Existing comment:
Life in the Slave Quarters
"We lodged in log huts, and on the bare ground .... Our beds were collections of straw and old rags, thrown down in the corners and boxed in the boards; a single blanket the only covering."
-- Josiah Henson
Based on Henson's recollection, "in a single room were huddled, like cattle, ten or a dozen persons." By 1825, there were at least three simple log structures with dirt floors that sheltered nearly 22 enslaved people. Such conditions did not ensure proper hygiene or privacy. After a long day of work, the enslaved retreated to their quarters to eat humble meals of "corn-meal and salted herrings" supplemented with vegetables from their own gardens.
[Captions:]
Henson described how the enslaved tended "the little piece of ground…called a truck-patch" much like the fenced area shown here. They planted foods that grew quickly and could be easily boiled in a pot or roasted in the coals of a small fire.
This 1864 illustration shows how enslaved families in the Upper South congregated at the end of the day in their sparsely furnished quarters. |