Figure 1.--Here is the view of slave quarters in Georgia during the mid-19th century. It was from a book published after the Civil War. It seems to have been an imaginative creation.

Here is the view of slave quarters in Georgia during the mid-19th century. It was from a book published after the Civil War. It seems to have been an imaginative creation and gives the impression that the slaves had free time and that mothers stayed home to care for children.

Ante-Bellum Cotton Plantations

Cotton was grown in the 18th century , but because of the labor intensive step of separating the seeds, not a particularly luctative crop. This changes in the late 18th century. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, demand for cotton was growing. Many thought that plantations and slave labor were an outmolded economic model. When Ely Whitney perfected the cotton gin (1793), the economics of cotton and plantation agriculture was transformed. Cotton plantations were opened in the new southern states beyond the Eastern seabord. They fed the voracious demand for cotton from English and other European textile mills. Huge fortunes were made. Cotton was the major American export product and essentially financed the industrialization of the United states. Historians for years focused more on northern agriculture and industrial development. Scholars today are giving ncfeasing attention to the abte-bellum plantantion. There is some debate over the politival dominance of the planter class. Interestingly there are many largely untapped resources about Southern cotton plantations. They were commercial enterprises and in many cases sizeable, sophisticalted operations. These operations required detailed record keepings and the records of many plantations in addition to diaries and letters have survived for scholarly research.

Slavery Images

HBC is a historical site emphasizing imagery. Primarily we focus on photographs, but because slavery in America ended at bout the same time that photography became widespread, the photographic images of slavery are limited. Most are portaits and even these are limited. Thus the images of slavery are mostly deawings. This presents a problem, because a drawing can depict anything the illustrator wants to show. Thus the accuracy of drawings, even contemporary drawings hs to be assessed. They may show the illustrators philodophical and political attitudes more than a faithful depiction of reality. For HBC this is also interesting, but to the extent we can we will try to acquire any available information on the images depicted.

Sources

The illustration here appeared in Cassell's History of the United States (London, 1874-77), Vol. 3, p. 193. Apparently the book or the illustration was by Edmund Ollier. It was captioned, "Negro Village in Georgia." The illustration appears with a discussion of the ante-berllum South, especilly Georgia, but is not referred to in the text. There is no indication that the drawing is based on actual observations and may well be an imaginative creation.

Edmund Ollier

We have no information on Edmund Olliver at this time.

Accuracy

The illustration caption "Negro Village in Georgia" seems a strange way of sescribing slave quarters and suggests a lack of understanding of the ante-bellum plantation. The illustrator depicts a row of slave houses. Many of the plantations we have noted had slave quarters more clustered rather than arranged in a long row by a wide road. But we are unsure as to the accuracy of this illustration One impression the illustration gives is that slaves had free time. In fact the slaves on a plantation were at work most of the day and did not hve a lot of time to sit idely with their children. This included the women who worked in the fields. This might have been more accurate as a depivtion of Sunday.

Created: 3:44 AM 4/25/2006
Last updated: 3:44 AM 4/25/2006