"Snug Li'l House with Flue and Oven": Nineteenth-Century Reforms in Plantation Slave Housing Author(s): John Michael

Vlach Source: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, Vol. 5, Gender, Class, and Shelter (1995), pp. 118-129 Published by: Vernacular Architecture Forum Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3514250 . Accessed: 28/07/2013 14:39
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"SnugLi'l House withFlue and Oven": Reforms Nineteenth-Century in Plantation Slave Housing
JohnMichael Vlach
EllaJohnson, a former slave from thePiedmont resent gion of South Carolina,told the interviewer to take down her lifestory, "The houses thatthe slaves lived in were just littleold one-room log cabins." Providing more details,she added, "Usuwas wood allytherewere two windows.The floor too, although I know on some plantationsthe poor old slaves had just the bare ground for a floor."' Similar statementscollected during the 1930s from other ex-slaves indicate that their morethansmall too, were oftennothing quarters, structures. Bill from near Homer, log Shreveport, dere was Louisiana,reported:"De niggerquarters one-room cabins and dey was ten in a row fifty and dere was five rows. De cabins was built of logs and had dirtfloorsand a hole where a window should be and a stone fireplace for de cookin' and de heat." In Georgia RobertShepard on experiencedcomparableconditions, exceptthat his plantation the cabins had "chimblies made out of sticksand red mud. Dem chimblies was all de time catchin' fire."The slave houses recalled by John Finnely fromAlabama could hardlyhave been more Spartan."Us have cabins of logs,"said Finnely,"withone room and one door and one window hole ... ." His description closelymatches the memory of J. T. Tims from southwestern Misthe who that "before recounted War,we sissippi, lived in an old log house. It had one window,one thesetestimodoor, and one room."2 Collectively, nies provide harsh words for harsh conditions (figs.10.1 and 10.2).

Chapter 10

ofslave numerous There are,however, reports buildof as well as examples standing quarters, a different that experience. appearto convey ings, houses these ina variety offorms, Wellconstructed oftheslave theperception seemtochallenge atfirst the accountsof derived solelyfrom experience evidence Thisarchitectural slaves. former suggests this what that therangeof housing quality-and wider much treatment-was slave about implies assumed.The contradictions thanis commonly of former betweenthe testimonies encountered and of buildings record slavesand thesurviving but more call for not documents only scrutiny mechanisms the on causeus to reflect also should the thatwere used to enforce of social control do While the sugbuildings regime. slaveholding with a reasonwereprovided someslaves that gest and thatslavery comfort able degreeof material lessopprestobe,insomeinstances, couldappear slavetestimonies indicate, sivethan apcommonly are slave All are deceiving. dwellings pearances and often ofthecomplex built contradictory signs masters evolvedbetween that social relationship halfof thenineteenth thefirst and slavesduring someplanters decent quarters, Bybuilding century. who thousand ownedfifty eleven those (particularly be able to or moreslaves)hopedthat might they handsinto field and resistant rebellious their turn These planters laborers. morecompliant clearly to be had thepotential that understood housing Conseof coercion. used as a benign technique viewed when slave are, improved quarters quently,

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in PlantationSlave Housing Nineteenth-Century Reforms

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of this effort to provide upgradedhousingforslaves stillstands at Bremo,the plantationin Fluvanna County, Virginia, belonging to John Hartwell Cocke. Well known as an earlycriticof southern Cocke was also a supporter agricultural practices, of attempts to return Afrienslaved blacks to their ,I can homelands.3 Whilehe was slow to emancipate his own slaves, he did experiment with ways to of build better Cocke extolledthevirtues quarters. constructed with or rammed earth, dwellings pise, in an 1821 letter written to TheAmericanFarmer in which he claimed that aftera period of five yearsthesemud-walledbuildingshad "stood perthe warmest in winterand shelter fectly, affording SlaveHousesatRoseberry the coolest in summer Fig.10.1.RowofSingle-Pen of any buildingstheir size I Built in Dinwiddie Plantation ca. 1850 ever knew."4 County, Virginia, to Similar evidence of the movement Historic American (PhotobyBeckstrom, 1936, improveslave dwellingsis foundamong a second ofCongress.) Library Buildings Survey, in the publishedopinion of of planters generation to in terms of the slaveholder's agenda, an attempt of a labor the more oppressive aspects disguise in whicha humanbeinghad no morerights system thana mule or a hoe blade. As we willsee shortly, the reform movementforslave housingwas understoodin different ways by the slave occupants of the upgraded cabins, and theirbehavioralreowners' sponses did not always complywiththeir wishes. of slave housingis a broadand comThe history diversereover fourcenturies, plex topic ranging of different comand the production gion settings, on modities.In this essay I will focus primarily between in the South 1830 occurring developments and 1860,a periodwhen thesize oftheslave populevel.In 1860,when over lationreacheditshighest as householdsqualified thousandsouthern forty-six in numerous instances were there estates, plantation their to which planters properattempted improve a variety of ties.As a consequence of theseefforts, domestichouse typeswere used as slave quarters. a widecentury, By themiddleof thenineteenth for movement plandisorganized, spread,although was well underway. Evidence tationimprovement

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120

Michael Vlach John

a Virginia who recommended in 1856 slaveholder, that: negrocabinsshouldbe builtof plank,have and largeglasswindowsand good chimneys, shouldbe elevatedat leasttwofeetabove is puton up and ground.... The planking down,and I use a double courseof planking I find a very of narrow this makes instead strips, If summer comfortable cabin for both andwinter. a slight additional exthe builder chooses toincur course andgiveit dress theouter penseandshould a coatofpaint, this a projective eaveandsome with makesa very cornice, cheap ornamental pretty thenecessity for house and obviates sticking of themansion.5 thenegrocabinout of sight Clearly,slave houses could be built betterthan commonpracticemay have required. centhe first halfof the nineteenth Throughout
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SlaveHouseat the thevir- Fig.10.3.Planofa Hall-and-Parlor with someregularity debated tury, planters Duval Fort on Plantation Island, George ofslavequarters. tuesofvarious While many Kingsley types log cabinsbecause they arguedthattheypreferred werecouncould be built and cheaply, they quickly as the teredby justas manywho saw log buildings chief source of slave illness. One plantertraced to the spaces or common slave healthcomplaints

with in the1830s Thishousewas built Florida. County, and W. C. Vaughn, byH. C. Dozier, (Drawing tabby. American Historic Survey, G. G. Cellar, Buildings 1934, of Library Congress.) at Tuckahoe plantacabins stillstanding tialframe the tionin Goochland County, represent Virginia,

all betweenthelogs,wherehe claimed "cracks" he "The cracks," manner of filth accumulated. linedinsideand out.If be neatly "should wrote,

thisis not done, the negroeswill soon have them filledwith rags, old shoes, coon skins, chicken of trash." feathers and everyotherdescription Anotherplanterthoughtthe main problemwas the "decayinglogs," and anothertheorizedabout the "bad air" he believed was trapped in log buildand ings that he described as "small,low, tight, rather modest Some solutions, filthy."6 proposed such as building betterlog cabins or providing extantlog cabins with plank floorsraised at least two feet offthe ground. However, the most reof form-minded opted fornew cabins constructed coveredwithboards.The substanwooden frames

that ofbuildings sort generally planters progressive to be themostsensible considered replacements

fortheir aging "negrocabins." and, in some inHowever, the improvement

was underofslave therebuilding dwellings stances,

even though motives, takenforless thanaltruistic in thisreform one findsthatmuch of the rhetoric it appears, were oftenmore contion.7Planters, cerned with how slave cabins should look than of theiroccupants. Their comwith the comfort

ofmoral was couchedinterms movement obliga-

of contempt their ments feelings disguised barely

fortheirenslaved workers.One planteradvised, "The negroes should be required to keep their

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inPlantation SlaveHousing Nineteenth-Century Reforms

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houses and yards clean, and in case of neglect, as will be likely should receive such punishment While to insuremore cleanlyhabitsin thefuture." he also recommendedthatslave cabins be whitehad a "cleansing washed because this treatment and purifying conducive to thebest effect, health," whitewash was he could make for that argument A Charleston "thecost is almostnothing."8 planter went so faras to propose an economicmotivefor thatit "makestheslaveprolific whitewash, arguing ... and theirannual increasemay be estimated

all as adding as muchto myincomeas arisesfrom othersources."9 The rangeofbuilding typesused as slave dwellfar extends the one-room cabinsso frebeyond ings in slavenarratives mentioned and described quently in histories in the antebellum of slavery mostoften the many South."' Indeed, scatteredthroughout volumes of ex-slave testimony gathered by the of two- , Federal Writers Projectare descriptions houses." The variety three-, and even four-room among planters regarding suggestsboth flexibility willof slave conduct and their their management with new and potentially ingness to experiment modes of slave housing. improved than cabins of thesingle-pen type larger Slightly withrectanwere hall-and-parlor houses,buildings were dividedintotwo rooms. plans that gularfloor Examplesstood untilthe 1930s at The Hermitage, from Savannah, Georgia(fig.10.3).12 upriver slightly as as common Just single-penslave cabins were oftwo inconsisting double-penhouses,buildings dependentdwellingunitsunderone roof.Usually shelter forat leasttwo families, subtypes providing of the double-pencabin are markedby variations in the placementof fireplacesand chimneys (fig. 10.4).13 The quartersat The Forks of Cypress,a atthe Forks of Double-Pen LogHouse Saddlebag Fig.10.5. plantationin Lauderdale County,Alabama, folnear Plantation Florence, County, Cypress Lauderdale of thisplan in which lowed the saddlebag variant Historic the Built ca. 1820. (Photo 1935, Bush, Alabama, byAlex chimneyis located between the two rooms of American Survey, LibraryCongress.) Buildings featured (fig.10.5). The otherbasic configuration,

Noa'

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122

JohnMichael Vlach

Fig.10.6.PlanoftheSlaveHouse at theSterling C. Robertson Ranch in BellCounty, Built ca. Texas, E. Adams, 1835.(Drawing byMark Historic American 1934, Buildings of Survey, Library Congress.)

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SlaveCabinatThornhill Fig.10.7.PlanofDog-Trot in Greene Built ca. 1833. Plantation Alabama, County, Kent W. Historic McWilliams, 1934-1935, (Drawing by of American Buildings Survey, Library Congress.) chimneys placed at the gable ends. Some planters even saw the double-pencabin as the quintessential slave house and created new types of slave At thedouble-penform. buildings by manipulating The Grange outside of Millersburg, for Kentucky, house example, Edward Stone built a triple-pen to serve as the quarterforhis domesticslaves; it is a double-pen cabin plus an additionalroom.In central Texas, Sterling C. Robertson commisa structure comsioned a six-roomslave quarter, posed of threedouble-pen cabins set end to end (fig.10.6). In plan, the dog-trot house type consisted of two rooms on either side of an open breezeway."

LogHouseUsedas a SlaveQuarter Fig.10.8.Dog-Trot at Belmont Plantation nearBelmont, Colbert County, Built ca. 1828. Alex (Photo Alabama, Bush, 1936, by American Historic of Buildings Survey, LibraryCongress.) in GreeneCounty, AtThornhill Alabama, plantation over 150 slaves were housed in cabins of thissort (fig.10.7). As theyhad in the double-pen,two different families usuallyoccupied the two halves of cabinwhilesharing the commonspace thedog-trot in themiddle. Whenthesame house form was built and the doors into the planters, by whiteyeoman rooms usuallyopened offthe centralbreezeway. of However,ifthe doors were placed on the front the two log pens, as theywere on the dog-trot in northwestern quarterat the Belmontplantation Alabama,the cabin was readilyseen as a structure thansingle occupancy. intendedfordouble rather the dog-trot cabin was Builtin thisconfiguration,

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in PlantationSlave Housing Reforms Nineteenth-Century

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more readilyrecognizedas a slave quarterrather thanthehome of a freehouseholder (fig.10.8). slave houses had loft Manyone-story spaces that were used eitherforstorageor as sleeping areas forthe children.Occasionally,these spaces were large enough to constitutean extra half story. Standing examples from the Brackettsfarmin Louisa County, and at Hampton,a planVirginia, tation north of revealthat Baltimore, just Maryland, these quarters actually functionedas two-story houses. In fact,some slave dwellingswere even built to a full two stories in height.The slave houses at Horton Grove in NorthCarolina contained four separate units set in a two-over-two Whileintended to shelter fourdifferarrangement. ent slave families, these buildings were bothvisuidenticalto I-houses,the narrow ally and formally builtby moreprostwo-story dwellings commonly

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and quite a few plantperous southernfarmers ers.'5The HortonGrove slave houses are excepsize and substanbecause of their tionalbuildings but the I-house is not all that tial construction, rare as a slave dwelling.Other examples can be in Greene County, foundat Rosemount plantation in Nelson Alabama (fig. 10.9), and at "Wickland" Kentucky. County, slave Mostofthedesignsfornineteenth century housinggrew out of the fundof Anglo-American architectural customs,which sanctioned the use units.These units either of square or rectangular stood alone as individualdwellings or were arconfiguraranged in a number of symmetrical tions.'6One slave house type not based on this house." In an was called a "tenement pen system

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124

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atMansfield PlanSlaveQuarter Tenement Fig.10.10. South Built Carolina, Plantation, County, Georgetown N. Historic Charles ca. 1850.(Photoby 1927, Bayless, ofCongress.) American Survey, Library Buildings

SlaveQuarter at theBarbarra in Plantation Fig.10.11. Built ca. 1825.(Photoby St.Charles Parish, Louisiana, Richard Historic American Koch,1927, Buildings ofCongress.) Library Survey,

Double-tenement houses matching those described by Olmsted were also used by William of the house's plan, South Caro- Aikenon hisJehosseeIsland estatein SouthCaro1838 description such buildingsto lina rice planter lina,where he builteighty-four JamesSparkmanindicatedthatit A seven hundred containedthreeroomsset in an asymmetrical slaves.'19 pat- house his approximately houses still standat Mansfield fewtenement tern:ithad a narrowbut deep hall withtwo sleepplantaFrederick tion in GeorgetownCounty,South Carolina (fig. offto one side.17 Later, ing "apartments" from the exteLaw Olmstedfound thissame room arrangement 10.10). Whilethesebuildings might being used in the slave housingat severalGeorgia riorresembledouble-pencabins,the double-teneprovideseightrooms fortwo generallyin a doubled configuration. menthouse actually plantations, families. slave In his descriptionof one particularly large In southernLouisiana highlydistinctive slave tenement of about thirty houses, villageconsisting he wrote: quarterswere derived fromlocal building traditions. Two-room cabins were frequentlyconthewalls Each cabinwas a framed derived withdeep insetporches,a feature building, structed on theoutside, boardedand whitewashed of Caribfromthe galleries found on the fronts theroof lathedand plastered within, Creole houses. Often, these strucbean-influenced shingled; feet feet wide,difromthe houses of tureswere indistinguishable forty-two long,twenty-one each tenevidedintotwofamily tenements, only the factthattheywere set out Cajun settlers; thecomdividedintothree-rooms--one, ment in straight rows on sugar plantationsconfirmed monhouseholdapartment, thattheywere occupied by slaves.20A slave house twenty-one by ten; ten ten. each of theothers in St. CharlesParish (bedrooms), by the Barbarra from plantation in themiddle of Therewas a brick of the not onlyfollowedall the plan requirements fire-place thechimneys Creole house-it was two rooms wide and two thelongside of each living room, Beside in one, in themiddleof theroof. located between the roomsdeep withitschiinney rising enhas a cock-loft, each tenement theserooms, that rooms-but also had otherfeatures two front thehouseholdroom.'" tered The revealeditsdeep Frenchorigins. by stepsfrom immediately

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in PlantationSlave Housing Nineteenth-Century Reforms

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building's steeply pitched hipped roof with the kickat theeaves, itspoteuxsursolle(post on slight and bousillage (mud) plaster sill) construction, the original were all traceableback to Normandy, Cajun homeland(fig.10.11).21 builtalong theGeorManyof the slave quarters followed theusual singlewhile and they gia coast, the "tenement" models double-penand sometimes in form, witha coarsetypeofoyswere constructed Used in the area as tershell concretecalled tabby. as the sixteenth century by the Spanish early early fortheconstruction of mission was churches, tabby forplantation reintroduced as a suitable material around 1815 by Thomas Spalding of structures of Ashantilly. His example Darien,Georgia,master was followed by many of his planterneighbors, who were impressed by his quarters, which proved to be both fireand storm proof.The footwalls mayalso have providedoccupantswith thick well-insulatedrooms, keeping them cool during with the oppressivelyhot summers.Constructed in the two feet walls of forms about height, plank marked distinctive horizontal houses are by tabby theseams betweenthesuccessive bands indicating two-foothigh layers of concrete.Active experiin mentation withtabbyat theThickets plantation of quarMcIntoshCountyled to the development ters with flatroofs made with tabby bricksthat were laid over timber supportsand waterproofed withtar.22 and conof plan forms In additionto thevariety struction techniques reviewed here, some slave thoseset close to a slave-holder's houses,particularly in a variety of decorative were finished residence, in at an estate Ben Venue Near Rappahannock styles. threebrickslave cabVirginia, Countyin northern ins standin a row; each one has parapetedgables walls stepped at the eaves. These low decorative echo the same featurefound on the plantation's big house, a gestureof styleintendedto serve as a visual link between the quartersand the mansion. At Boone Hall, a plantationjust northof South Carolina,a seriesof brickslave Charleston,

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-2 in Gothic Double-Pen SlaveQuarter Dress Fig.10.12. to Robert near atthePlantation Belonging Gracey Hale County, Built ca. 1840.(Photo Gallion, Alabama, Historic American Buildings byAlexBush,1935, ofCongress.) Library Survey, houses builtin the 1840s flankthe oak-linedroad leading to the main house. That these buildings were meantto decoratethe groundsas well as to forslaves is indicatedby the geoprovideshelter walls with metric designsmarkedon some oftheir The brick at bricks. McAlpin's quarters Henry glazed in Georgiawere also designed Hermitage plantation and arrangedto make an ornamentalstatement. theslave houses made McAlpin's notedthat Visitors residence seem very grand.Even afregency-styled tertheestatewas abandoned forseveralyearsdurjournalistnoted in ing the Civil War, a northern 1864: "Thereare about 70 or 80 Negro houses, all so theylook very builtof brickand white-washed live oaks rows of and between,makingitthe neat, in handsomest plantation Georgia."23 nationalstylesof architecture Official were, on on slave houses. George occasion, also registered kitchenin Scott W. Johnsonhad his slave-quarter in done the Greek Revival Kentucky, up County, mode by wrappingengaged pilastersaround the of a hipped roofed,double-pen cabin in exterior of a classic colonnade. Since planter the imitation

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126

Vlach Michael John

Robert ofGallion, chosea Gothic Alabama, Gracey for his own similar house,he decidedthat design embellishments werealsoappropriate thebuildfor he housedhisdomestic slaves. Their ingsinwhich houses were covered with double-pen saddlebag vertical board-and-batten featured lancet siding, windows in their with gables,and weretrimmed the eaves 10.12). scalloped bargeboards along (fig. In Montgomery, thequarters to Alabama, adjacent the Ball mansionwere tricked out in Italianate thetheme ofthebighouse, which trim, following was designed as a full-scale Tuscan villa. While the decoration ofthesequarters was no doubtcarried outin order to maketheviewfrom thebighouse morepleasant, theslaveoccupants ofthese builddid benefit as since their were well, ings quarters morelikely to be keptingood repair. Behindthe planters' efforts to providetheir slaves withbetter and built,morecomfortable, more the seemingly pleasant quarters lay growing thattheirslaves were amongtheir recognition mostprecious economic assets. As early as 1820, a contributor to theAmerican Farmer cautioned: "Theblacksconstitute or instrueither absolutely, thewealthof our southern If a states. mentally, is as it often sickby planter, deprived happens, or one half, nessofthelabour ofone third, ofhis it of becomes a loss no small negroes, magnitude."24 Whilethe dollarvalue of slaves varied ofthe"peculiar instituwidely throughout history the a field hovof hand tion," average price prime the eredneara thousand dollars 1840s and during in twothousand dollars by 1860was approaching some markets.25 Thus,whilecrop pricesduring thissame twenty-year unpreperiodwerehighly dictable and usually in decline, thevalueofslaves It is nottoo seemedcertain to increase steadily.26 the that from 1830s onward, then, surprising, attention to the much more physical planters paid slaves.Those menwho had inwelfare of their
who owned hunlarlythe rice and sugarplanters, fixed dreds of slaves-not only up theirslaves'

slaves for their butalsobuilt halls, dining dwellings was incurred and chapels. expense Any hospitals, from either to be recouped certain, thought, they more and therefore themore efficient, dependable, field handsor,ifneccontented laborof healthy, slaves.In thesale of thosehealthy from essary, was Thomas Houston 1857whenMissouri planter thousand three hischoiceofeither as a gift offered valued at four dollarsin cash or a slave family in he decidedtotakethemoney thousand dollars, 12 to 16 it in negroboys,from orderto "invest he he few a Within old." reasoned, years, years wouldbe able to morethandoubletheoriginal hands for slavefield market The favorable offer.27 Barbour from a planter Clayton, Henry encouraged as a slaves to Alabama, basically stockpile County, His short-fall. financial a hedgeagainst potential the close at husband, Victoria, "My wife, explained, savedup money of each year, enoughto having was our income, to increase in something invest then as in slaves invest to being disposed naturally in our and profitable themostavailable property ofthecountry."'28 section ofthinking kind this Wherever among prevailed weresometimes slaves theplanter class, provided At leastold dirt-floored withimproved housing. be replaced walls in their with cabins might gaps log were that woodenfloors houseswith with framed former a with brick heated Branch, Jacob fireplaces. nearHousslaveat theDouble Bayousettlement hiscabinwas a "snug that li'l Texas,recalled ton, a definite andoven," flue housewith improvement that evenslaveholders ofbuildings overthesorts "knocked were often would admit up in a very toosmalland manner-always careless, bungling to habitations toolow. .. dirty . . well-calculated disease."29 generate slave cabins were While eighteenth-century shelters, evermorethanone-or two-room rarely included slave of the 1860 buildings repertoire by variaFurther housetypes. vested extensivelyin human property-particu- at leastninedifferent
tions were created both by manipulations of A new picturesquestylewas plans and exteriors.

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in PlantationSlave Housing Nineteenth-Century Reforms

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thathad formerly supplantingthe regimentation characterized theso-called"slavestreet." Butwhile a program of physical improvements to slave that housing was being enacted, the possibility slaves might somehow obtaintheir freedom by leeliminated. Begal means was being deliberately tween 1830 and 1860--theperiod coinciding with the era of noticeable slave housing reforms-all southern states, except for Missouri,made the manumission of slaves illegal and insistedfurther thatany freedblacks mustleave." Official avenues forexiting the"peculiar werethusclosed institution" and the slave statusof black southerners was off, convertedinto a permanent, inescapable condition. The increasing and upgrading found variety in nineteenth-century slave quartersis, then,the positive face of a cynical strategy employed by plantersto encourage slaves to tradetheirhopes forpersonal freedomfora listof modestphysical comforts. halfof the nineteenth Duringthe first century, a significant numberof slaves were given better rations, housing,better improvedhealthcare, and for Christian The cost greater opportunity worship. forthese advantageswas their to fullpersonright hood. Slaves,however,respondedby turning their masters'offersof materialimprovement to their as a black advantage.They definedtheirquarters

wereable to estabinwhich domain cultural they if lishimportant, ties,to create vulnerable, family andtodevelop art domestic distinctive forms, pownot were These traditions. andlasting erful religious of an overawedand submissive the creations weretransenticements people.The slaveholders' that slaveswoulduse to deresources into formed of own.Slaveculture their a further society velop Howard Leslie historian to Owens, was,according that the slaves tiedto a specialawareness among that own.He writes hada spaceoftheir "the they sometimes sometimes entirely, partially, Quarters, andbreathed andoften encompassed mysteriously, frethese into itsown special experiences, vitality out that bondagedid notsnuff assuring quently themfor slavescreated existence themany-sided own oftheir tobe instruments selves."31 In refusing favors whatever slavesturned meager oppression, forattaining resources into them wereoffered that in "imown socialgoals.Thatslavesliving their a sensed have degreeof may quarters proved" is suggested by thetestiempowerment personal owned slavewoman ofan unnamed Georgia mony to much who was a given progresvery by planter When asked if she methods. sive management a without she answered belongedto his family, second'shesitation, "Yes, I belongto themand
theybelong to me.,"32

Notes on SouthL. Fortune Porter attheChancellor Thisessaygrows outofa paperthat was presented Jr. Symposium Slave Mansions "'Not entitled in 1990, ernHistory ofMississippi heldat theUniversity . . . ButGood Enough': in Cultural Interaction and Black in Ted and as Bi-cultural White ed., Ownby, Quarters Expression," published hisa with by commentary the of Antebellum Press 89-114, 1993), along South (Jackson: Mississippi, University the ensuesfrom that contestation and political thecultural torian While this Brenda Stevenson. essaystresses

design of slave housing,in the earlierpiece I focusedmore on the symbolicaspects of slave cabins thatmay have been sharedbywhitesand blacks.In mybook, Back oftheBig House: TheArchitecture ofPlantationSlavery to debut mainly of the same some use of North Carolina buildings, Press,1993),I again (Chapel Hill: University of the cultural the plantation scribegenericbuildingtypes;I thengo on to situatethose typeswithin landscape and otheroutbuildings. smokehouses, such as barns,kitchens, dairies, stables, along withotherstructures, Conn.: Greenwood,1977), Suppl. (Westport, 1. George P. Rawick,TheAmericanSlave:A Composite Autobiography

4: 346. Ser.,

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128

JohnMichael Vlach

Greenwood, 1980), 130. 6. Ibid., 128, 122, 120. 7. See Albert Institution" South(New York: Oxford in theAntebellum J. Raboteau, Slave Religion:The "Invisible concernforthe moralwelfareof their slaves, a concernthat Press, 1978), fora discussionof planter University decisionsto improvetheir conditions. slaves' living clearlyimpingedon their 8. Breeden,AdviceAmongMasters, 121. 9. Quoted inJamesOakes, TheRulingRace: A History (New York:Knopf,1982),73; emSlaveholders ofAmerican phasis is in the original. 10. See, forexamples, KennethM. Stampp,ThePeculiar Institution: South(New York: Slaveryin theAnte-Bellum Made the Slaves RandomHouse, 1956), 292; Eugene D. Genovese,Roll, (New York:RanRoll: The World Jordan, Values in Eighteenthand dom House, 1972),524; and MechalSobel, TheWorld Black Made Together: White they Princeton (Princeton: Press,1987), chap. 9. Century Virginia University 11. See, forexample, Rawick,TheAmericanSlave,4: pt. 1, 55; pt. 2, 182; pt. 3, 253. of Penn12. HenryGlassie,Patternin theMaterialFolkCulture States(Philadelphia:University oftheEasternUnited sylvaniaPress,1969), 78, 80-81. 13. Ibid., 102-6. 14. Ibid., 89, 94-98. "FolkHousing:Key to Diffusion," in CommonPlaces: Readingsin American Vernacular 15. Fred B. Kniffen, Archiof GeorgiaPress,1986), 7-10. ed. Dell Uptonand JohnMichaelVlach (Athens:University tecture, between blacks and whites,see JohnMichael 16. For a more detailed assessmentof the architectural acculturation in By the Work "Afro-American in of Hands: Studiesin of Their Vlach, Housing Virginia's Landscape Slavery," Mich.: UMI ResearchPress,1991), 215-29. (AnnArbor, Afro-American Folklife (Chi17. J.Harold Easterby ed., TheSouthCarolinaRicePlanteras Revealedin thePapers ofRobert Jr., F. W.Allston of Chicago Press,1945), 348. cago: University and Slavery in theAmerican on Cotton 18. Frederick Law Olmsted,TheCotton A Traveller's Observations Kingdom: 184. M. Schlesinger A. Knopf,1953), Slave States, ed. Arthur (New York:Alfred Bureau, Pioneerand Agriculturist 19. Herbert (Indianapolis:Indiana Historical Keller,ed., SolonRobinson: Anthony 1936), 367. 20. Glassie, Patternin theMaterialFolkCulture, 118, 120-21. 21. Jay Edwards, "French,"in America'sArchitectural Roots:Ethnic GroupsThatBuilt America, ed. Dell Upton D.C.: Preservation Press,1986), 64. (Washington, of Tennessee Press, 22. JuliaFloyd Smith, and Rice Culturein Low Country Georgia(Knoxville:University Slavery

sityPress,1978). 4. "Remarks on Hedges, Bene Plant,and Pise Buildings," TheAmericanFarmer3 (20) (1821): 157. in theOld South(Westport, Conn.: 5. JamesE. Breeden,ed., AdviceAmongMasters: TheIdeal ofSlaveManagement

2. NormanR. Yetman,LifeUnderthe "PeculiarInstitution " Selections fromtheSlave NarrativeCollection(New York: Holt,Rinehart & Winston, 1970), 168, 265, 124, 304. to RandallM. Miller,"DearMaster"'Letters 3. See the introduction ofa Slave Family(Ithaca, N.Y.: CornellUniver-

1985), 120-21 see JohnLinley,The Georgia of the mansionhouse at The Hermitage, 23. Quoted in Ibid., 122. For a description of of theState (Athens:University Catalog: HistoricAmericanBuildingsSurvey--AGuide to theArchitecture Georgia Press, 1983), 72-73, 342.

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in PlantationSlave Housing Nineteenth-Century Reforms

129

24. Breeden,AdviceAmongMasters, 163-64. Alfred H. and theSouthConrad and R. 25. in theAntebellum "Economicsof Slavery South,"in Slavery John Meyer, ernEconomy, ed. Harold D. Woodman(Harcourt, Brace & World,1966), 71. 26. UlrichB. Phillips, and ControlofNegroLabor as AmericanNegroSlavery: A Survey Employment oftheSupply, Determined State the Plantation Louisiana Baton Press,1966), 371. University by Regime(1918; reprint,. Rouge: 27. Oakes, TheRulingRace, 173. 28. Quoted in Katharine M. Jones,ed., ThePlantationSouth(Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merrill, 1957), 272. the in the Peculiar 29. Jacob Branch'stestimony Under 40; Institution, quote was pubplanter's appears Yetman, Life lished originally in the Southern who himself a 1856 by Mississippi Cultivator, signed "Omo," reprinted planter in Breeden,AdviceAmongMasters, 127. 30. Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Roll,399. Jordan, in theOld South(New York:OxfordUniver31. LeslieHoward Owens, ThisSpeciesofProperty: SlaveLifeand Culture 224. sityPress,1976), p. 32. Quoted in Oakes, TheRulingRace, 190.

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