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Sprawling Southern plantations have long attracted visitors with their stately mansions and carefully manicured gardens. “When you're going through those massive houses and looking at the ...
Monticello – The plantation home of Thomas Jefferson, located in Virginia [1] Montpelier (Orange, Virginia) – The estate of James Madison, fourth President of the United States [2] Mount Vernon – George Washington's plantation home in Virginia; Naval Air Station Pensacola – A major training base for the U.S. Navy in Florida
According to the 1840 United States census, one out of every four families in Virginia owned slaves. There were over 100 plantation-owners who owned over 100 slaves. [2] The number of slaves in the 15 States was just shy of 4 million in a total population of 12.4 million and the percentage was 32% of the population.
Some portray slaves as having plenty to eat, while others portray "the fare of the plantation [as] coarse and scanty". [2] For the most part, slaves' diet consisted of a form of fatty pork and corn or rice. [2] Cornbread was commonly eaten by slaves. [3] Produce from a vegetable patch or garden could also be added to the rations. [4]
Slave gardens were an integral part of plantation life. The gardens were made near slave quarters and fenced in with saplings, branches, and vines, and root cellars were located underneath the slave homes. Based on the observations of travelers, the gardens were small in comparison to the other gardens on the plantation. [24]
Dolly "Old" Doll Newton was an elite enslaved woman on the Newton Plantation in Barbados. Doll was the matriarch of her family and achieved a high status among her fellow enslaved and petitioned many times for freedom as a result of her elite status. She was born into slavery during the mid-18th century on the Newton Plantation.
Enslavers gave field slaves weekly rations of food, including meat, corn, and flour. If enslavers permitted, enslaved people could have a garden to grow themselves fresh vegetables. [ 1 ] Otherwise, they could only make a meal from their rations and anything else they could find.
There are examples in every Southern state. Centers of plantation life such as Natchez run plantation tours. Traditionally the museum houses presented an idyllic, dignified "lost cause" vision of the antebellum South. Recently, and to different degrees, some have begun to acknowledge the "horrors of slavery" which made that life possible. [56]