Learn about the economics and hardships of slavery in South Carolina
Photo
The board and batten siding on this slave cabin on the Arundel Plantation in Georgetown County was promoted as an efficient form of house construction from 1850 onward, and is widely seen in...
Photo
"Family Worship in a Plantation in South Carolina," is the title given to this sketch, printed in the "Illustrated London News," December 5, 1863. The article described the scene as having taken place...
Photo
During slavery, although plantation owners attempted to control the lives and activities of their slave labor, a vital community based on African traditions of family and kin networks aided African...
Photo
The music slaves brought with them from Africa came from a variety of different cultures, and it is impossible in the caption for a single image to recount the history of the blending of those...
Photo
An unknown man, Charleston County, playing the fiddle, around 1900. By rights this photograph should be of a banjo, whose origins are indisputably African. As early as the late 17th century, records...
Video
Allison Creek Presbyterian Church Pastor, Sam McGregor, explains, “It’s the greatest story of African American liberation that’s never been told…that centered around the life of Elias Hill, who was a...
Photo
This engraving, also from the 1785 Henry Mouzon map cartouche shows all the main steps in the production of indigo. The plants were harvested in bundles before the stems became woody, then immediately...
Photo
Workers in the fields harvest the indigo plant during the hot summer months. Engraving from a French book, around 1760. Indigo was a good complement to rice as a crop. Indigo grew well in the high...
Photo
African-American workers thresh rice with a flail around 1910, a technique that is probably African in its origins. Lowcountry planters in colonial South Carolina sought out slaves from the Rice Coast...
Photo
An Alice Huger Ravenel Smith watercolor of African-American workers loading rice on a ship to send to market. Note the use of "head-toting" as a way of moving the heavy rice sacks. Courtesy of the...
