Posts Tagged ‘Slave Life’
Sunday, June 13th, 2010
In addition to touring the grounds surrounding the Wessyngton mansion, National Black Arts Festival members and guests walked in the footsteps of Baker’s ancestor in the slave cabin area of the plantation. The group went inside a restored slave cabin built ca. 1830. In 1860, there were 274 enslaved African Americans on the plantation, housed in forty log cabins. At the onset of the Civil War, Wessyngton held the largest African American population in the state of Tennessee and was the largest tobacco producer in America.
Tags:African History, Antebellum Plantation, black history, Civil War, Dr. Collette Hopkins, National Black Arts Festival, plantation slavery, Plantations, Slave cabins, Slave Housing, Slave Labor, Slave Life, Southern Plantation, Tennessee slavery, Wessyngton mansion
Posted in Book Tour & Reviews, Civil War, Current Events, Genealogy & DNA, Interviews, Introduction & Personal, Plantation Life, Research | Comments Closed
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
Archaeological Dig at Wessyngton Slave Cabin Site
In 1991, I had an opportunity that few historians or genealogists ever have; to literally walk in your ancestors’ footsteps. In 1989 I was approached by the president of the Bloomington-Normal black history Project and director of the Midwestern archaeological research Center, about the potential investigations of the salve cabin area on Wessyngton Plantation to get an interpretation of slave life there. Similar digs have been conducted at the Hermitage, Mt. Vernon, and Monticello.
The actual digging at Wessyngton did not start until 1991. The thought of actually walking in my ancestors’ footsteps and holding objects they used in their everyday lives one hundred years earlier was surreal to me. Three sections of the slave cabin area were selected for exploration. One site was where the cabin of my great-great-grandparents Emanuel and Henny Washington once stood.
The dig yielded fragments of pottery and dishes used by my ancestors as well as coins and arrowheads made by Native Americans.
The photograph above shows the site of the archaeological dig on Wessyngton Plantation where my ancestors once lived.
Tags:African American History, African Slavery, Arrowheads, black history, Black History Month, Civil War, Monticello, Mt. Vernon, Native Americans, Plantation Archaeology, plantation slavery, Slave Cabin, Slave Housing, Slave Life, Tennessee slavery, The Hermitage
Posted in Civil War, Genealogy & DNA, Interviews, Introduction & Personal, Plantation Life, Research | Comments Closed
Saturday, October 17th, 2009
Slaves' Tobacco on Wessyngton Plantation 1846
Enslaved African Americans on Wessyngton Plantation worked under a task system. The plantation owner assigned a task to each individual. Once the task was completed the slave was free to work on his own crops of tobacco if he chose to do so. The owner usually assigned tasks that would take the entire day to complete. However, some of the fastest workers were able to complete the assigned tasks and work for themselves. The slaves were not required to work on Sunday and were off half days on Saturdays. Many of the slaves used this time to cultivate their own crops. The task system required less supervision by overseers than gang labor and gave slaves more control of their time.
The owner kept a list of how much tobacco each person raised and paid them after the crops were sold in New Orleans. The slaves used the money from the sale of the crops to purchase various items not provided by the plantation owner. The document above lists the names of men on Wessyngton Plantation in 1846 who raised their own crops and the items they purchased for their families.
Tags:Add new tag, Field Hands, Gang Labor, Overseer, Plantation Owner, Plantation Production, plantation slavery, Plantation Slaves, runaway slaves, Slave Life, Southern Plantations, Task System, Tobacco Production, Work Songs
Posted in Civil War, Genealogy & DNA, Interviews, Introduction & Personal, Plantation Life, Research | Comments Closed
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Wessyngton Tobacco Field
Slaves toiled endlessly, clearing land, plowing fields, raising livestock, erecting buildings, and planting crops to transform frontier landscapes into lavish plantations.
The enslaved population on Wessyngton Plantation primarily produced tobacco, which was very labor intensive. In 1860, 250,000 pounds of tobacco was produced on Wessyngton making it the largest producer of tobacco in the United States and the second largest in the world.
Tags:African American Plantation Life, African American slavery, black history, Civil War, plantation slavery, Plantation Slaves, Slave Labor, Slave Life, Slavery in America, Tennessee slavery, tobacco plantation, Tobacco Production
Posted in Civil War, Genealogy & DNA, Uncategorized | Comments Closed
Monday, July 13th, 2009
Check out my article on BlackPast.org. It is an excellent resource for African American history and genealogy.
Tags:African American Resources, From Slavery to Freedom, Genealogy & DNA, George Washington, Mt. Vernon, Plantation Life, Slave cabins, Slave Community, Slave Housing, Slave Life, Slavery to Freedom, Southern Plantations, Tennessee Plantations, Washington family, Wessyngton Plantation
Posted in Book Tour & Reviews, Current Events, Genealogy & DNA, Interviews, Introduction & Personal, Plantation Life, Research | Comments Closed
