Existing comment:
The Scarecrow, Late 19th century
Farm labor by enslaved Virginians was vital to the Confederacy.
Most of Virginia's slaves worked as agricultural laborers, and their wartime production fed both civilians and soldiers. Allen Carter Redwood painted "The Scarecrow" after the war, but the labor and laborers looked much the same as before. The dead crow may symbolize the Jim Crow laws that kept many emancipated African Americans overworked field workers after the war.
Controlled by the Union army throughout the war, Fort Monroe was referred to as "freedom fort" by slaves in Tidewater Virginia. |