162-573: Borough House Plantation , also known as Borough House , Hillcrest Plantation and Anderson Place , is an historic plantation on South Carolina Highway 261 , 0.8 miles (1.3 km) north of its intersection with U.S. Route 76 / US Route 378 in Stateburg , in the High Hills of Santee near Sumter, South Carolina . A National Historic Landmark , the plantation is noted as the largest assemblage of high-style pisé ( rammed earth ) structures in
324-416: A butter churn . Once firm enough to separate out, but soft enough to stick together, the butter was taken out of the churn, washed in very cold water, and salted. The churning process also produced buttermilk as a by-product. It was the remaining liquid after the butter was removed from the churn. All of the products of this process would have been stored in the spring house or ice house . The smokehouse
486-406: A courtyard to the rear of the main house known as the kitchen yard. They included a cookhouse (separate kitchen building), pantry , washhouse ( laundry ), smokehouse , chicken house , spring house or ice house , milkhouse ( dairy ), covered well , and cistern . The privies would have been located some distance away from the plantation house and kitchen yard. The cookhouse or kitchen
648-451: A primer , and a hornbook . As the children grew older their schooling began to prepare them for their adult roles on the plantation. Boys studied academic subjects, proper social etiquette , and plantation management, while girls learned art , music , French , and the domestic skills suited to the mistress of a plantation. Most plantation owners maintained an office for keeping records, transacting business, writing correspondence, and
810-556: A vacuum pan , where it was boiled until the sugar in the syrup was crystallized. The crystallized sugar was then cooled and separated from any remaining molasses in a process known as purging. The final step was packing the sugar into hogshead barrels for transport to market. Cotton plantations, the most common type of plantation in the South prior to the Civil War, were the last type of plantation to fully develop. Cotton production
972-599: A boy of 9 in Virginia, remembered the day in early 1865: As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night. Most of the verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom.... [S]ome man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper—the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After
1134-635: A building raised roughly a story off of the ground on posts, was used to separate the lighter chaff and dust from the rice. Sugar plantations were most commonly found in Louisiana. In fact, Louisiana produced almost all of the sugar grown in the United States during the prewar period. From one-quarter to one-half of all sugar consumed in the United States came from Louisiana sugar plantations. Plantations grew sugarcane from Louisiana's colonial era onward, but large scale production did not begin until
1296-527: A corrugated wash board until clean. By the 1850s, they would have been passed through a mangle . Prior to that time, wringing out the items was done by hand. The items would then be ready to be hung out to dry or, in inclement weather, placed on a drying rack . Ironing would have been done with a metal flat iron , often heated in the fireplace, and various other devices. The milkhouse would have been used by enslaved people to make milk into cream , butter , and buttermilk . The process started with separating
1458-452: A flat surface of still lower land, with a silver thread of water curling through it, extended, Holland-like, to the horizon. Usually at as great a distance as a quarter of a mile from the road, and from a half mile to a mile apart, were the residences of the planters – large white houses, with groves of evergreen trees about them; and between these and the road were little villages of slave-cabins ... The cottages were framed buildings, boarded on
1620-512: A generation. Michigan, California, and Iowa all went Republican.... Moreover, the Republicans picked up five seats in the Senate." McPherson states, "If the election was in any sense a referendum on emancipation and on Lincoln's conduct of the war, a majority of Northern voters endorsed these policies." The initial Confederate response was outrage. The Proclamation was seen as vindication of
1782-431: A huge acreage. These large estates did exist, but represented only a small percentage of the plantations that once existed in the South. Although many Southern farmers did enslave people before emancipation in 1862, few enslaved more than five. These farmers tended to work the fields alongside the people they enslaved. Of the estimated 46,200 plantations existing in 1860, 20,700 had 20 to 30 enslaved people and 2,300 had
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#17327733247951944-509: A hundred days fair notice of my purpose, to all the States and people, within which time they could have turned it wholly aside, by simply again becoming good citizens of the United States. They chose to disregard it, and I made the peremptory proclamation on what appeared to me to be a military necessity. And being made, it must stand". Lincoln continued, however, that the states included in the proclamation could "adopt systems of apprenticeship for
2106-522: A law signed by Lincoln, slavery was abolished in the District of Columbia on April 16, 1862, and owners were compensated. On June 19, 1862, Congress prohibited slavery in all current and future United States territories (though not in the states), and President Lincoln quickly signed the legislation. This act effectively repudiated the 1857 opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States in
2268-455: A liberator." Historian Richard Striner argues that "for years" Lincoln's letter has been misread as "Lincoln only wanted to save the Union." However, within the context of Lincoln's entire career and pronouncements on slavery this interpretation is wrong, according to Striner. Rather, Lincoln was softening the strong Northern white supremacist opposition to his imminent emancipation by tying it to
2430-548: A more accurate image of what life was like for slaves and slave owners", The Washington Post wrote in 2019. Hannah Knowles in The Washington Post wrote, "The changes have begun to draw people long alienated by the sites' whitewashing of the past and to satisfy what staff call a hunger for real history, as plantations add slavery-focused tours, rebuild cabins and reconstruct the lives of the enslaved with help from their descendants." However, some white visitors to
2592-581: A more aggressive attack on the Confederacy and faster emancipation of the slaves: "On the face of this wide earth, Mr. President, there is not one ... intelligent champion of the Union cause who does not feel ... that the rebellion, if crushed tomorrow, would be renewed if slavery were left in full vigor and that every hour of deference to slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union." Lincoln responded in his open letter to Horace Greeley of August 22, 1862: If there be those who would not save
2754-524: A new state constitution abolishing slavery in the state went into effect on November 1, 1864. The Union-occupied counties of eastern Virginia and parishes of Louisiana, which had been exempted from the Proclamation, both adopted state constitutions that abolished slavery in April 1864. In early 1865, Tennessee adopted an amendment to its constitution prohibiting slavery. The Proclamation was issued in
2916-460: A place for the hired tutor or governess to educate the planter's children, and sometimes even those of other planters in the area. On most plantations, however, a room in the main house was sufficient for schooling, rather than a separate dedicated building. Paper was precious, so the children often recited their lessons until they memorized them. The usual texts in the beginning were the Bible ,
3078-399: A preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which he had determined to issue after the next Union military victory. Therefore, this letter, was in truth, an attempt to position the impending announcement in terms of saving the Union, not freeing slaves as a humanitarian gesture. It was one of Lincoln's most skillful public relations efforts, even if it has cast longstanding doubt on his sincerity as
3240-496: A preliminary version and a final version. The former, issued on September 22, 1862, was a preliminary announcement outlining the intent of the latter, which took effect 100 days later on January 1, 1863, during the second year of the Civil War. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was Abraham Lincoln's declaration that all slaves would be permanently freed in all areas of the Confederacy that were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863. The ten affected states were individually named in
3402-535: A split within their party as the war progressed. Lincoln further alienated many in the Union two days after issuing the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation by suspending habeas corpus . His opponents linked these two actions in their claims that he was becoming a despot. In light of this and a lack of military success for the Union armies, many War Democrat voters who had previously supported Lincoln turned against him and joined
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#17327733247953564-405: A statute enacted by Congress or a constitutional amendment, because Lincoln or a subsequent president could revoke it. One week after issuing the final Proclamation, Lincoln wrote to Major General John McClernand : "After the commencement of hostilities I struggled nearly a year and a half to get along without touching the 'institution'; and when finally I conditionally determined to touch it, I gave
3726-408: A strainer to be collected into a tank. From there the juice went through a process that removed impurities from the liquid and thickened it through evaporation. It was steam-heated in vats where additional impurities were removed by adding lime to the syrup and then the mixture was strained. At this point the liquid had been transformed into molasses . It was then placed into a closed vessel known as
3888-514: A teenage slave in Mississippi , recalled that like many of his fellow slaves, his father escaped to join Union forces. According to Albright, plantation owners tried to keep news of the Proclamation from slaves, but they learned of it through the grapevine. The young slave became a "runner" for an informal group they called the 4Ls ("Lincoln's Legal Loyal League") bringing news of the proclamation to secret slave meetings at plantations throughout
4050-455: A two-sided spread that showed the transition from slavery into civilization after President Lincoln signed the Proclamation. Nast believed in equal opportunity and equality for all people, including enslaved Africans or free blacks. A mass rally in Chicago on September 7, 1862, demanded immediate and universal emancipation of slaves. A delegation headed by William W. Patton met the president at
4212-550: A visit to plantations along the Georgia coast in 1855: In the afternoon, I left the main road, and, towards night, reached a much more cultivated district. The forest of pines extended uninterruptedly on one side of the way, but on the other was a continued succession of very large fields, or rich dark soil – evidently reclaimed swamp-land – which had been cultivated the previous year, in Sea Island cotton, or maize. Beyond them,
4374-422: A workforce of a hundred or more, with the rest somewhere in between. Many plantations were operated by absentee-landowners and never had a main house on site. Just as vital and arguably more important to the complex were the many structures built for the processing and storage of crops, food preparation and storage, sheltering equipment and animals, and various other domestic and agricultural purposes. The value of
4536-633: A year after the law's passage, the Confederates massacred black U.S. soldiers at Fort Pillow . Confederate President Jefferson Davis reacted to the Emancipation Proclamation with outrage and in an address to the Confederate Congress on January 12 threatened to send any U.S. military officer captured in Confederate territory covered by the proclamation to state authorities to be charged with "exciting servile insurrection", which
4698-461: The Dred Scott case that Congress was powerless to regulate slavery in U.S. territories. It also rejected the notion of popular sovereignty that had been advanced by Stephen A. Douglas as a solution to the slavery controversy, while completing the effort first legislatively proposed by Thomas Jefferson in 1784 to confine slavery within the borders of existing states. On August 6, 1861,
4860-659: The Confiscation Act of 1862 , but he didn't mention any statute in the Final Emancipation Proclamation and, in any event, the source of his authority to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and the Final Emancipation Proclamation was his "joint capacity as President and Commander-in-Chief". Lincoln therefore did not have such authority over the four border slave-holding states that were not in rebellion— Missouri , Kentucky , Maryland and Delaware —so those states were not named in
5022-561: The Dred Scott decision to arrive at an answer, but he finally concluded that they could indeed remain free. Still, a complete end to slavery would require a constitutional amendment. Conflicting advice as to whether to free the slaves was presented to Lincoln in public and private. Thomas Nast , a cartoon artist during the Civil War and the late 1800s considered "Father of the American Cartoon", composed many works, including
Borough House Plantation - Misplaced Pages Continue
5184-555: The Episcopal denomination. Early records indicate that at Faunsdale Plantation the mistress of the estate, Louisa Harrison, gave regular instruction to her slaves by reading the services of the church and teaching the Episcopal catechism to their children. Following the death of her first husband, she had a large Carpenter Gothic church built, St. Michael's Church. She latter remarried to Rev. William A. Stickney, who served as
5346-825: The First Confiscation Act freed the slaves who were employed "against the Government and lawful authority of the United States." On July 17, 1862, the Second Confiscation Act freed the slaves "within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by forces of the United States." The Second Confiscation Act, unlike the First Confiscation Act, explicitly provided that all slaves covered by it would be permanently freed, stating in section 10 that "all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against
5508-613: The Republican leader in the House , called for total war against the rebellion to include emancipation of slaves, arguing that emancipation, by forcing the loss of enslaved labor, would ruin the rebel economy. On March 13, 1862, Congress approved an Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves , which prohibited "All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States" from returning fugitive slaves to their owners. Pursuant to
5670-458: The Soldier's Home , Lincoln called his cabinet into session and issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. According to Civil War historian James M. McPherson , Lincoln told cabinet members, "I made a solemn vow before God, that if General Lee was driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves." Lincoln had first shown an early draft of
5832-558: The South Carolina Lowcountry . Until the 19th century, rice was threshed from the stalks and the husk was pounded from the grain by hand, a very labor-intensive endeavor. Steam-powered rice pounding mills had become common by the 1830s. They were used to thresh the grain from the inedible chaff . A separate chimney, required for the fires powering the steam engine, was adjacent to the pounding mill and often connected by an underground system. The winnowing barn ,
5994-484: The Southeastern United States allowed the flourishing of large plantations, where large numbers of enslaved Africans were held captive and forced to produce crops to create wealth for a white elite . Today, as was also true in the past, there is a wide range of opinion as to what differentiated a plantation from a farm . Typically, the focus of a farm was subsistence agriculture . In contrast,
6156-439: The U.S. Constitution providing that any state that abolished slavery before January 1, 1900, would receive compensation from the United States in the form of interest-bearing U.S. bonds. Adoption of this amendment, in theory, could have ended the war without ever permanently ending slavery, because the amendment provided, "Any State having received bonds ... and afterwards reintroducing or tolerating slavery therein, shall refund to
6318-510: The Union Army . The Emancipation Proclamation became a historic document because it "would redefine the Civil War, turning it [for the North] from a struggle [solely] to preserve the Union to one [also] focused on ending slavery, and set a decisive course for how the nation would be reshaped after that historic conflict." The Emancipation Proclamation was never challenged in court. To ensure
6480-545: The White House on September 13. Lincoln had declared in peacetime that he had no constitutional authority to free the slaves. Even used as a war power, emancipation was a risky political act. Public opinion as a whole was against it. There would be strong opposition among Copperhead Democrats and an uncertain reaction from loyal border states. Delaware and Maryland already had a high percentage of free blacks: 91.2% and 49.7%, respectively, in 1860. Lincoln first discussed
6642-408: The border states and Union-occupied areas. Nevertheless, in the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation itself, Lincoln said that he would recommend to Congress that it compensate states that "adopt, immediate, or gradual abolishment of slavery". In addition, during the hundred days between September 22, 1862, when he issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and January 1, 1863, when he issued
Borough House Plantation - Misplaced Pages Continue
6804-493: The end of slavery in the United States . On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Its third paragraph begins: That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free. On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued
6966-438: The "engine of war" for the Confederacy. They produced and prepared food; sewed uniforms; repaired railways; worked on farms and in factories, shipping yards, and mines; built fortifications; and served as hospital workers and common laborers. News of the Proclamation spread rapidly by word of mouth, arousing hopes of freedom, creating general confusion, and encouraging thousands to escape to Union lines. George Washington Albright,
7128-537: The "great house" and extended family. Novels, often adapted into films , presented a romantic , sanitized view of plantation life and ignored or glorified white supremacy . The most popular of these were The Birth of a Nation (1916), based on Thomas Dixon Jr. ,'s best-selling novel The Clansman (1905), and Gone with the Wind (1939), based on the best-selling novel of the same name (1936) by Margaret Mitchell . On larger plantations an overseer represented
7290-662: The 13th Amendment by the necessary two-thirds vote on April 8, 1864; the House of Representatives did so on January 31, 1865; and the required three-fourths of the states ratified it on December 6, 1865. The amendment made slavery and involuntary servitude unconstitutional, "except as a punishment for a crime ". The United States Constitution of 1787 did not use the word "slavery" but included several provisions about unfree persons. The Three-Fifths Compromise (in Article I, Section 2) allocated congressional representation based "on
7452-617: The 17th into the 20th century. The complex included everything from the main residence down to the pens for livestock . Until the abolition of slavery , such plantations were generally self-sufficient settlements that relied on the forced labor of enslaved people. Plantations are an important aspect of the history of the Southern United States , particularly before the American Civil War . The mild temperate climate , plentiful rainfall, and fertile soils of
7614-401: The 1810s and 1820s. A successful sugar plantation required a skilled retinue of hired labor and enslaved people. The most specialized structure on a sugar plantation was the sugar mill (sugar house), where, by the 1830s, the steam-powered mill crushed the sugarcane stalks between rollers. This squeezed the juice from the stalks and the cane juice would run out the bottom of the mill through
7776-493: The 4 million enslaved people in the country. Around 25,000 to 75,000 were immediately emancipated in those regions of the Confederacy where the US Army was already in place. It could not be enforced in the areas still in rebellion, but, as the Union army took control of Confederate regions, the Proclamation provided the legal framework for the liberation of more than three and a half million enslaved people in those regions by
7938-596: The Army and Navy" under Article II, section 2 of the United States Constitution. As such, in the Emancipation Proclamation he claimed to have the authority to free persons held as slaves in those states that were in rebellion "as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion". In the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln said "attention is hereby called" to two 1862 statutes, namely "An Act to Make an Additional Article of War" and
8100-690: The Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom , suggests that the minimum requirement for planter status was twenty people enslaved, especially since a Southern planter could exempt Confederate duty for one white male per twenty people owned. In his study of Black Belt counties in Alabama, Jonathan Weiner defines planters by ownership of real property, rather than of slaves. A planter, for Weiner, owned at least $ 10,000 worth of real estate in 1850 and $ 32,000 worth in 1860, equivalent to about
8262-565: The Confederate states where the proclamation was put into immediate effect by local commanders included Winchester, Virginia , Corinth, Mississippi , the Sea Islands along the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia, Key West , Florida, and Port Royal, South Carolina . On New Year's Eve in 1862, African Americans – enslaved and free – gathered across the United States to hold Watch Night ceremonies for "Freedom's Eve", looking toward
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#17327733247958424-483: The Copperhead position within their party, found themselves in a quandary. While throughout the war they had continued to espouse the racist positions of their party and their disdain of the concerns of slaves, they did see the Proclamation as a viable military tool against the South and worried that opposing it might demoralize troops in the Union army. The question would continue to trouble them and eventually lead to
8586-630: The Copperheads in the off-year elections held in October and November. In the 1862 elections , the Democrats gained 28 seats in the House as well as the governorship of New York. Lincoln's friend Orville Hickman Browning told the president that the Proclamation and the suspension of habeas corpus had been "disastrous" for his party by handing the Democrats so many weapons. Lincoln made no response. Copperhead William Jarvis of Connecticut pronounced
8748-518: The Emancipation Proclamation as a call for slaves to commit extreme acts of violence on all white southerners, saying it was "a proposal for the butchery of women and children, for scenes of lust and rapine, and of arson and murder, which would invoke the interference of civilized Europe". The Copperheads also saw the Proclamation as an unconstitutional abuse of presidential power. Editor Henry A. Reeves wrote in Greenport's Republican Watchman that "In
8910-634: The Episcopal minister of St. Michael's and was later appointed by Bishop Richard Wilmer as a "Missionary to the Negroes," after which Louisa joined him as an unofficial fellow minister among the African Americans of the Black Belt . Most plantation churches were of wood-frame construction, although some were built in brick, often stuccoed . Early examples tended towards the vernacular or neoclassicism, but later examples were almost always in
9072-484: The Fifth Amendment to argue against slavery, it was made part of the legal basis for treating slaves as property by Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). Slavery was also supported in law and in practice by a pervasive culture of white supremacy . Nonetheless, between 1777 and 1804, every Northern state provided for the immediate or gradual abolition of slavery. No Southern state did so, and the slave population of
9234-425: The Final Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln took actions that suggest that he continued to consider the first option he mentioned to Greeley — saving the Union without freeing any slave — a possibility. Historian William W. Freehling wrote, "From mid-October to mid-November 1862, he sent personal envoys to Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas". Each of these envoys carried with him a letter from Lincoln stating that if
9396-987: The Gothic Revival style. A few rivaled those built by southern town congregations. Two of the most elaborate extant examples in the Deep South are the Chapel of the Cross at Annandale Plantation and St. Mary's Chapel at Laurel Hill Plantation , both Episcopalian structures in Mississippi. In both cases the original plantation houses have been destroyed, but the quality and design of the churches can give some insight into how elaborate some plantation complexes and their buildings could be. St. Mary Chapel, in Natchez, dates to 1839, built in stuccoed brick with large Gothic and Tudor arch windows, hood mouldings over
9558-675: The Negro. I answer No!" The Copperheads saw the Proclamation as irrefutable proof of their position and the beginning of a political rise for their members; in Connecticut, H. B. Whiting wrote that the truth was now plain even to "those stupid thickheaded persons who persisted in thinking that the President was a conservative man and that the war was for the restoration of the Union under the Constitution." War Democrats , who rejected
9720-535: The Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi , Alabama , Florida , Georgia , South Carolina , North Carolina , and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including
9882-410: The Proclamation (Jefferson County being the only exception), a condition of the state's admittance to the Union was that its constitution provide for the gradual abolition of slavery (an immediate emancipation of all slaves was also adopted there in early 1865). Slaves in the border states of Maryland and Missouri were also emancipated by separate state action before the Civil War ended. In Maryland,
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#173277332479510044-402: The Proclamation will not free them where we don't go." Ten days later, he wrote her again, "Don't imagine, from what I said in my last that I thought Mr. Lincoln's 'Emancipation Proclamation' not right ... but still, as a war-measure , I don't see the immediate benefit of it, ... as the slaves are sure of being free at any rate, with or without an Emancipation Act." Booker T. Washington , as
10206-586: The Proclamation, the lower Shenandoah Valley and the area around Alexandria were covered. Emancipation was immediately enforced as Union soldiers advanced into the Confederacy. Slaves fled their masters and were often assisted by Union soldiers. On the other hand, Robert Gould Shaw wrote to his mother on September 25, 1862, "So the 'Proclamation of Emancipation' has come at last, or rather, its forerunner. I suppose you all are very much excited about it. For my part, I can't see what practical good it can do now. Wherever our army has been, there remain no slaves, and
10368-577: The Proclamation. The fifth border jurisdiction, West Virginia , where slavery remained legal but was in the process of being abolished, was, in January 1863, still part of the legally recognized "reorganized" state of Virginia , based in Alexandria , which was in the Union (as opposed to the Confederate state of Virginia, based in Richmond ). The Emancipation Proclamation did not free all slaves in
10530-604: The Reconstruction of the captured Confederate State of Louisiana. Only 10 percent of the state's electorate had to take the loyalty oath. The state was also required to accept the Emancipation Proclamation and abolish slavery in its new constitution. By December 1864, the Lincoln plan abolishing slavery had been enacted not only in Louisiana, but also in Arkansas and Tennessee. In Kentucky, Union Army commanders relied on
10692-674: The Sea Islands of South Carolina also had a substantial population. Those 20,000 slaves were freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation." This Union-occupied zone where freedom began at once included parts of eastern North Carolina , the Mississippi Valley , northern Alabama , the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, a large part of Arkansas , and the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina. Although some counties of Union-occupied Virginia were exempted from
10854-527: The South continued to grow, peaking at almost four million people at the beginning of the Civil War, when most slave states sought to break away from the United States. Lincoln understood that the federal government's power to end slavery in peacetime was limited by the Constitution, which, before 1865, committed the issue to individual states. During the Civil War, however, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation under his authority as " Commander in Chief of
11016-471: The South to stay in the Union. The promises of many Republican politicians that the war was to restore the Union and not about black rights or ending slavery were declared lies by their opponents, who cited the Proclamation. In Columbiana, Ohio, Copperhead David Allen told a crowd, "Now fellow Democrats I ask you if you are going to be forced into a war against your Britheren of the Southern States for
11178-458: The U.S., contrary to a common misconception; it applied in the ten states that were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, but it did not cover the nearly 500,000 slaves in the slaveholding border states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware) or in parts of Virginia and Louisiana that were no longer in rebellion. Those slaves were freed by later separate state and federal actions. The areas covered were " Arkansas , Texas , Louisiana (except
11340-488: The Union Address , but then typically given in writing and not referred to as such). In it he praised the free labor system for respecting human rights over property rights; he endorsed legislation to address the status of contraband slaves and slaves in loyal states, possibly through buying their freedom with federal money; and he endorsed federal funding of voluntary colonization. In January 1862, Thaddeus Stevens ,
11502-612: The Union Army as "contraband of war" under the Confiscation Acts . The Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia had been occupied by the Union Navy earlier in the war. The whites had fled to the mainland while the blacks stayed. An early program of Reconstruction was set up for the former slaves, including schools and training. Naval officers read the proclamation and told them they were free. Slaves had been part of
11664-405: The Union to ending slavery in addition to preserving the Union. Although the Emancipation Proclamation resulted in the gradual freeing of most slaves, it did not make slavery illegal. Of the states that were exempted from the Emancipation Proclamation, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia prohibited slavery before the war ended. In 1863, President Lincoln proposed a moderate plan for
11826-434: The Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all
11988-419: The United States the bonds so received, or the value thereof, and all interest paid thereon". In his 2014 book, Lincoln's Gamble , journalist and historian Todd Brewster asserted that Lincoln's desire to reassert the saving of the Union as his sole war goal was, in fact, crucial to his claim of legal authority for emancipation. Since slavery was protected by the Constitution, the only way that he could free
12150-511: The United States. The main house and six buildings on the plantation were built using this technique, beginning in 1821. The plantation is also notable as the home of Confederate Army General Richard H. Anderson . The original house built in 1758 served at different times during the American Revolution as headquarters for both British General Lord Cornwallis and Continental Army General Nathanael Greene . The second house
12312-545: The abolition of slavery in all of the U.S., Lincoln also insisted that Reconstruction plans for Southern states require them to enact laws abolishing slavery (which occurred during the war in Tennessee , Arkansas , and Louisiana ); Lincoln encouraged border states to adopt abolition (which occurred during the war in Maryland , Missouri , and West Virginia ) and pushed for passage of the 13th Amendment . The Senate passed
12474-560: The armed service of the United States. ... And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God. The proclamation provided that the executive branch, including the Army and Navy, "will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons". Even though it excluded states not in rebellion, as well as parts of Louisiana and Virginia under Union control, it still applied to more than 3.5 million of
12636-618: The bale was secured with twine. An individual who owned a plantation was known as a planter . Historians of the prewar South have generally defined "planter" most precisely as a person owning property (real estate) and keeping 20 or more people enslaved . In the " Black Belt " counties of Alabama and Mississippi , the terms "planter" and "farmer" were often synonymous. The historians Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman define large planters as those who enslaved over 50 people, and medium planters as those who enslaved between 16 and 50 people. Historian David Williams, in A People's History of
12798-399: The battle, though the Union suffered heavier losses than the Confederates and General McClellan allowed the escape of Robert E. Lee 's retreating troops, Union forces turned back a Confederate invasion of Maryland, eliminating more than a quarter of Lee's army in the process. This marked a turning point in the Civil War. On September 22, 1862, five days after Antietam, and while residing at
12960-405: The cause of the Union. This opposition would fight for the Union but not to end slavery, so Lincoln gave them the means and motivation to do both, at the same time. In effect, then, Lincoln may have already chosen the third option he mentioned to Greeley: "freeing some and leaving others alone"; that is, freeing slaves in the states still in rebellion on January 1, 1863, but leaving enslaved those in
13122-450: The centuries. With the collapse of the plantation economy and subsequent Southern transition from a largely agrarian to an industrial society , plantations and their building complexes became obsolete. Although the majority have been destroyed, the most common structures to have survived are the plantation houses . As is true of buildings in general, the more substantially built and architecturally interesting buildings have tended to be
13284-636: The cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth)." The state of Tennessee had already mostly returned to Union control, under a recognized Union government, so it was not named and was exempted. Virginia was named, but exemptions were specified for the 48 counties then in the process of forming the new state of West Virginia , and seven additional counties and two cities in the Union-controlled Tidewater region of Virginia . Also specifically exempted were New Orleans and 13 named parishes of Louisiana , which were mostly under federal control at
13446-854: The colored people, conforming substantially to the most approved plans of gradual emancipation; and ... they may be nearly as well off, in this respect, as if the present trouble had not occurred". He concluded by asking McClernand not to "make this letter public". Initially, the Emancipation Proclamation effectively freed only a small percentage of the slaves, namely those who were behind Union lines in areas not exempted. Most slaves were still behind Confederate lines or in exempted Union-occupied areas. Secretary of State William H. Seward commented, "We show our sympathy with slavery by emancipating slaves where we cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." Had any slave state ended its secession attempt before January 1, 1863, it could have kept slavery, at least temporarily. The Proclamation freed
13608-417: The cookhouse or a storehouse and would have secured items such as barrels of salt , sugar , flour , cornmeal and the like. The washhouse is where clothes, tablecloths, and bed-covers were cleaned and ironed. It also sometimes had living quarters for the laundrywoman . Cleaning laundry in this period was labor-intensive for the domestic slaves that performed it. It required various gadgets to accomplish
13770-407: The crop. Tobacco plantations were most common in certain parts of Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Virginia. The first agricultural plantations in Virginia were founded on the growing of tobacco. Tobacco production on plantations was very labor-intensive. It required the entire year to gather seeds, start them growing in cold frames , and then transplant
13932-449: The day it took effect; eyewitness accounts at places such as Hilton Head Island, South Carolina , and Port Royal, South Carolina record celebrations on January 1 as thousands of blacks were informed of their new legal status of freedom. "Estimates of the number of slaves freed immediately by the Emancipation Proclamation are uncertain. One contemporary estimate put the 'contraband' population of Union-occupied North Carolina at 10,000, and
14094-573: The doors and windows, buttresses , a crenelated roof-line, and a small Gothic spire crowning the whole. Although construction records are very sketchy, the Chapel of the Cross, built from 1850 to 1852 near Madison, may be attributable to Frank Wills or Richard Upjohn , both of whom designed almost identical churches in the North during the same time period that the Chapel of the Cross was built. Another secondary structure on many plantations during
14256-410: The election the "beginning of the end of the utter downfall of Abolitionism ". Historians James M. McPherson and Allan Nevins state that though the results looked very troubling, they could be seen favorably by Lincoln; his opponents did well only in their historic strongholds and "at the national level their gains in the House were the smallest of any minority party's in an off-year election in nearly
14418-432: The end of the war . The Emancipation Proclamation outraged white Southerners and their sympathizers, who saw it as the beginning of a race war . It energized abolitionists , and undermined those Europeans who wanted to intervene to help the Confederacy. The Proclamation lifted the spirits of African Americans , both free and enslaved. It encouraged many to escape from slavery and flee toward Union lines, where many joined
14580-418: The enrollment of freed slaves into the United States military. During the war nearly 200,000 black men, most of them ex-slaves, joined the Union Army. Their contributions were significant in winning the war. The Confederacy did not allow slaves in their army as soldiers until the last month before its defeat. Though the counties of Virginia that were soon to form West Virginia were specifically exempted from
14742-428: The fields. A few enslavers went further in providing housing for the household servants. When Waldwic in Alabama was remodeled in the Gothic Revival style in the 1852, the enslaved people serving the household were provided with larger accommodations that matched the architecture of the main house. This model, however, was exceedingly rare. Famous landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted had this recollection of
14904-790: The final Emancipation Proclamation (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina). Not included were the Union slave states of Maryland , Delaware , Missouri and Kentucky . Also not named was the state of Tennessee , in which a Union-controlled military government had already been set up, based in the capital, Nashville. Specific exemptions were stated for areas also under Union control on January 1, 1863, namely 48 counties that would soon become West Virginia , seven other named counties of Virginia including Berkeley and Hampshire counties, which were soon added to West Virginia, New Orleans and 13 named parishes nearby. Union-occupied areas of
15066-432: The final Emancipation Proclamation. It stated: I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do ... order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein
15228-403: The financial panics of 1819 and 1837, when demand by British mills for cotton dropped, many small planters went bankrupt and their land and slaves were bought by larger plantations. As cotton-producing estates grew in size, so did the number of slaveholders and the average number of enslaved people held. A cotton plantation normally had a cotton gin house, where the cotton gin was used to remove
15390-719: The food staples and equipment that they relied on for their existence. This type of debt bondage , for blacks and poor whites, led to a populist movement in the late 19th century that began to bring blacks and whites together for a common cause. This early populist movement is largely credited with helping to cause state governments in the South, mostly controlled by the planter elite, to enact various laws that disenfranchised poor whites and blacks, through grandfather clauses , literacy tests , poll taxes , and various other laws. The agricultural structures on plantations had some basic structures in common and others that varied widely. They depended on what crops and animals were raised on
15552-409: The forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves." However, Lincoln's position continued to be that, although Congress lacked the power to free the slaves in rebel-held states, he, as commander in chief, could do so if he deemed it a proper military measure. By this time, in the summer of 1862, Lincoln had drafted
15714-427: The form of monumental towers set near the main house. The pigeons were raised to be eaten as a delicacy and their droppings were used as fertilizer. Few functions could take place on a plantation without a reliable water supply. Every plantation had at least one, and sometimes several, wells . These were usually roofed and often partially enclosed by latticework to exclude animals. Since the well water in many areas
15876-503: The former Hermitage Plantation in Georgia and Boone Hall in South Carolina, even those who worked in the fields were provided with brick cabins. More fortunate in their accommodations were those who served in the enslavers' houses or were skilled laborers. They usually resided either in a part of the main house or in their own houses, which were normally more comfortable dwellings than those of their counterparts who worked in
16038-414: The government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such person found on [or] being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by
16200-455: The height of the sharecropping -era was the plantation store or commissary. Although some prewar plantations had a commissary that distributed food and supplies to enslaved people, the plantation store was essentially a postwar addition to the plantation complex. In addition to the share of their crop already owed to the plantation owner for the use of his or her land, tenants and sharecroppers purchased, usually on credit against their next crop,
16362-424: The honor of our families from pollution [and] our social system from destruction, let every effort be made, every means be employed, to fill and maintain the ranks of our armies, until God in his mercy shall bless us with the establishment of our independence." The Emancipation Proclamation marked a significant turning point in the war as it made the goal of the North not only preserving the Union, but also freeing
16524-498: The like. Although it, like the schoolroom, was most often within the main house or another structure, it was not at all rare for a complex to have a separate plantation office. John C. Calhoun used his plantation office at his Fort Hill plantation in Clemson, South Carolina as a private sanctuary of sorts, with it utilized as both study and library during his twenty-five year residency. Another structure found on some estates
16686-399: The main house, at least partially due to his social position. It was also part of an effort to keep the enslaved people compliant and prevent the beginnings of a slave rebellion, a very real fear in the minds of most plantation owners. Economic studies indicate that fewer than 30 percent of planters employed white supervisors for their slave labor. Some planters appointed a trusted slave as
16848-621: The main house, well away from it, or both. On large plantations they were often arranged in a village-like grouping along an avenue away from the main house, but sometimes were scattered around the plantation on the edges of the fields where the enslaved people toiled, like most of the sharecropper cabins that were to come later. Houses for enslaved people were often of the most basic construction. Meant for little more than sleeping, they were usually rough log or frame one-room cabins; early examples often had chimneys made of clay and sticks. Hall and parlor houses (two rooms) were also represented on
17010-442: The meat could also be stored there until it was consumed. The chicken house was a building where chickens were kept. Its design could vary, depending on whether the chickens were kept for egg production, meat, or both. If for eggs, there were often nest boxes for egg laying and perches on which the birds to sleep. Eggs were collected daily. Some plantations also had pigeonniers ( dovecotes ) that, in Louisiana, sometimes took
17172-417: The milk into skim milk and cream. It was done by pouring the whole milk into a container and allowing the cream to naturally rise to the top. This was collected into another container daily until several gallons had accumulated. During this time the cream would sour slightly through naturally occurring bacteria. This increased the efficiency of the churning to come. Churning was an arduous task performed with
17334-728: 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. In late 2019, after contact initiated by Color of Change , "five major websites often used for wedding planning have pledged to cut back on promoting and romanticizing weddings at former slave plantations". The New York Times , earlier in 2019, "decided...to exclude couples who were being married on plantations from wedding announcements and other wedding coverage". "Many plantations, including George Washington 's Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson 's Monticello , are working to present
17496-418: The name of freedom for Negroes, [the proclamation] imperils the liberty of white men; to test an utopian theory of equality of races which Nature, History and Experience alike condemn as monstrous, it overturns the Constitution and Civil Laws and sets up Military Usurpation in their stead." Racism remained pervasive on both sides of the conflict and many in the North supported the war only as an effort to force
17658-526: The negro, is the heavyest [ sic ] blow yet given the Confederacy. The South rave a greatdeel [ sic ] about it and profess to be very angry." In May 1863, a few months after the Proclamation took effect, the Confederacy passed a law demanding "full and ample retaliation" against the U.S. for such measures. The Confederacy stated that black U.S. soldiers captured while fighting against the Confederacy would be tried as slave insurrectionists in civil courts—a capital offense with an automatic sentence of death. Less than
17820-406: The ones that survived into the modern age and are better documented than many of the smaller and simpler ones. Several plantation homes of important persons, including Mount Vernon , Monticello , and The Hermitage have also been preserved. Less common are intact examples of slave housing. The rarest survivors of all are the agricultural and lesser domestic structures, especially those dating from
17982-405: The outside, with shingle roofs and brick chimneys; they stood fifty feet apart, with gardens and pig-yards ... At the head of the settlement, in a garden looking down the street, was an overseer's house, and here the road divided, running each way at right angles; on one side to barns and a landing on the river, on the other toward the mansion ... A crucial residential structure on larger plantations
18144-504: The overseer, and in Louisiana free black overseers were also used. Another residential structure largely unique to plantation complexes was the garconnière or bachelors' quarters. Mostly built by Louisiana Creole people , but occasionally found in other parts of the Deep South formerly under the dominion of New France , they were structures that housed the adolescent or unmarried sons of plantation owners. At some plantations it
18306-501: The people of their state desired "to avoid the unsatisfactory" terms of the Final Emancipation Proclamation "and to have peace again upon the old terms" ( i.e. , with slavery intact), they should rally "the largest number of the people possible" to vote in "elections of members to the Congress of the United States ... friendly to their object". Later, in his Annual Message to Congress of December 1, 1862, Lincoln proposed an amendment to
18468-443: The people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion, against the United States, the following, to wit: Lincoln then listed the ten states still in rebellion, excluding parts of states under Union control, and continued: I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free. ... [S]uch persons of suitable condition, will be received into
18630-405: The plantation came from its land and the enslaved people who toiled on it to produce crops for sale. These same people produced the built environment: the main house for the plantation owner, the slave cabins , barns, and other structures of the complex. The materials for a plantation's buildings, for the most part, came from the lands of the estate. Lumber was obtained from the forested areas of
18792-406: The plantation landscape, offering a separate room for eating and sleeping. Sometimes dormitories and two-story dwellings were also used to house enslaved people. Earlier examples rested on the ground with a dirt floor, but later examples were usually raised on piers for ventilation. Most of these represent the dwellings constructed for enslaved people who worked in the fields. Rarely though, such as at
18954-732: The plantation, used to house both horses and mules . These were usually separate, one for each type of animal. The mule stable was the most important on the vast majority of estates, since the mules did most of the work, pulling the plows and carts . Barns not involved in animal husbandry were most commonly the crib barn ( corn cribs or other types of granaries ), storage barns, or processing barns. Crib barns were typically built of unchinked logs , although they were sometimes covered with vertical wood siding. Storage barns often housed unprocessed crops or those awaiting consumption or transport to market. Processing barns were specialized structures that were necessary for helping to actually process
19116-599: The plantation. Common crops included corn , upland cotton , sea island cotton , rice , sugarcane , and tobacco . Besides those mentioned earlier, cattle , ducks , goats , hogs , and sheep were raised for their derived products and/or meat. All estates would have possessed various types of animal pens, stables , and a variety of barns . Many plantations utilized a number of specialized structures that were crop-specific and only found on that type of plantation. Plantation barns can be classified by function , depending on what type of crop and livestock were raised. In
19278-445: The plantations have pushed back against hearing about slavery. Emancipation Proclamation The Emancipation Proclamation , officially Proclamation 95 , was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War . The Proclamation had the effect of changing the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in
19440-602: The planter in matters of daily management. Usually perceived as uncouth, ill-educated, and low-class, he had the often despised task of meting out punishments in order to keep up discipline and secure the profit of his employer. Southern plantations depended upon slaves to do the agricultural work. "Honestly, 'plantation' and 'slavery' is one and the same," said an employee of the Whitney Plantation in 2019. Many manor houses survive, and in some cases former slave dwellings have been rebuilt or renovated. To pay for
19602-427: The plants to the fields once the soil had warmed. Then the enslaved people had to weed the fields all summer and remove the flowers from the tobacco plants in order to force more energy into the leaves. Harvesting was done by plucking individual leaves over several weeks as they ripened, or cutting entire tobacco plants and hanging them in vented tobacco barns to dry, called curing . Rice plantations were common in
19764-737: The postwar South. For example, James Battle Avirett , who grew up on the Avirett-Stephens Plantation in Onslow County, North Carolina , and served as an Episcopal chaplain in the Confederate States Army , published The Old Plantation: How We Lived in Great House and Cabin before the War in 1901. Such memoirs often included descriptions of Christmas as the epitome of anti-modern order exemplified by
19926-406: The pre-Civil War era. Housing for enslaved people, although once one of the most common and distinctive features of the plantation landscape, has largely disappeared in much of the South. Many of the structures were insubstantial to begin with. Only the better-built examples tended to survive, and then usually only if they were put to other uses after emancipation. The quarters could be next to
20088-423: The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which he issued on September 22, 1862. It declared that, on January 1, 1863, he would free the slaves in states still in rebellion. Abolitionists had long been urging Lincoln to free all slaves. In the summer of 1862, Republican editor Horace Greeley of the highly influential New-York Tribune wrote a famous editorial entitled "The Prayer of Twenty Millions" demanding
20250-502: The primary focus of a plantation was the production of cash crops , with enough staple food crops produced to feed the population of the estate and the livestock. A common definition of what constituted a plantation is that it typically had 500 to 1,000 acres (2.0 to 4.0 km ) or more of land and produced one or two cash crops for sale. Other scholars have attempted to define it by the number of enslaved persons. The vast majority of plantations did not have grand mansions centered on
20412-426: The proclamation "reads not like an entrepreneur's bill for past services but like a warrior's brandishing of a new weapon". The Emancipation Proclamation resulted in the emancipation of a substantial percentage of the slaves in the Confederate states as the Union armies advanced through the South and slaves escaped to Union lines, or slave owners fled, leaving slaves behind. The Emancipation Proclamation also committed
20574-473: The proclamation after a major Union victory, or else it would appear as if the Union was giving "its last shriek of retreat". Walter Stahr, however, writes, "There are contemporary sources, however, that suggest others were involved in the decision to delay", and Stahr quotes them. In September 1862, the Battle of Antietam gave Lincoln the victory he needed to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. In
20736-409: The proclamation to Vice President Hannibal Hamlin , an ardent abolitionist, who was more often kept in the dark on presidential decisions. The final proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863. Although implicitly granted authority by Congress, Lincoln used his powers as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy to issue the proclamation "as a necessary war measure." Therefore, it was not the equivalent of
20898-760: The proclamation with his cabinet in July 1862. He drafted his preliminary proclamation and read it to Secretary of State William Seward and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles , on July 13. Seward and Welles were at first speechless, then Seward referred to possible anarchy throughout the South and resulting foreign intervention; Welles apparently said nothing. On July 22, Lincoln presented it to his entire cabinet as something he had determined to do and he asked their opinion on wording. Although Secretary of War Edwin Stanton supported it, Seward advised Lincoln to issue
21060-606: The proclamation's offer of freedom to slaves who enrolled in the Army and provided freedom for an enrollee's entire family; for this and other reasons, the number of slaves in the state fell by more than 70 percent during the war. However, in Delaware and Kentucky, slavery continued to be legal until December 18, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment went into effect. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required individuals to return runaway slaves to their owners. During
21222-447: The property. Depending on its intended use, it was either split, hewn , or sawn. Bricks were most often produced onsite from sand and clay that was molded , dried, and then fired in a kiln . If a suitable stone was available, it was used. Tabby was often used on the southern Sea Islands . Few plantation structures have survived into the modern era, with the vast majority destroyed through natural disaster , neglect, or fire over
21384-426: The reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears of joy ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see. Runaway slaves who had escaped to Union lines had previously been held by
21546-438: The rebellion and proof that Lincoln would have abolished slavery even if the states had remained in the Union. It intensified the fear of slaves revolting and undermined morale, especially spurring fear among slave owners who saw it as a threat to their business. In an August 1863 letter to President Lincoln, U.S. Army general Ulysses S. Grant observed that the proclamation's "arming the negro", together with "the emancipation of
21708-512: The region. Confederate general Robert E. Lee saw the Emancipation Proclamation as a way for the Union to increase the number of soldiers it could place on the field, making it imperative for the Confederacy to increase its own numbers. Writing on the matter after the sack of Fredericksburg , Lee wrote, "In view of the vast increase of the forces of the enemy, of the savage and brutal policy he has proclaimed, which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death, if we would save
21870-731: The road. On March 23, 1972, Borough Hall plantation was added to the National Register of Historic Places and declared a National Historic Landmark . It is also part of the defined Stateburg Historic District, as is the Church of the Holy Cross. Plantations in the American South Plantation complexes were common on agricultural plantations in the Southern United States from
22032-400: The secessionist Confederate states from enslaved to free. As soon as slaves escaped the control of their enslavers, either by fleeing to Union lines or through the advance of federal troops, they were permanently free. In addition, the Proclamation allowed for former slaves to "be received into the armed service of the United States". The Emancipation Proclamation played a significant part in
22194-444: The seeds from raw cotton. After ginning, the cotton had to be baled before it could be warehoused and transported to market. This was accomplished with a cotton press, an early type of baler that was usually powered by two mules walking in a circle with each attached to an overhead arm that turned a huge wooden screw. The downward action of this screw compressed the processed cotton into a uniform bale-shaped wooden enclosure, where
22356-413: The separation was to prevent the noise and smells of cooking activities from reaching the main house. Sometimes the cookhouse contained two rooms, one for the actual kitchen and the other to serve as the residence for the cook. Still other arrangements had the kitchen in one room, a laundry in the other, and a second story for servant quarters. The pantry could be in its own structure or in a cool part of
22518-613: The slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.... I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer wrote about Lincoln's letter: "Unknown to Greeley, Lincoln composed this after he had already drafted
22680-412: The slaves only in areas of the South that were still in rebellion on January 1, 1863. But as the Union army advanced into the South, slaves fled to behind its lines, and "[s]hortly after issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, the Lincoln administration lifted the ban on enticing slaves into Union lines." These events contributed to the destruction of slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation also allowed for
22842-408: The slaves was as a tactic of war—not as the mission itself. But that carried the risk that when the war ended, so would the justification for freeing the slaves. Late in 1862, Lincoln asked his Attorney General, Edward Bates , for an opinion as to whether slaves freed through a war-related proclamation of emancipation could be re-enslaved once the war was over. Bates had to work through the language of
23004-433: The slaves. The Proclamation also rallied support from abolitionists and Europeans, while encouraging enslaved individuals to escape to the North. This weakened the South's labor force while bolstering the North's ranks. The Proclamation was immediately denounced by Copperhead Democrats , who opposed the war and advocated restoring the union by allowing slavery. Horatio Seymour , while running for governor of New York, cast
23166-401: The stroke of midnight and the promised fulfillment of the Proclamation. It has been inaccurately claimed that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave; historian Lerone Bennett Jr. alleged that the proclamation was a hoax deliberately designed not to free any slaves. However, as a result of the Proclamation, most slaves became free during the course of the war, beginning on
23328-417: The task. The wash boiler was a cast iron or copper cauldron in which clothes or other fabrics and soapy water were heated over an open fire. The wash-stick was a wooden stick with a handle at its uppermost part and four to five prongs at its base. It was simultaneously pounded up and down and rotated in the washing tub to aerate the wash solution and loosen any dirt. The items would then be vigorously rubbed on
23490-483: The term dependency can be applied to these buildings. A few were common, such as the carriage house and blacksmith shop; but most varied widely among plantations and were largely a function of what the planter wanted, needed, or could afford to add to the complex. These buildings might include schoolhouses , offices , churches , commissary stores , gristmills , and sawmills . Found on some plantations in every Southern state, plantation schoolhouses served as
23652-468: The time of the Emancipation Proclamation. These exemptions left unemancipated an additional 300,000 slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation has been ridiculed, notably by Richard Hofstadter , who wrote that it "had all the moral grandeur of a bill of lading " and "declared free all slaves ... precisely where its effect could not reach". Disagreeing with Hofstadter, William W. Freehling wrote that Lincoln's asserting his power as Commander-in-Chief to issue
23814-754: The top eight percent of landowners. In his study of southwest Georgia, Lee Formwalt defines planters in terms of size of land holdings rather than in terms of numbers of people enslaved. Formwalt's planters are in the top 4.5% of landowners, translating into real estate worth $ 6,000 or more in 1850, $ 24,000 or more in 1860, and $ 11,000 or more in 1870. In his study of Harrison County, Texas , Randolph B. Campbell classifies large planters as owners of 20 people, and small planters as owners of between 10 and 19 people. In Chicot and Phillips Counties, Arkansas, Carl H. Moneyhon defines large planters as owners of 20 or more people, and of 600 acres (240 ha) or more. Many nostalgic memoirs about plantation life were published in
23976-671: The upkeep, some, like the Monmouth Plantation in Natchez, Mississippi and the Lipscomb Plantation in Durham, North Carolina , have become small luxury hotels or bed and breakfasts . Not only Monticello and Mount Vernon but some 375 former plantation houses are museums that can be visited. There are examples in every Southern state. Centers of plantation life such as Natchez run plantation tours. Traditionally
24138-527: The upper South, like their counterparts in the North , barns had to provide basic shelter for the animals and storage of fodder . Unlike the upper regions, most plantations in the lower South did not have to provide substantial shelter to their animals during the winter. Animals were often kept in fattening pens with a simple shed for shelter, with the main barn or barns being utilized for crop storage or processing only. Stables were an essential type of barn on
24300-611: The war, in May 1861, Union general Benjamin Butler declared that three slaves who escaped to Union lines were contraband of war , and accordingly he refused to return them, saying to a man who sought their return, "I am under no constitutional obligations to a foreign country, which Virginia now claims to be". On May 30, after a cabinet meeting called by President Lincoln, "Simon Cameron, the secretary of war, telegraphed Butler to inform him that his contraband policy 'is approved.'" This decision
24462-718: The whole Number of free Persons" and "three-fifths of all other Persons". Under the Fugitive Slave Clause (Article IV, Section 2), "No person held to Service or Labour in one State" would become legally free by escaping to another. Article I, Section 9 allowed Congress to pass legislation to outlaw the "Importation of Persons", but not until 1808. However, for purposes of the Fifth Amendment —which states that, "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"—slaves were understood to be property. Although abolitionists used
24624-475: Was a free-standing structure and at others it was attached to the main house by side-wings. It developed from the Acadian tradition of using the loft of the house as a bedroom for young men. A variety of domestic and lesser agricultural structures surrounded the main house on all plantations. Most plantations possessed some, if not all, of these outbuildings , often called dependencies, commonly arranged around
24786-456: Was a plantation chapel or church. These were built for a variety of reasons. In many cases the planter built a church or chapel for the use of the plantation slaves, although they usually recruited a white minister to conduct the services. Some were built to exclusively serve the plantation family, but many more were built to serve the family and others in the area who shared the same faith. This seems to be especially true with planters within
24948-402: Was a very labor-intensive crop to harvest, with the fibers having to be hand-picked from the bolls . This was coupled with the equally laborious removal of seeds from fiber by hand. Following the invention of the cotton gin , cotton plantations sprang up all over the South and cotton production soared, along with the expansion of slavery. Cotton also caused plantations to grow in size. During
25110-428: Was almost always in a separate building in the South until modern times, sometimes connected to the main house by a covered walkway. This separation was partially due to the cooking fire generating heat all day long in an already hot and humid climate. It also reduced the risk of fire. Indeed, on many plantations the cookhouse was built of brick while when the main house was of wood-frame construction. Another reason for
25272-430: Was an overseer's house. The overseer was largely responsible for the success or failure of an estate, making sure that quotas were met and sometimes meting out punishment for infractions by the enslaved. The overseer was responsible for healthcare, with enslaved people and slave houses inspected routinely. He was also the record keeper of most crop inventories and held the keys to various storehouses. The overseer's house
25434-477: Was built in 1820 of rammed earth by William Wallace Anderson , M.D. It was designed by architect A.C. Jones. On October 7, 1821, Anderson's wife, the former Mary Jane Mackensie, gave birth at home to their son, Richard H. Anderson . He later served as a Confederate Army general in the American Civil War. Stateburg was originally called Stateborough , as when the town was laid out, Borough House
25596-489: Was controversial because it could have been taken to imply recognition of the Confederacy as a separate, independent sovereign state under international law, a notion that Lincoln steadfastly denied. In addition, as contraband, these people were legally designated as "property" when they crossed Union lines and their ultimate status was uncertain. In December 1861, Lincoln sent his first annual message to Congress (the State of
25758-450: Was distasteful due to mineral content, the potable water on many plantations came from cisterns that were supplied with rainwater by a pipe from a rooftop catchment. These could be huge aboveground wooden barrels capped by metal domes, such as was often seen in Louisiana and coastal areas of Mississippi, or underground brick masonry domes or vaults, common in other areas. Some structures on plantations provided subsidiary functions; again,
25920-452: Was the only residence in it. In 1850–1852, Dr. Anderson chaired the committee that built the Church of the Holy Cross of rammed earth across the road from Borough Hall. It was also designed by Jones. In 1851, Joel Roberts Poinsett , physician, American statesman and botanist (for whom the poinsettia is named), died while visiting Dr. Anderson. He was buried in the churchyard across
26082-430: Was usually a modest dwelling, not far from the cabins of the enslaved workers. The overseer and his family, even when white and southern, did not freely mingle with the planter and his family. They were in a different social stratum than that of the owner and were expected to know their place. In village-type slave quarters on plantations with overseers, his house was usually at the head of the slave village rather than near
26244-405: Was utilized to preserve meat, usually pork , beef , and mutton . It was commonly built of hewn logs or brick. Following the slaughter in the fall or early winter, salt and sugar were applied to the meat at the beginning of the curing process, and then the meat was slowly dried and smoked in the smokehouse by a fire that did not add any heat to the smokehouse itself. If it was cool enough,
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