years before the Emancipation Proclamation.
The article, entitled "The Rice Lands of the South," describes the life of African Americans forced to work on rice plantations, including their work schedules, religious activities, and recreations. Sprinkled with derogatory comments throughout, the article reveals the author's prejudice against the slaves.
Image Credit: Harvard College Library
William Byrd’s Diary (1709-1711)
William Byrd II was born in Virginia in 1674. At age seven he left for England, where he received a quality education. He returned to Virginia after learning of his father's death. Despite having a general disdain for any type of business -- a view shared by many of his acquaintances back in England, Byrd now had the responsibility of managing his inherited plantation. It was among the scores of large and profitable slave labor camps -- privately owned and sanctioned by the government -- which had sprung into existance in the southern colonies during the preceding generation.
Although intelligent and known for his keen wit, Byrd was arrogant, dominant, and insensitive. In Byrd's view, African Americas were property, and he treated his slaves as such. Lacking the least bit of compassion, he even went so far as to play cruel games on his servants, merely for entertainment. His attitudes are evident in his journals, one of which was later published asThe Secret Diaries of William Byrd of Westover, 1709-1712.
February 22, 1709. I rose at 7 o'clock and read a chapter in Hebrew
and 200 verses in Homer's Odyssey. I said my prayers and ate milk for
breakfast. I threatened Anaka with a whipping if she did not confess
the intrigues between Daniel and Nurse, but she prevented by a confession.
I chided Nurse severely about it, but she denied, with an impudent face,
protesting that Daniel only lay on the bed for the sake of the child. I ate
nothing but beef for dinner. . . .
June 10, 1709. I rose at 5 o'clock this morning but could not read
anything because of Captain Keeling, but I played at billiards with him
and won half a crown of him and the Doctor. George B-th brought
home my boy Eugene. . . . In the evening I took a walk about the
plantation. Eugene was whipped for running away and had the [bit]
put on him. I said my prayers and had good health, good thought,
and good humor, thanks be to God Almighty.
June 17, 1710. . . .I set my closet right. I ate tongue and chicken for
dinner. In the afternoon I caused L-s-n to be whipped for beating his
wife and Jenny was whipped for being his whore. In the evening the
sloop came from Appomattox with tobacco. I took a walk about the
plantation. I said my prayers and drank some new milk from the cow. . . .
Slave with an Iron Muzzle (1839)
When persons being held as slaves were accused by their masters of insubordination, or of eating more than their allotment of food, they might expect to be fitted with an iron muzzle. In his autobiography, OlaudahEquiano described his first encounter with such a device in the mid-1700s. . .
"I had seen a black woman slave as I came through the house, who was cooking the dinner, and the poor creature was cruelly loaded
with various kinds of iron machines; she had one particularly on her head, which locked her mouth so fast that she could scarcely speak, and could not eat or drink. I [was] much astonished and shocked at
this contrivance, which I afterwards learned was called the iron muzzle."
Image Credit: The Hill Collection of Pacific Voyages,
Mandeville Special Colections Library,
University of California, San Diego
Slave with Iron Muzzle is an illustration from the 1839 publication, Souvenirs d'un aveugle, by Jacques Etienne Victor Arago.
Slave Houses, Hermitage Plantation, Georgia, 1928
Three views of structures on the Hermitage, near Savannah: (top), the plantation house or mansion; (center), houses in the slave quarter, photographed in 1889; (bottom), another part of the slave quarter, photographed in 1928.
Coffee Plantation, Saint Domingue (St. Domingue, Haiti), 1798
"Settlements of Mr. A’s estate in St. Domingo," shows layout of a coffee estate, with each of its major features indicated by a letter. For example, A, "the dwelling house & coffee store" and L the "Negro houses."
The proximity of the slave houses to the owner's house reflects the settlement pattern found throughout the West Indies on sugar plantations. This work was written during the brief period that Britain occupied St. Domingue, and its author hoped for the restoration of the pre-revolutionary order.
Fountain Hughes Slave Narrative, 1949
Fountain Hughes was 101 years old at the time of his interview. Born a slave in 1848 near Charlottesville, Virginia, Fountain Hughes was the grandson of a slave owned by Thomas Jefferson. He speaks of having to carry a pass as a slave, of slaves being sold at auction at the courthouse…
Colored people didn'have no beds when they was slaves. We always slep' on the floor, pallet here, and a pallet there. Jus' like, uh, lot of, uh, wild
people, we didn', we didn' know nothing. Didn' allow you to look at no book.
An' there was some free-born colored people, why they had a little education,
but there was very few of them, where we was.
Now I couldn' go from here across the street, or I couldn' go through nobody's
house out I have a note, or something from my master. An' if I had that pass,
that was what we call a pass, if I had that pass, I could go wherever he sent
me. An' I'd have to be back, you know, when, uh. Whoever he sent me to, they,
they'd give me another pass an' I'd bring that back so as to show how long I'd
been gone. We couldn' go out an' stay a hour or two hours or something like.
They send you. Now, say for instance I'd go out here to S.'s place. I'd have to
walk. An' I would have to be back maybe in a hour. Maybe they'd give me hour.
I don' know jus' how long they'd give me. But they'd give me a note so there
wouldn' nobody interfere with me, an' tell who I belong to. An' when I come back,
why I carry it to my master an' give that to him, that'd be all right. But I couldn'
jus' walk away like the people does now, you know.
It was what they call, we were slaves. We belonged to people. They'd sell us like
they sell horses an' cows an' hogs an' all like that. Have a auction bench, an' they'd
put you on, up on the bench an' bid on you jus' same as you bidding on cattle you know.
Then if they had any bad ones, they'd sell them to the… traders, what they calltd
the … traders. An' they'd ship them down south, an' sell them down south. But,
uh, otherwise if you was a good, good person they wouldn' sell you. But if you
was bad an' mean an' they didn' want to beat you an' knock you aroun', they'd
sell you what to the, what was call the … trader. They'd have a regular, have a
sale every month, you know, at the court house. An' then they'd sell you, an'
get two hundred dollar, hundred dollar, five hundred dollar.
Interview with Clayton Holbert, Ottawa, Kansas, May 17, 1937
Clayton Holbert was interviewed in 1937 as part of the Federal Writer’s project during the Great Depression. Recalling his time as a slave, Holbert talks about slaves being sold, his mother’s work as a Domestic house slave, working hours and conditions and how slaves were named.
My name is Clayton Holbert, and I am an ex-slave…My master had a
fairly large plantation; he had, I imagine, around one hundred slaves.
I was never sold, I always had just my one master. When slave owners
died, if they had no near relatives to inherit their property, they would
'Will' the slaves their freedom, instead of giving them to someone else.
My grandmother, and my mother were both freed like this, but what
they called 'n***** traders' captured them and two or three others,
and they took them just like they would animals, and sold them, that
was how [my master] got my mother. My grandmother was sent to
Texas. My mother said she wrote and had one letter from my
grandmother after that, but she never saw her again.
My mother used to be a cook, and when she was busy cooking, my
mistress would nurse both me and her baby, who was four weeks older
than me. If it happened the other way around, my mother would nurse
both of us. They didn't think anything about it. When the old people
died, and they left small orphan children, the slaves would raise the
children. My young master was raised like this, he has written to me
several times, since I have been out here in Kansas, but the last time
I wrote, I have had no reply, so I suppose he was dead.
We worked until Christmas Eve and from that time until New Year's
we had a vacation. We had no such thing as Thanksgiving, we had
never heard of such a thing.
We didn't have a name. The slaves were always known by the master's
last name, and after we were freed we just took the last name of our
masters and used it. After we had got our freedom papers, they had
our ages and all on them, they were lost so we guess at our ages…