"Goods and Chatte l s " : 
The Economy of Slaves on Sugar Plantations 
in Jamaica and Louisiana 
by 
Roderick A. McDonald 
M.A., Un ivers i ty of Aberdeen, 1973 
M.A., Un ivers i ty of Kansas, 1975 
Submitted to the Department of History 
and the Faculty of the Graduate School 
of the Un ivers i ty of Kansas in part ia l 
f u l f i l lment of the requirements for the 
degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 
D i s sertat ion Committee: 
Chairman 
D i s sertat ion defended: February 1981 
ROOOb^ 2 t l t 5 
i i 
Copyright 1981 
Roderick A. McDonald 
i i i 
To E. M. McDonald and the late A. G. McDonald 
CONTENTS 
Page 
List of Tables v 
List of Appendices vi 
Acknowledgments x 
Introduction 1 
Part I 
The Internal Economies 
1 The Internal Economy of Sugar Plantation 
Slaves in Jamaica 46 
2 The Internal Economy of Sugar Plantation 
Slaves in Louisiana Ill 
Part II 
Goods of Chattels 
3 The Housing of Slaves on Sugar Plantations 
in Jamaica and Louisiana 231 
4 The Clothing of Slaves on Sugar Plantations 
in Jamaica and Louisiana 334 
Conclusion 424 
Bibliography 4 3 9 
i v 
LIST OF TABLES 
Page 
1-1 Coin in Circulation in Jamaica in 1776 92 
2-1 Price of Corn Sold in New Orleans, 1847-60 139 
2-2 "Christmas Money Paid Slaves" on Nottoway 
Estate, Iberville Parish, Louisiana, 1850-56 142 
2-3 Family Relationships of Slaves Holding 
Accounts on the Gay Estate, Iberville 
Parish, Louisiana, 1844 187 
3-1 Household Composition of the Slave Village 
on the Gay Estate, Iberville Parish, 
Louisiana, 1856 276 
4-1 Cloth Rations Issued Slaves on Harmony 
Hall Estate, Trelawny, Jamaica, 1799, 
1811 and 1813 339 
4-2 Standard Winter Clothing Issue for Each 
Slave on Grande Cote Island Estate, 
Louisiana 369 
v 
LIST OF APPENDICES 
Appendix to Chapter 1 (pp. 109-110) 
1-a Contemporary print of a West Indian slave woman 
on her way to Sunday market 109 
Appendices to Chapter 2 (pp. 190-229) 
2-a Bales of moss sent by slaves on the Gay Estate, 
Iberville Parish, Louisiana, for sale in St. 
Louis, 1849-61 190 
2-b Money paid or given to slaves on the Stirling 
Estate, Louisiana, 1854 197 
2-c Reproduction of a manuscript recording money 
paid slaves on the Stirling Estate, Louisiana, 
1855 (?) 199 
2-d Earnings and expenditures of slaves on Benjamin 
Tureaud's sugar estate, Louisiana, 1858-59 201 
2-e Earnings and expenditures of slaves on the Gay 
family's sugar estate, Iberville Parish, 
Louisiana (with notations on slave family rela-
tionships), 1844 211 
2-f Slave Accounts" on Nottoway Estate, Iberville 
Parish, Louisiana, 1851 219 
2-g Earnings and expenditures of slaves on the Gay 
Estate, Iberville Parish, Louisiana, in the 
late 1850s 224 
vi 
vi i 
2-h Commodities bought by slaves on Wilton 
Estate, St. James Parish, Louisiana * 225 
2-i Earnings and expenditures of slaves on 
Bellevue Estate, Plaquemines Parish, 
Louisiana 226 
2-j Earnings and expenditures of slaves on 
Wood!awn Estate, Assumption Parish 228 
2-k Commodities bought by slaves on Alexis 
Ferry's sugar estate, St. James Parish, 
with money made cutting wood 229 
Appendices to Chapter 3 (pp. 299-333) 
3-a Illustrations of wattle-and-daub housing 
in Jamaica 299 
3-b Print showing slave housing on Roehampton 
Estate, Jamaica 302 
3-c Print showing slave housing on Old Montpelier 
Estate, Jamaica 304 
3-d Jamaican Yabbas 306 
3-e Illustrations of houses built in a manner similar 
to that used to build slave housing in Louisiana 308 
3-f Illustration of double cabins on the Gay Estate, 
Iberville Parish, Louisiana (ca. 1906), similar 
in design to slave housing 311 
viii 
3-g Illustration of two-story brick slave 
houses, Woodland Plantation, Plaquemines 
Parish, Louisiana 313 
3-h Illustration of rectangular brick slave 
houses, Evan Hall Estate, Assumption 
Parish, Louisiana 315 
3-i Plan of the Pugh family's Madewood Plan-
tation, Assumption Parish, Louisiana 318 
3-j Plan of Uncle Sam Plantation, St. James 
Parish, Louisiana 320 
3-k List of slave housing, Gay Estate, Iber-
ville Parish, Louisiana, 1856 322 
3-1 Blankets given slaves on the Gay Estate, 
Iberville Parish, Louisiana, 1840 326 
3-m Blankets given slaves on Wakefield Estate, 
West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, 1854 331 
3-n Blankets given slaves on Wakefield Estate, 
West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, 1857 333 
Appendices to Chapter 4 (pp. 389-423) 
4-a Annual clothing allowance for slaves on 
Somerset Estate, Jamaica, 1793 389 
4-b Clothing issued slaves on Harmony Hall Estate, 
Trelawny, Jamaica, 1799 391 
4-c Clothing issued slaves on Worthy Park Estate, 
Jamaica, 1793 392 
ix 
4-d Clothing issued slaves on Harmony Hall 
Estate, Trelawny, Jamaica, 1798 395 
4-e Illustrations of working clothes of slaves 
on sugar plantations in the British West 
Indies 400 
4-f Illustrations of the "best" clothing of 
sugar plantation slaves in the British 
West Indies 406 
4-g Illustration of "best" clothing of sugar 
plantation slaves in Louisiana 413 
4-h Illustrations of working clothes of slaves 
on sugar plantations in Louisiana 415 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
This study benefited immeasurably from the unstinting help and 
challenging criticism of the members of my dissertation committee, 
David Katzman, Richard Sheridan and William Tuttle, Jr.: I deeply 
appreciate the support and guidance which they gave so generously. I, 
of course, assume final responsibility for the work. 
My research, which was partially funded by two University of 
Kansas Summer Fellowships (1978 and 1979) and a University of Kansas 
Dissertation Fellowship (1978-79), profited from the expertise and 
assistance of the staffs of the Institute of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica; 
Jamaica Archives, Spanish Town, Jamaica; West India Collection, Uni-
versity of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston; Department of Archives and 
Manuscripts, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland; Scottish 
Record Office, Edinburgh, Scotland; National Library of Scotland, 
Edinburgh; British Library, London, England; Public Record Office, 
London; Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State Uni-
versity, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Department of Archives and Manuscripts, 
Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana; Department of Archives and 
Manuscripts, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans; Louisi-
ana Historical Collection, New Orleans; Historical New Orleans Collec-
tion, New Orleans; Louisiana Historical Preservation and Cultural 
Commission, Baton Rouge; Louisiana Collection, Louisiana State Univer-
sity, Baton Rouge; Department of Archives and Manuscripts, University 
of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, Louisiana; and the University 
of Kansas Libraries. 
x 
xi 
For their aid and encouragement, I am indebted to Michael 
Ashcroft, John Clark, Margaret Dalrymple, Deborah Dandridge, John 
Duthie, Peter Fearon, Barry Higman, C. Duncan Rice, Andrew Sargent, 
Charles Stansifer and Norman Yetman. The skillful editing of William 
Dobak and the typing of Sue Schumock improved the form of the final 
copy. 
For all the help and support given by Lynn McDonald, I thank 
her. I dedicate the study to my parents. 
Introduction 
2 
The development of sugar plantations in the Americas during the 
seventeenth century changed the diet of Europeans. Previously, sugar 
had been relatively scarce and expensive in Europe; however, with the 
establishment and expansion of the sugar plantations prices declined, 
until, as economic historian Richard Sheridan has observed, "by the 
middle of the 18th century it had become a staple article of diet among 
large sections of European society."^ 
The growth of the plantation systems depended on a plentiful 
supply of workers. The institution of black slavery, which held mil-
lions of Africans and their American-born descendants in bondage through 
centuries, furnished this labor. Africans and Afro-Americans subjugated 
under this odious traffic in humanity bore the bitter social costs of 
sweetening the food and drink of Europeans. 
The labor regime used to cultivate the crop exacerbated the burden 
of bondage in sugar slavery. According to historian Franklin Knight, who 
has ranked the severity of labor systems employed in raising staples on 
New World slave plantations, sugar slavery was the most arduous. The 
work expected or extracted from the slave workers on sugar estates far 
2 
exceeded that of slaves on cotton, tobacco or coffee plantations. 
With sugar's profitability came the extension of its cultivation 
throughout the Caribbean basin, and wherever the crop was grown, a 
1 Richard B. Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History 
of the British West Indies, 1623-177iTTBalti more, 1973}, 21. 
p 
Franklin W. Knight, Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth 
Century (Madison, Wisconsin, 1970), 64. 
3 
similar plantation system prevailed. As Knight argues, 
the organization of the sugar estate followed a common pattern from 
Brazil, through Barbados, St. Domingue, Jamaica, Cuba, Louisiana, 
or any other place of the Caribbean region, regardless of the timing 
of the sugar culture or the prevailing metropolitan influences. 
Along with the crop and the plantation system, of course, went the labor 
regime so destructive to the life and health of the slaves. Thus, one 
of the elements of organizational commonality was "that the slave on a 
sugar plantation fitted into a socioeconomic and political complex that 
3 
was basically similar" wherever the crop was grown. 
And what was common to the life of sugar slaves throughout the 
Caribbean was a pattern of undernourishment, overwork, vicious punish-
ment, poor housing and clothing, high infant mortality, ill-health, and 
a life-span shortened by the brutal plantation regime. These African 
and Afro-American workers, however, had to bear more than the burden of 
excessive toil and poor living conditions; as chattel slaves they suf-
fered under the oppressive weight of bondage, the "sense of despair" 
felt by slaves "that was all-consuming." Black slaves were victims of 
a monstrous evil whereby they were deprived of their liberty, perhaps 
transported and sold at the behest of others, their lives' days spent 
in arduous toil creating wealth for the nations and individuals guilty 4 of holding them in thrall. 
o 
* Knight, Ibid., 193; The African Dimension in Latin American 
Societies (New York, 1974), 1. 
4John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in 
the Antebellum South (New York, 1972), 198. 
4 
i 
Time and space separated the sugar plantation societies of 
Jamaica and Louisiana. Jamaica had a well-established sugar culture, 
and, indeed, was the world's leading producer of the commodity by 1795, 
when Jean Etienne de Bor6 first successfully granulated sugar in 
Louisiana; Louisiana's sugar boom under slavery came after slave eman-
cipation in Jamaica. The temporal and spatial separation of the two 
societies caused the sugar plantation systems of Jamaica and Louisiana 
to differ somewhat: these differences are considered below. The simi-
larities that mature sugar plantation societies shared, however, tran-
scended these differences: the plantation systems of Jamaica and 
Louisiana, and the place of the protagonists, black and white, within 
them, conformed more readily to the commonality thesis elucidated by 
Knight. 
In 1655, a British military expedition seized Jamaica, and 
Britain assumed governance of the island after nearly 160 years of some-
what desultory Spanish rule. Bryan Edwards' account of Jamaica at the 
time of the British conquest reveals that little of the island was 
under cultivation, and that a small population, consisting primarily 
of black slaves and Spaniards, lived in "sloth and penury." The 
island's principal exports had been "cacao . . . hogs-lards and hides." 
After 1655, Jamaica's development as a plantation society proceeded 
slowly, and it was not until well into the next century that it replaced 
5 
the much smaller but earlier-developed island of Barbados as Britain's 
leading sugar colony.5 
From the mid-eighteenth century on, however, Jamaica stood pre-
eminent among the British West Indian islands in sugar production and 
acreage under cultivation as well as in the volume of its slave trade 
and its slave population. Recent scholarship suggests that, notwith-
standing recessions during the Seven Years War (1756-63) and the War of 
American Independence (1775-83), the growth of the island's sugar indus-
try continued until the second decade of the nineteenth century, peaking 
in the years 1783-1815. After the elimination of St. Domingue from the 
world sugar economy following the outbreak in 1791 of the slave rebel-
lion led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, Jamaica became the world's leading 
supplier of sugar. In both value and volume, the slave trade to Jamaica 
was greatest between 1783 and 1808 (the year Britain abolished the slave 
trade to its colonies) when 323,827 slaves lived on Jamaica, the 
island's largest-ever slave population. All these indices, therefore, 
suggest that the peak development of Jamaica's sugar economy under 
slavery came in the years 1783-1815.^ 
5 
Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the 
British Colonies in the West Indies (1793, rpt. New York, 1972), I, 149-50; 
Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery, 487-9. 
6 Seymour Drescher, Econocide: British Slavery in the Era of 
Abolition (Pittsburgh, 1977); Noel Deerr, The History of Sugar (London, 
1949), I, 158-207; Roderick A. McDonald, "Measuring the British Slave 
Trade to Jamaica, 1789-1808: A Comment," The Economic History Review, 
Second Series, XXXIII: 2 (May 1980), 253-8; Barry W. Higman, Slave 
Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834 (London, 1976), 255. 
6 
Louisiana was the foremost sugar-producing state in the ante-
bellum South. Cane sugar, climatically unsuited to cultivation in most 
of the North American continent, and produced only sporadically and on a 
small scale elsewhere along the Gulf coast, became the principal crop 
in southern Louisiana in the four decades before the Civil War. For 
over a quarter of a century after Bora's successful granulation of sugar, 
there was limited development in the crop's cultivation, but between 
1826 and 1861, Louisiana's sugar production rose from some 100,000 hogs-
heads annually to over 500,000 hogsheads. The state's slave population, 
recorded at 69,064 persons in 1820, rose to 109,558 in 1830, and trebled 
to 326,726 by 1860 (not all, of course, as a consequence of the develop-
ment of the sugar industry in the southern part of the state). Between 
1824 and 1859, the number of sugar estates increased almost seven-fold, 
from 193 to 1,308. All the available indices thus point to the peak 
development of Louisiana's sugar economy under slavery as spanning the 
years 1824-61.7 
For comparative methodology to yield what he terms "more mean-
ingful generalizations about slave societies," Franklin Knight contends 
that "the comparative study of the slave systems of the Americas . . . 
should be concerned less with concurrent time spans and metropolitan 
institutional differences than with equivalent stages of economic and 
social growth." The years 1783-1815 represented the maturation of sugar 
plantation slave society in Jamaica, while the corresponding development 
7J. Carlyle Sitterson, Sugar Country: The Cane Sugar Industry 
in the South (Lexington, Kentucky, 1953), 28-30,60. 
7 
in Louisiana took place in the years 1824-61. Thus the present study, 
a comparative analysis of slavery on sugar plantations in the two loca-
tions, with special reference to the economic activities, the'internal 
economy,11 of the slave community, focuses on these time frames since 
they approximate most closely "equivalent stages of economic and social 
growth."8 
ii 
Sugar was the most valuable world trade commodity in the eigh-
teenth century, and the most valuable plantation crop in the Americas 
throughout the era of slavery, while sugar plantation slavery was the 
modal experience of black slaves in the New World. Of all the slave 
plantation staples grown, the routine of sugar cultivation exacted the 
most onerous labor. Despite significant differences in the techniques 
of sugar cultivation and production in Jamaica and Louisiana, slaves in 
the two plantation societies experienced similarly enervating work 
regimes. 
Sugar cane takes from fourteen to eighteen months to reach 
maturity and thus frost-free tropical and sub-tropical climates, with 
equable temperatures year-round, abundant, well-distributed rainfall 
and fertile soil, provide optimal growing conditions. While Caribbean 
islands such as Jamaica provide the best natural growing conditions for 
sugar cane, Louisiana's climate, in which freezing temperatures occur 
o 
Knight, Slave Society, 194. 
8 
annually, made it at best a marginal sugar-growing region and necessi-
tated adjustments in the husbandry of the crop to accommodate unfavorable 
weather. 
In addition to the three discrete stages in the cultivation of 
sugar, planting, tending and harvesting, sugar plantation slaves also 
processed the crop. After being cut, the juices in the sugar cane fer-
mented and soured rapidly. To prevent spoilage, the canes had to be 
processed within 24 to 48 hours after harvest. Thus the processing 
stage, conducted on the plantation, ran concurrently with the harvest, 
exacerbating an already punishing labor regimen. 
Sugar plantations in both Jamaica and Louisiana conformed to 
this pattern of cultivation and processing, although the timetables dif-
fered in the two regions. The work schedules of slaves on Jamaican plan-
tations corresponded to the full growing cycle of sugar cane (fourteen 
to eighteen months), whereas Louisiana's winter frosts cut short the 
crop's growing season, resulting in a labor routine geared to a 
twelve-month cycle. 
The seasonality of Jamaica's rainfall determined the timing of 
the sugar crop's cultivation. The island's rainfall occurs principally 
in the latter half of the year, from June to December, and during this 
time slaves planted canes and tended them through the early stages of 
their growth. The first stage involved clearing the cane fields and 
preparing the ground for planting. The planting method used in 
Jamaica required slaves to dig holes five feet square and some six inches 
deep, into which short sections of seed cane, set aside from the pre-
vious harvest, were placed and covered with a layer of earth. As the 
9 
plant grew, further layers of earth and perhaps a compost fertilizer 
were added until the holes had been completely filled in and the field 
leveled. The young canes required weeding and care for the first three 
or four months, after which the crop could be "laid by" and left to grow 
to maturity, since it had grown tall enough to prevent weed infestation. 
Jamaican planters had the slaves hole the canefields preparatory 
to planting in order to conserve topsoil. It was such a burdensome 
task, however, that planters often preferred to hire jobbing slaves 
rather than subject their estate's labor force to the exhausting work of 
wielding hoes to excavate holes in soil baked hard by the sun. (Appendix 
4-e, Prints 1 and 4 depict slaves at work holing and planting cane-
fields.) 
Sugar cane did not have to be replanted following each harvest 
since the stubble left after cutting sprouted new shoots (ratoons). 
Ratoons yielded less sugar than canes grown from seed, but ratooning 
demanded less labor than planting, and thus permitted a much larger 
acreage to be put under crop. Depending on soil fertility, a given 
year's planted cane would be ratooned for up to three years. By this 
time, low sugar yields required that the cane roots be dug up and the 
cane piece replanted from seed. By ratooning some of the canes, and 
judiciously spacing the planting schedule throughout the latter half of 
the year, Jamaican sugar planters could assure an annual harvest. 
Harvest occurred during the first half of the year, Jamaica's 
dry season. Plantation slaves usually enjoyed a brief respite from work 
during the Christmas period: the commencement of the harvest followed 
close on the heels of this holiday. Wielding long-bladed machetes, 
10 
slaves cut off each stalk of cane at ground level, lopped the top, 
stripped the leaves, and cut it into lengths of two to three feet. 
(Mature canes grew to heights of eight to ten feet.) Slaves loaded the 
sections of cane onto ox-drawn wagons, to be transported to the estate's 
sugar mil 1. 
The crop was processed by crushing the cane in a mill (driven 
by water, wind or animal power) and boiling the extracted juices. A 
series of refining processes took place during the boiling stage to 
remove impurities, after which the cane juice, by now of a thick, 
treacly consistency, began to crystallize. At this point, the molten 
sugar was taken from the fire (in refining terminology, "struck"), left 
to cool, and then placed in hogsheads. In these barrels, a mass of 
sugar solidified, and the liquid residue, molasses, was drained off. 
Draining off molasses took about a month and was completed in the 
storage shed or curing house to which the hogsheads were removed. After 
the molasses had drained, the hogsheads were emptied. The sugar thus 
produced comprised top and bottom layers of low quality sugar (which 
went back to the boiling house for further refining) and a middle layer 
suitable for the final stages of processing, in which it was dried and 
repacked in hogsheads ready for shipment. Molasses was either sold or 
distilled into rum. 
The processing stage not only involved complex technology and 
organization, but also required considerable labor. Slaves manned every 
stage of the process from feeding the newly cut canes through the mill 
to loading the hogsheads of sugar for shipment. They performed all this 
work in conjunction with their harvest labor in the fields. 
n 
Field slaves on Jamaican sugar estates worked in gangs. Depend-
ing upon the size of the plantation, the main gang, commonly called the 
great gang, was augmented by two or three lesser gangs. The great gang 
consisted of both male and female slaves at their peak working capacity 
while the weaker second, third and fourth gangs comprised youths and 
young adults not yet at full physical development and older slaves past 
their best working years. 
Not all sugar plantation slaves worked in the field gangs. The 
employment structure of slaves accommodated the sugar estate's complex 
agricultural, industrial and residential organization. Domestics 
attended to the needs of the estates' white populations while skilled 
slaves worked in the various trades such as coopering, smithing, 
masonry, sugar-making and distilling. Slaves also staffed myriad ser-
vices that did not involve field work, acting as stockmen, cooks, watch-
men, hospital attendants, water-carriers, wainmen and carters. 
Young children were expected to work on the plantation. Early 
in their lives (at the ages of five or six years) slaves were introduced 
to the routine of plantation labor, being organized into "pickaninny" 
or hogmeat gangs under the direction of elderly slave women known as 
driveresses. In this nascent gang system, which incorporated all the 
components of the adult gangs to which they would graduate, children 
performed such tasks as weeding and collecting fodder. Convalescent 
slaves and pregnant and suckling women often did lighter labor such as 
weeding and cleaning up around the plantation buildings. 
The occupational structure of Jamaican sugar plantation labor 
forces usually exhibited a sex bias. Men dominated such elite 
12 
positions as drivers and head tradesmen, and various specialized occupa-
tions, such as stockmen, wainmen, watchmen and skilled sugar mill workers. 
Specialized roles for women in the slave labor force were more limited, 
comprising chiefly domestics, cooks, medical and midwifery aides, and 
garden and poultry tenders. Consequently women generally made up a 
larger proportion of the field hands, whose work was the most onerous. 
Although the growth cycle of sugar cane took from a year and a 
quarter to a year and a half, Jamaican planters instituted a rotation 
of planting and ratooning that enabled the establishment of an annual 
cycle of labor. Planting, the late summer and fall work, fully occupied 
the daily schedule of the field hands. In late fall and early winter, 
slaves tended the crop during its early development. This work, which 
involved weeding, cleaning, hoe-ploughing, thinning and replanting the 
cane shoots, required less labor than the planting stage. Planters then 
could assign some of the slaves1 labor to other tasks on the estate-
planting various provision and minor staple crops, working on the main-
tenance and upkeep of the estate and its buildings, and preparing for 
the ensuing harvest. Harvest usually' began early in the new year and 
lasted four or five months. Work on the sugar crop again monopolized 
the slaves' labor at this time. 
During the planting and tending stages (called out of crop), 
the slaves' daily labor schedule differed significantly from the harvest 
(in crop) work routine. Out of crop, the slaves' plantation work 
spanned the hours of daylight; in crop, slaves spent their days in the 
field harvesting the canes, and part of each night at the works process-
ing sugar. 
13 
Between four and five a.m., the plantation overseer sounded an 
alarm that signaled the commencement of the slaves' diurnal work routine. 
Every day except Sundays, both in and out of crop, slaves had to respond 
to this summons. Those who either failed to do so, or were late, had 
their backs lacerated by a driver's or overseer's whip. 
The overseer expected the slaves to be in the field, ready for 
work, at dawn. Often, however, slaves had to do "before-day-jobs" around 
the works or stock pens. William Fitzmaurice, an experienced overseer 
and bookkeeper on Jamaican sugar estates, testified to a House of Com-
mons committee that slaves, prior to going to the fields, had 
various works to do which are considered as detached jobs from the 
field labour, such as hoeing intervals, which they can do before day, 
as also carrying mould to cattle pens, chopping up dung, or making 
mortar, or carrying white lime, or making preparations for tradesmen 
employed in the buildings about the works,--these are called before-
day- jobs. 9 
At first light, slaves assembled in the fields. They brought 
with them their implements (a machete during harvest, a hoe out of crop) 
and breakfast. From dawn until mid-morning the field gangs labored, 
their work uninterrupted save, perhaps, for the occasional water break 
(young boys worked as water-carriers). A mid-morning break of half an 
hour permitted the slaves time to eat breakfast, which perhaps had been 
heated for them by field cooks, and rest. After this brief respite, 
g 
Testimony of William Fitzmaurice, "Minutes of the Evidence 
taken before a Committee of the House of Commons, being a Select Commit-
tee appointed to take the Examination of Witnesses respecting the African 
Slave Trade," British Sessional Papers, 1731-180Q (House of Commons), 
Accounts and Papers, XXXIV: 746-7, 217. 
14 
work recommenced and lasted until the mid-day dinner break. During the 
two-hour interval slaves had at this time, they could rest, eat and, 
perhaps, work for themselves tending their livestock or cultivating their 
kitchen gardens or provision grounds. At the end of the two hours, slaves 
reassembled in the fields and worked without interruption until sunset. 
Before returning to their houses, however, slaves often had to do cer-
tain tasks around the estate similar to the "before-day-jobs," such as 
trashing cattle pens and collecting grass for animal fodder. James 
Stephen, a leading opponent of slavery, calculated that Jamaican sugar 
plantation slaves worked, on average, "from 5 a.m. till 7 p.m.; deducting 
two and a half hours for breakfast and dinner." This eleven and a half 
hour day included only field work and not the before-day and after-day 
jobs slaves often had to d o . ^ 
Slaves usually did no plantation work on Sundays, occasionally 
got Saturdays off, and had a few days holiday each year. On every other 
day, they worked according to the routine described above. 
The out of crop routine of eleven and a half hours field work, 
plus some two hours or more for before-day and after-day work and travel 
time to and from the fields, was the minimum daily work load. In crop, 
slaves had to work much longer hours. Throughout the duration of the 
harvest, slaves had to labor at night, processing the sugar crop, in 
addition to the regular daily hours of field work. 
1 0 James Stephen, The Slavery of the West India Colonies Deline-
ated (London, 1824-30), II, l^CT 
15 
During the harvest months, sugar works on Jamaican estates oper-
ated around the clock, six days a week, closing down only on Sundays. 
Planters responded to the need for extra labor by requiring slaves to 
work a night shift. If a plantation had an adequate complement of slave 
workers, they were divided into three spells or shifts, each shift working 
one-third of the night. Often plantations were short-handed. When only 
two shifts could be adequately staffed, slaves worked half the night, 
each night, in addition to their day work. 
Slaves on plantations operating under a two-shift system had to 
go straight from a day's labor cutting cane in the fields, and work five 
hours in the sugar mill every alternate night (five a.m. to seven p.m. 
in the fields, seven p.m. to midnight at the sugar works). Every other 
night, they worked five hours in the mill immediately prior to their 
day's work in the fields (midnight to five a.m. at the works, five a.m. 
to seven p.m. in the field). Under a three-shift system, slaves did 
either an early, middle or late spell of night work, working each of 
these shifts every third night; all, of course, in addition to their 
day's field work. Although plantations varied in the precise manner in 
which they organized harvest night work, slaves worked the same number 
of hours. 
In Jamaica, the sugar mills closed down every Sunday (although 
planters often "cheated" slaves of this time off by keeping the sugar 
works in operation into the early hours of Sunday morning and restart-
ing them late Sunday night instead of Monday). Slaves used the day off 
to recuperate from the six 18- to 20-hour days they had just worked. 
They also had to find time to go to their grounds in order to gather 
16 
provisions that would supplement the rations supplied them by the plan-
ter. 
The brutality of slavery and the inadequacy of the goods and 
services furnished slaves exacerbated the onerous work regime. Jamaican 
planters required slaves to work these excessive hours, but failed even 
to provide adequate food or medical attention. Slaves exhausted and 
enervated by overwork and underfeeding often continued to toil only 
through the stimulus of the lash. 
The cultivation of the sugar crop in Louisiana was a race 
against time. Sugar cane cannot withstand frost, which occurs annually 
in Louisiana. Consequently the sugar cane harvest came but nine or ten 
months after the date of planting (compared to the fourteen to eighteen 
month cycle in Jamaica). The sturdy, fast-maturing Ribbon Cane best 
suited this attenuated growing season. Even with this variety of the 
plant, however, the longer the crop stayed in the ground, the higher 
its sugar content. The schedule conceived by Louisiana planters, there-
fore, while having to accommodate an annual crop cycle, aimed at getting 
the sugar crop into the ground as early as possible in the year, and 
starting the harvest at the last conceivable moment so as to permit 
maximum maturity of the canes. Included in the equation determining 
when to start the harvest were the speed with which the crop could be 
cut and processed (bearing in mind that the cane had to be processed 
within hours of being cut) and a "guesstimate" of the date of the first 
killing frost. 
The work routine of Louisiana sugar plantation slaves reflected 
the intensity of the sugar crop's cycle. Especially during the planting 
17 
and harvest seasons, slaves labored tremendously hard since the planters' 
goal was that the crop be sown and reaped as expeditiously as possible. 
Furthermore, technological advances in sugar processing, and the topog-
raphy of southern Louisiana aggravated an already arduous labor schedule. 
By the time of Louisiana's sugar boom, mills driven by steam engines 
replaced those powered by water, wind or animals. These engines, how-
ever, required fuel. The swamps and forests on or near the sugar 
estates afforded a plentiful supply of wood, which, nevertheless, had 
to be felled and dragged to the sugar works. Slaves, of course, per-
formed this labor. Because most of Louisiana's sugar estates stood on 
the Mississippi flood plain, they required both the construction of 
levees for protection against flooding, and extensive drainage systems 
to draw off excess water that could damage the sugar crop. Again, 
planters incorporated these exceedingly burdensome tasks into the plan-
tation work routine of slaves. Technology and topography, therefore, 
caused the imposition of tasks different from those required of Jamaican 
sugar plantation slaves. 
The annual work routine of Louisiana sugar plantation slaves 
began as early as possible in the new year (although it could be delayed 
by a late harvest extending into January). Immediately following their 
annual Christmas and New Year holidays, the slaves ploughed the fields 
in preparation for planting the canes. Whereas Jamaican slaves exca-
vated holes with hand-wielded hoes into which they planted seed cane, 
Louisiana slaves used ploughs drawn by draft animals to open up furrows 
some six to eight feet apart, into which they placed lengths of seed 
cane that had been set aside from the previous year's crop. 
18 
Louisiana planters allowed a given cane piece to ratoon, usually 
for no more than two years. Since the sugar content declined with each 
year's ratooning, being so low by the third year as to make it unprof-
itable to permit another ratooned crop, the cane piece was replanted. 
Slaves thus planted about one-third of the estate's acreage of cane each 
year. 
Slaves usually completed planting by the end of February, and, 
after the plant cane and ratoons sprouted, tended the crop through the 
first months of its growth. Tending the canes involved hoeing and 
ploughing between the rows to keep the cane piece free of grass and 
weeds. By late June or early July the canes had grown tall enough to 
withstand weeds. Slaves then ploughed and hoed ("threw up") the rows 
of cane in ridges to permit better drainage from the plant's roots. 
The sugar cane was then left to grow untended until harvest time. 
Tending the crop required less work than either the planting or 
harvesting stages which monopolized the estate's labor. Thus, during * 
spring and early summer, planters diverted the labor of some slaves to 
such tasks as growing provisions and secondary cash crops, preparing 
for the sugar harvest, and the many jobs necessary to the upkeep of the 
estate. 
Through the spring and summer, planters had the slaves put in 
one or two crops of corn, as well as perhaps potatoes, pumpkins, sweet 
potatoes and other vegetables. Additionally, many planters grew peas 
in the cane fields. They planted this crop, after the canes had been 
laid by, in the strips of ground between the cane rows. Slaves harves-
ted the crops, and cut hay for fodder, before the sugar harvest began. 
19 
Work also invariably needed to be done on the upkeep of the estate. 
Slaves mended roads and fences, built and repaired levees, made bricks 
for the construction and refurbishment of buildings on the.plantation, 
dug and cleaned ditches, and gathered wood both for fuel and for use by 
the estate's coopers and masons. 
After laying by the sugar crop, slaves worked full-time on the 
provision crops, the estate's upkeep, and a third important component 
of out-of-crop labor, preparation for the sugar harvest. Once the har-
vest began, the work of cutting canes and processing the crop continued 
without stopping until completed. Before its commencement, therefore, 
planters sought to have everything ready to see them through the har-
vest: sufficient wood to fuel the sugar mill, enough barrels and hogs-
heads to hold the crop, and adequate roads to transport the cane from 
field to works. 
The sugar harvest usually began by mid-October. Slaves first 
cut and matlayed the cane that was to be set aside for the next year's 
seed. (Seed cane was laid out in mats and covered with a layer of earth 
to protect it from frost.) After matlaying the seed cane, the harvest 
began in earnest. So as to ensure an uninterrupted supply to the mill, 
slaves began cutting canes a day or two before the planter started up the 
sugar works. The planter hoped to run the mill without stopping until 
completion of the harvest. Unlike their Jamaican counterparts, slaves 
on Louisiana sugar estates thus worked seven days a week, day and night, 
in crop, although factors such as bad weather, impassable roads, and 
breakdowns at the mill could cause disruption of this schedule. 
20 
Because of the threat frost posed the sugar crop, harvest pro-
ceeded at a furious pace through late October, November and December. 
Freezing temperatures were most likely in the first couple of months of 
the new year, so planters tried to finish the crop by late December, at 
which time the slaves had their annual holidays. Often, however, har-
vest continued into January. 
If frost came early to the cane fields, the normal harvest rou-
tine ceased and all hands worked at windrowing the crop. Slaves cut 
the canes, laid them in the furrows between the ridged cane rows, and 
covered them with cane leaves and tops. Windrowing afforded canes pro-
tection from the weather, but processing them had to proceed apace so as 
to prevent the canes spoiling or rotting. 
Harvesting techniques resembled those employed in Jamaica. 
Slaves worked in gangs, cutting and stripping the canes with flat-
bladed knives. Teams of slaves then loaded the crop onto carts drawn 
by draft animals and transported it to the sugar mill for processing. 
Apart from the technological advances in sugar mill machinery, 
techniques of processing the crop were similar to those employed in 
Jamaica. The slaves on the estate performed all the labor, from feeding 
and stoking the mill to loading hogsheads of sugar and barrels of 
molasses onto the river steamers at the plantation wharf, and they did 
this work in addition to their harvest tasks in the field. 
The gang system of labor prevailed on Louisiana sugar planta-
tions, and, as in Jamaica, planters organized a series of gangs according 
to the working capacity of the slave labor force. The delegation of 
tasks reflected the disparity in the capabilities of the gangs. The 
21 
principal gang, made up of the strongest slaves on the estate, performed 
the most arduous work such as ploughing, hoeing and harvesting the cane, 
while the weaker gangs did less strenuous labor. For the two most bur-
densome tasks on the estate, ditching and wood-gathering, a sexual divi-
sion of labor emerged, since usually only the men of the great gang did 
such work. 
Slave children on Louisiana estates worked in gangs similar to 
the "pickaninny" gangs employed on Jamaican estates. Under the direc-
tion of a slave driveress, the children were initiated into the routine 
of gang labor, performing various light tasks such as cleaning-up around 
the sugar works and picking fodder. The work schedule of women with 
unweaned children accommodated their babies1 feeding routine. The women 
either had additional time off from labor in the gangs, or worked in a 
"sucklerls gang." 
During harvest, the work regime adjusted to the demands of night 
work in the mill. Planters instituted a system of shifts whereby slaves 
had to work part of the night, every night, for the duration of the 
harvest. 
The daily routine of Louisiana slaves resembled that of their 
Jamaican counterparts. Slaves worked sunup to sundown, with half-an-
hour off for breakfast and a dinner break in the middle of the day that 
lasted one-and-a-half to two hours. Out of crop, slaves worked a five-
and-a-half to six-and-a-half day week, having time off on Saturdays and 
Sundays. During harvest, however, the slaves had no respite from plan-
tation work: they worked sixteen or more hours a day, seven days a 
week. Captain Thomas Hamilton, a traveler who commented in 1833 on the 
22 
harvest work schedule, noted that "the crop in Louisiana is never con-
sidered safe till it is in the mill, and the consequence is that when 
cutting once begins, the slaves are taxed beyond their strength, and are 
goaded to labour until nature absolutely sinks under the effort.11 ^ 
Sugar slavery was arguably the most demanding of plantation 
systems in the Americas. The combination of agriculture and industry 
required in its cultivation and processing placed tremendous demands 
on the slave labor force. Louisiana sugar plantations earned a reputa-
tion among slaves throughout the South "as the most terrifying of all the 
various hells of the deep South to which blacks from the older slave 
economies of the tidewater states could be sold." "The cultivation 
of sugar in Louisiana," commented one anti-slavery traveler, "is carried 
on at an enormous expense of human life. Planters must buy to keep up 
their stock, and this supply principally comes from Maryland, Virginia, 
and North Carolina." Mrs. Frances Milton Troll ope, another committed 
abolitionist, claimed that "to be sent south and sold [was] the dread 
of all the slaves north of Louisiana." E. S. Abdy, an Englishman who 
traveled through the South in 1833-4, related how planters in the old 
South disciplined slaves by threatening to sell them "down the river to 
Louisiana." Slaves incorporated the Louisiana sugar region!s unenvi-
able reputation in the words of a song: 
I born in Sout Calina, 
Fine country ebber seen, 
Captain [Thomas] Hamilton, Men and Manners in America (Edin-
burgh and London, 1833), II, 229-30. 
23 
I guine from Sout Calina, 
I guine to New Orlean... 
Old boss, he discontentum--
He take de mare, black Fanny, 
He buy a pedlar wagon, 
And he boun1 for Lousy-Anna. 
Chorus 
Old debble, Lousy-Anna, 
Dat scarecrow for poor nigger, 
Where de sugar-cane grow to pine-tree, 
And de pine-tree turn to sugar. 
He gone five days in Georgy, 
Fine place for egg and ham; 
When he get among the Ingens, 
And he push for Alabam. 
He look 'bout 'pon de prairie, 
Where he hear de cotton grow; 
But he spirit still contrary, 
And he must fudder go. 
He bound for Lousy-Anna. 
Chorus — Old debble, Lousy-Anna . . . 
He look at Mrs. Seapy, 
Good lady 'nough they say; 
24 
But he tink de State look sleepy, 
And so he 'fuse to stay. 
When once he leff Calina, 
And on he mare, black Fanny, 
He not take off he bridle-bit, 
Till he get to Lousy-Anna. 
12 Chorus -- Old debble, Lousy-Anna . . . 
Throughout the sugar boom in Jamaica, the slave population did 
not reproduce itself naturally. A causal analysis of this phenomenon 
must include the function of the slave sugar economy. The work schedule 
on sugar plantations, in combination with excessive punishment and 
inadequate rest, food, shelter and medical care proved destructive to 
slaves' lives. 
The curse of Cain marked slave sugar cultivation in the Americas. 
Wherever the crop grew, slaves died. Throughout South and Central 
i 
America and the Caribbean, slaves put to cultivating sugar died faster 
than they bore progeny. Only the slave trade, the "Black Mother," could 
maintain and increase the size of these slave populations. 
Although no systematic study of fertility and mortality on 
Louisiana sugar plantations exists, the regime under sugar slavery there 
appears to have been similarly destructive. Abolitionist Theodore Weld 
1 2 
C. Duncan Rice, The Rise and Fa!1 of Black Slavery (Baton 
Rouge, 1975), 287; Hamilton, Men and Manners, II, 229; Frances Milton 
Troll ope, Domestic Manners of the Americans, edited by Donald Smalley 
(New York, 1949), 246; E. S. Abdy, Journal of a Residence and Tour in the 
United States o£ North America, from April" T833", to 0ctoberT834 (London, 
1835), III, 103-4. 
25 
cited statistics accumulated in 1829 by the Agricultural Society of 
Baton Rouge showing that, on a well-conducted sugar plantation, the 
death rate was two-and-a-half percent greater than the birth rate. A 
pro-abolitionist British traveler, Captain Thomas Hamilton, visited a 
Louisiana sugar estate in 1832, where he claimed that the planter gave 
him: 
full details of the whole process of sugar cultivation, which he 
confessed was only carried on at an appalling sacrifice of life. 
At the season when the canes are cut and the boilers at work, the 
slaves are required to undergo incessant labour. . . . The fatigue 
is so great that nothing but the severest application of the lash 
can stimulate the human frame to endure it, and the sugar season 
is uniformly followed by a great increase in mortality among the 
slaves. 
For Louisiana, the Black Mother was the interstate slave trade; the 
slave states of the old South were the suppliers of the men, women and 
13 
children that made up the traffic. 
The United States, of course, was unique among New World slave 
societies in that the slave population within its borders reproduced 
itself naturally. Although slave imports to the United States totalled 
some half a million people prior to the closure of the slave trade in 
1808, the slave population numbered around four million by the Civil 
War. Not all of the slave societies in the United States, however, had 
the same demographic performance. This, in part, was a function of the 
crop under cultivation. Sugar slavery in Louisiana was undeniably more 
severe and demanding (and consequently more destructive) than any of the 
1 3 Theodore Dwight Weld, American Slavery As It Is (1839, rpt. 
New York, 1968), 38; Hamilton, Men and Manners, II,.229. 
26 
other slave systems in the United States save, perhaps, for rice culti-
vation. 
i i i 
Slavery in the British Caribbean colonies formally ended on 
1 August 1838, while on 6 December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to 
the United States Constitution was ratified, declaring "that neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, 
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the 
United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Cuba and 
Brazil were the last bastions of slavery in the Americas. In 1870 and 
1871, however, legislation initiated in these two societies aimed at 
gradual emancipation. On 13 May 1888 slavery was abolished in Brazil; 
the last slaves in the Americas were freed. Thus ended the New World's 
formal association with black slavery that had lasted almost four cen-
turies. 
The legacy of slavery, however, lives on. The oppression of the 
Afro-American descendants of slaves continues to blight the development 
of New World nations. Racism and discrimination, economic, social and 
political, encumber Afro-Americans in freedom, as chains and whips had 
encumbered their enslaved ancestors. 
Slavery and post-slavery race relations thus have oppressed gen-
erations of Afro-Americans. Sadly, historiographical tradition has 
reinforced this oppression. In British Historians and the West Indies, 
Eric Williams attacks the scholarship that has distorted the historical 
record in order "to justify the indefensible and to seek support for 
27 
preconceived and outmoded prejudices." Similarly, C. L. R. James, another 
leading West Indian historian, claims that the dominant historiographical 
tradition has been the province of a "venal race of scholars, profiteer-
ing panders to national vanity." The scholarship emanating from this 
tradition has been instrumental in propagating consistently biased 
analyses, and, according to James, has "conspired to obscure the truth" 
about slavery and the black experience in the Americas. As a principal 
function of his scholarship, Williams seeks "to emancipate his [West 
Indian] compatriots whom the historical writings that he analyses sought 
to deprecate and to imprison for all time in the inferior status to 
14 
which these writings sought to condemn them." 
A similar malaise has blighted the historiography of slavery 
in the United States. For decades after emancipation, racist doctrines 
permeated scholarship dealing with the peculiar institution. The writ-
ings of Ulrich B. Phillips, long the doyen of United States slavery 
historiography, provide the clearest example of this bias. He surely 
deserves a place among the "Tory historians, regius professors and 
sentimentalists" condemned by C. L. R. James for "representing] planta-
tion slavery as a patriarchal relation between master and slave." 
Phillips1 view of the slave plantation as "a school constantly training 
and controlling pupils who were in a backward state of civilization," 
fails to confront the terrible realities of the plantation regime, 
misrepresents slaves' lives and actions, and, because of the dominance 
1 4 Eric Williams, British Historians and the West Indies (Lon-
don, 1966), 12-3; C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins TT938, rpt. New 
York, 1963), 51. 
28 
of the historiographical tradition of which Phillips was a leader, has 
been instrumental in the deprecation, alluded to by Williams, both of 
15 
contemporary Afro-Americans and the memory of their slave forebears. 
Phillips' work has remained influential despite the extensive 
scholarly inquiry into United States slavery in the half-century since 
its publication. Even as recently as 1975, Herbert Gutman commented on 
this enduring effect. "The social history of the enslaved Afro-American 
remains heavily shrouded by the shadow of U. B. Phillips," Gutman 
observes, "a shadow cast by more than that historian's narrow racial 
assumptions." Gutman claims that the model Phillips used to explain 
how slavery affected slaves and their descendants (that slave culture 
imitated planter culture), even if "freed from its racist assumptions, 
. . . still retains a powerful and wholly negative influence on the 
conceptualization of the Afro-American historical experience before the 
general emancipation. 
Other historians commenting on the historiography of slavery 
echo Gutman. Stanley El kins observes of Kenneth Stampp's The Peculiar 
Institution that, despite its attack on Phillips, Stampp's "strategy 
. . . was still dictated by Phillips." Similarly, George Frederickson 
and Christopher Lasch claim that historians writing on slavery, despite 
their attitude to Phillips' findings, had accepted what he had defined 
1 ^  
James, Black Jacobins, 19; Ulrich B. Phillips, American 
Negro Slavery (New York, 1918), 342-3; Williams, British Historians, 12. 
1 6 Herbert G. Gutman, Slavery and the Numbers Game: A Critique 
of 'Time on the Cross' (Urbana, Illinois, 1975), 7. 
29 
as the parameters of the debate on slave culture, had, indeed, "tried 
to meet him on his own ground."^ 
The traditions of Carlyle and Froude and of Phillips in the 
historiography of slavery in the British West Indies and the United 
States respectively have thus had lengthy and influential reigns. Only 
recently has a sustained challenge to their primacy emerged. 
Two of the prominent harbingers of this historiographical 
reorientation were Eric Williams and C. L. R. James. In Capitalism and 
Slavery (1944), Williams directs the study of slavery towards a compara-
tive perspective by viewing the development of the slave societies in 
the Americas within an emergent world capitalist system. The contribu-
tion of James lies in his analysis of the actions of slaves within plan-
tation societies. The crux of James' argument in his masterly study 
The Black Jacobins (1938) is that "the ascendancy of the industrial 
interests were only a necessary precondition for the abolition of 
slavery, the root cause was not to be found in the interests of the 
strong but in the revolt of the weak." James depicted slaves as active, 
creative agents, thus challenging Phillips, who viewed slave behavior 
essentially as a response or reaction to stimuli emanating from the 
18 planter or his agents. 
1 7 Stanley M. El kins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institu-
tional and Intellectual Life (Chicago, 1968), 21; George Frederickson 
and Christopher Lasch, "Resistance to Slavery," Civil War History, XIII 
(December 1967), 315-29. 
1 8 Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (London, 1944); James, Black 
Jacobins; Ivor Oxaal , Black Intellectuals Come Jo Power (Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, 1968), 75; Roderick A. McDonald, "^The Williams Thesis: 
A Comment on the State of Scholarship," Caribbean Quarterly, XXV: 3 
(September 1979), 63-8. 
30 
In the decades since the publication of Williams' and James* 
studies, and other influential work contemporaneous with them by 
scholars such as Aptheker, Herskovits, Hofstadter and Myrdal, the his-
toriography of slavery has undergone tremendous developments. In 1947, 
Frank Tannenbaum published his seminal study Slave and Citizen: The 
Negro in the Americas. Like the earlier work of Williams, Tannenbaum 
demonstrated the promise that comparative methodology held for the 
historiography of slavery. Subsequently, the scholarship of a host of 
historians, including influential studies by David Brion Davis, Carl 
Degler, Stanley El kins, Elsa Goveia, Marvin Harris and Magnus MfJrner, 
has established the comparative methodology in the vanguard of slavery 
historiography. Scholarship in slavery and other dimensions of Afro-
American history, has, of course, also received stimulus and direction 
from various societal and intellectual developments such as the emergent 
ideology of the Civil Rights Movement and the reorientation in the dis-
19 ciplines of social history, economic history and the social sciences. 
Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts (New York, 
1943); Melville J. Herskovits, The Myth of the Negro Past (New York, 
1941); Richard Hofstadter, "U. B. PhTTTips and the Plantation Legend," 
Journal of Negro History, XXIX:2 (April 1944), 109-24; GUnnar Myrdal, An_ 
American Dilemma (New York, 1944); Frank Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen: 
The Negro in the Americas (New York, 1947);; David Brion Davis, The Problem 
of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca, New York, 1966); The Problem of_ 
Slavery in the Age of Revolution (Ithaca, New York, 1975TT"Carl Degler, 
Neither Black Nor White (New York, 1971); Elkins, Slavery; Elsa V. Goveia, 
Slave Society in_ the British Leeward Islands at the End_ of the Eighteenth 
Century (New Haven, Connecticut, 1965); "The West Indian Slave Laws of 
the Eighteenth Century," Revista de Ciencias Sociales, IV: 1 (March 1960), 
75-105; Marvin Harris, Patterns of Race in the Americas (New York, 1964); 
Magnus MOrner, Race Mixture in the History o£ Latin America (Boston, 
1967). 
31 
Slavery was a hemispheric phenomenon in the Americas. Through-
out the New World, Western European colonizers coerced labor by enslav-
ing Africans and Afro-Americans. The experience of black slaves varied 
little. For Africans transported across the Atlantic, often mere chance 
or temporary market conditions determined their American destination and 
thus the nationality of their white "masters." Slaves did not choose 
their slaveholders nor did they define the boundaries of the colonies 
where they were held in bondage. Slaves' lives as praedial laborers 
within a plantation system were affected little by the metropolitan 
affinities of the slaveholders. Yet, as the parameters within which to 
conduct their inquiries, historians have too readily accepted the 
spatial boundaries defined by the slave-holding colonizers. Conse-
quently, the historiography of slavery, prior to the development of a 
comparative perspective, has tended to be atomized and parochial. 
Studies of slavery encumbered by such parochialism necessarily 
carry a bias. This bias is introduced because the limits of a given 
study are defined in terms of only one of the protagonists. Thus, a 
study defined in terms of the spatial boundaries and the metropolitan 
and institutional affiliations of a set of planters, be they Catholic 
Luso-Brazilian, Protestant British North American, or whatever, may 
obscure continuities in the slavery experience that an alternative 
methodology will reveal. 
David Brion Davis based his study of slavery in Western culture 
on the premise that "the problem of [black] slavery transcended national 
boundaries." By foregoing the delimitation of study within the narrow 
confines of a specific national perspective, the comparative dimension 
32 
of slavery scholarship has, according to Eugene Genovese, "introduced 
an invigorating freshness and a new boldness into historical work." The 
methodology has enabled analyses of the relationships of the protago-
nists, black and white, within slave societies, to the institution of 
slavery, thus permitting an assessment of what slaves did as slaves, and 
20 
slave-holders as slave-holders. 
The development of the comparative perspective in the histori-
ography of slavery, however, has not been devoid of methodological prob-
lems. Although poor research design, of course, detracts from the 
value of any historical inquiry, comparative analysis is particularly 
susceptible to this problem. Thus, great care must be taken in the 
formulation of comparative studies if the methodology is to realize its 
potential for affording a better view of the past. Historian. Marc 
Bloch has written that; 
in order to have historical comparison, two conditions must be ful-
filled: a certain similarity or analogy between observed phenomena--
that is obvious--and a certain dissimilarity between the environ-
ments in which they occur.2' 
When using a comparative methodology, therefore, historians 
must formulate their studies so that they may compare the comparable. 
20 
Davis, Slavery in Western Culture> vii; Laura Foner and 
Eugene Genovese, eds., Slavery in the New World: A Reader in Compara-
tive History (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1969), viii. 
21 
" Marc Bloch, "Toward a Comparative History of European Soci-
eties," in Frederic C. Lane and Jelle C. Riemersma, eds., Enterprise 
and Secular Change: Readings in Economic History (Homewood, Il linois, 
T553), 496. 
33 
A comparative study of apples and oranges may indeed divulge a lot about 
these two entities, but, of course, can reveal little that two discrete 
studies would not disclose save that apples are not oranges, and vice 
versa. 
This methodological problem has appeared in recent slavery 
historiography. In Slavery in the Americas: A Comparative Study of 
Virginia and Cuba, Herbert Klein contends that New World slave systems 
vary according to the institutional affiliations of the slave-holding 
colonizer. He claims that his findings support Tannenbaum's thesis that 
the slave experience differed throughout the Americas, and that the 
Portuguese and Spanish colonies, by virtue of their laws, religion and 
metropolitan influence, manifested a milder version of slavery, whereas 
the colonies of the North-West European nations had harsher slave sys-
22 
terns. 
Unfortunately, the methodology of,Klein's study is flawed. 
Klein fails either to analyze comparable slave systems, or to hold con-
stant those variables that would necessarily distort his findings. The 
two slave societies in his study failed to meet the criteria Bloch claimed 
necessary for historical comparison; they were as different as apples 
and oranges! Whereas he looks at Virginia when the slave system under-
went economic expansion, he confines his analysis of Cuba to the period 
prior to its sugar boom. During this time, Cuba was underdeveloped and 
underpopulated; the island's slave system was limited, static, and, in 
22 
Herbert Klein, Slavery in the Americas: A Comparative Study 
of Virginia and Cuba (Chicago, 19677". 
34 
large part, domestic and urban. Had Klein designed his research more 
judiciously, and compared the expanding plantation slave system of Vir-
ginia with the similar phase in the institution's development in Cuba 
(during the nineteenth century sugar boom), he would, as Franklin Knight 
has shown, have disclosed the similarities between slave plantation 
systems resulting from the formative compulsions of material and eco-
nomic conditions. In a critique of Klein, Elsa Goveia points out that 
"slavery in the New World has been neither uniform nor static. For it 
was an economic and social institution that changed both in time and 
place." Goveia indicates the care with which historians should con-
struct the research design of comparative study. "Such study," she 
explains, "will only yield sound results if it starts with a methodology 
which adequately defines whether or not the slave systems to be compared 
23 
are of the same kind." 
Determining comparability is but the first step towards the 
formulation of an adequate research design. Since the emergence of the 
comparative study of black slavery, there has been considerable debate 
as to which phenomena provide the best indices of the structure of slave 
societies. In his pioneering study, Tannenbaum chose to focus specifi-
cally on the heritage of the slave-holders as the appropriate index of 
the character of the institution of slavery in a given New World society. 
* Thus the important determinants of the form of slave societies were the 
23 
Knight, Slave Society; Goveia, "Comment on 'Anglicanism, 
Catholicism, and the Negro Slave,'" Comparative Studies in Society and 
History, VIII; 3 (April 1966), 328-30. 
35 
religion of the "masters," and the legal traditions and other metropoli-
tan influences of the slave-holders' mother countries in Europe. Tan-
nenbaum contends that slavery in the Ibero-American colonies was milder 
because the legislative tradition and dominant religion of Spain and 
Portugal recognized the "moral personality" of the slaves.24 
Historians, however, have challenged both the applicability and 
the suitability of indices based on the metropolitan institutions of the 
slave-holders. Since, as Elsa Goveia points out, "the divorce of law 
and practice was . . . characteristic" of slave societies in the Ameri-
cas, analyses of legal statutes and religious dogma may, indeed, tell 
25 
little about the de facto organization and structure of a given society. 
Questions also arise as to whether the indices Tannenbaum chose 
are sufficient, in and of themselves, to an analysis of slavery. By 
claiming that such institutional influences determine the structure of 
the slave systems, Tannenbaum delineates a specific chain of causality, 
one which relegates the slave to the position of respondent. Africans 
and Afro-Americans, however, brought to the slave societies in which 
they lived cultures and institutional influences of their own, which 
contributed to shaping the structure of that society. The interaction 
and reciprocal influences of both slaves and non-slaves contributed to 
the development and structure of the slave systems of which they were 
constituents. 
24 Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen. 
2 5 Goveia, "West Indian Slave Laws," 104. 
36 
Thus, an adequate analysis of slavery cannot be derived solely 
from a consideration of the slave-holder and his world. It is impera-
tive for historians of slavery to recognize that slaves were, in anthro-
pologist John Szwed's words, "culture bearers and creators." Historians 
must therefore incorporate into their analyses of slavery, what slaves 
believed and how they behaved. ~ 
A methodological reorientation designed to incorporate the 
beliefs and behavior of slaves poses considerable challenges to the 
historian. Few slaves left personal records of their lives; whites were 
responsible for rendering most of the extant documentation on slavery. 
The historian cannot afford to eschew these records, although, indeed, 
they view slavery from the slave-holders perspective. The records must 
be used with care, and with an eye to the biases that they incorporate. 
Recent contributions to the historiography of slavery have made 
good use of such materials, showing that they reveal much about the 
actions and activities of slaves. In his study of Slave Population and 
Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834, Barry Higman shows the wealth of informa-
tion that can be gleaned from, among other sources, census materials 
such as the Returns of the Registration of Slaves, a triennial compila-
tion of the slave populations in the British West Indies. Russell 
Menard and Allan Kulikoff, in their pioneering studies of slavery in 
the Chesapeake, demonstrate that, used with care and sensitivity, legal 
documentation such as probate records affords tremendous insight into 
2 6 John F. Szwed, "The Politics of Afro-American Culture," in 
Dell Hymes, ed., Reinventing Anthropology (New York, 1973). 
37 
the structure of slave communities. Studies such as these are in the 
vanguard of slavery scholarship. Census data and probate records, along 
with other hitherto underutilized materials such as court proceedings, 
slave sales and church and mission records, afford rich resources for 
further historical inquiry, as do the government documents and parlia-
27 
mentary papers of European nations and their colonial dependencies. 
In analyzing how slaves acted in slavery, historians also have 
yet to realize fully the potential that plantation manuscripts hold. 
Although such records, again, were compiled by whites, they provide a 
detailed chronicle of the complexity of slaves' lives. The plantation 
system involved an intricate organization of life and work, the coordi-
nation of which necessitated sophisticated record-keeping. Planters 
and their delegates noted daily labor routines, kept punishment records 
and listed runaways. They kept registers of births and deaths, and 
recorded sickness among slaves. Various other accounts reveal dietary, 
clothing and housing patterns, as well as expenditures for slaves and 
payments to and by slaves. Planters' correspondence and diaries, simi-
larly, are rich in detail concerning the activities of slaves. In sum, 
although these plantation manuscripts view slavery through the prism of 
2 7 Barry W. Higman, Slave Population; Allan Kulikoff, "The 
Beginnings of the Afro-American Family in Maryland," in Aubrey C. Land, 
et al., eds., Law, Society, and Politics in Early Maryland (Baltimore, 
1977); "The Origins of Afro-American Society in Tidewater Maryland and 
Virginia, 1700-1790," Mi H i am and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, XXXV: 2 
(April 1978), 226-59; "A 'Prolifick' People: Black Population Growth in 
the ChesapeaJce Colonies," Southern Studies, XVI (1977), 391-428; Russell 
R. Menard, "The Maryland Slave Population, 1658 to 1730: A Demographic 
Profile of Blacks in Four Counties," William and Mary Quarterly, Third 
Series, XXXII: 1 (1975), 29-54. 
38 
white eyes, they provide invaluable insight into the lives of slaves, 
the manner in which they organized their family and community, and the 
impact their actions had on the structure and organization of the plan-
tation. 
Plantation records have provided the data base for some of the 
most exciting developments in recent slavery historiography. Even a 
partial listing of such studies shows the extent to which their con-
tribution has dominated the scholarship in recent years both in quantity 
and methodological orientation. The historiography of slavery in the 
British Caribbean has been immeasurably enriched by the work of Edward 
Brathwaite, Michael Craton, Richard Dunn, Stanley Engerman, Goveia, 
Douglas Hall, Higman, Sidney Mintz, Orlando Patterson, Richard Sheridan 
and others. Scholarship on slavery in Ibero-America and the rest of the 
non-British West Indies has benefitted from the work of Roger Bastide, 
Frederick Bowser, Gabriel Debien, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Neville Hall, 
Knight, Mintz, Morner, Colin Palmer, Richard Price and others. The 
historiography of slavery in the United States, similarly, has been 
well-served by a scholarship that has recognized the value of plantation 
records, and has used them with care and discernment in disclosing the 
hitherto under-recognized fullness and complexity of slaves' lives. 
Scholars contributing to this development are, among others, Paul David, 
i 
Engerman, Robert Fogel, Genovese, Gutman, Kulikoff, Lawrence Levine, 
Menard, Leslie Howard Owens, Richard Sutch, Peter Temin and Peter 
u ^ 28 Wood. 
Edward Brathwaite, The Development of Creole Society in 
Jamaica, 1770-1820 (London, 1971T; Michael Craton and James Walvin, A 
39 
Scholars have, at least partially, been able to circumvent or 
deal with the problem of the white bias inherent in much of the extant 
manuscripts. Slaves left more direct evidence of their lives in bondage. 
Jamaican Estate: A History of Worthy Park (London, 1970); Craton, Search-
ing for the Invisible Man: Slaves and Plantation Life i_n Jamaica (Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, 1978); Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The 
Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713 (Chapel 
Hill, 1972); Stanley L. Engerman, "Some Economic and Demographic Compari-
sons of Slavery in the United States and the British West Indies," The 
Economic History Review, Second Series, XXIX: 2 (May 1976), 258-75; Her-
bert S. Klein and Stanley Engerman, "Fertility Differentials between 
SI aves in the United States and the British West Indies: A Note on Lac-
tation Practices," William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, XXXV: 2 
(April 1978), 357-74; Goveia, Slave Society; "West Indian Slave Laws"; 
Douglas Hall, "Slaves and Slavery in the British West Indies," Social and 
Economic Studies, XI: 4 (1962), 305-18; "Absentee-Proprietorship in the 
British West Indies to about 1850," Jamaican Historical Review, IV (1964), 
15-35; Higman, Slave Population; "Household Structure and Fertility on 
Jamaican Slave Plantations: A Nineteenth Century Example," Population 
Studies, XXVII (.1973), 527-50; "The Slave Family and Household in the 
British West Indies," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, VI (1975), 
261-87; Sidney Mintz, "The Jamaican Internal Marketing Pattern," Social 
and Economic Studies, IV: 1 (March 1955), 95-103; Mintz and Douglas Hall, 
"The Origins of the Jamaican Internal Marketing System," in Mintz, ed,, 
Papers in Caribbean Anthropology (New Haven, Connecticut, I960),. Publica-
tions in Anthropology 57; Orlando Patterson, The Sociology of Slavery 
(London, 1967); Sheridan, Sugar and Slavery; The Development of the 
Plantations to 1750 and An_ Era of West Indian Prosperity (London, 1970); 
"'Sweet Malefactor': The Social Costs of Slavery and Sugar in Jamaica 
and Cuba, 1807-54," The Economic History Review, Second Series, XXIX: 2 
(May 1976), 236-57; "The Wealth of Jamaica in the Eighteenth Century," 
The Economic History Review, Second Series, XVIII: 2 (August 1965), 292-
311; Roger Bastide, African Civilizations in the New World, trans. Peter 
Green (New York, 1971); The African Religions of Brazil, trans. Helen 
Sebbon (Baltimore, 1978); Frederick P. Bowser, The African Slave in 
Colonial Peru (Stanford, 1974); Gabriel Debien, Les esclaves aux Antilles 
francaises (XVIIe - XVIIIe siecle) (Fort-de-France, 1974); Gwendolyn 
Midlo Hall, Social Control TrTSlave Plantation Societies (Baltimore, 1971); 
Neville Hall, "Slaves Use of Their 'Free' Time in the Danish Virgin 
Islands in the Later Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century," Journal 
of Caribbean History, XIII O980), 21-43; Knight, Slave Society; The 
African Dimension in Latin American Societies; Mintz, Caribbean Trans-
formations (Chicago, 1974); "Labor and Sugar in Puerto Rico and Jamaica," 
Comparative Studies in Society and History, I (1959), 273-81; "Slavery 
and the Slaves," Caribbean Studies, VIII: 4 (1969), 65-70; Mintz and 
Richard Price, An Anthropological Approach to the Afro-American Past: A 
Caribbean Perspective (Philadelphia, 1976); MOrner, Race Mixture; Colin 
40 
Both during and after slavery, a steady flow of slave autobiographies 
chronicled life under slavery through the eyes of slaves. Many of these 
narratives, along with various other testimony by slaves, provided sup-
port for abolitionist activities, and as such must be carefully and 
judiciously used by historians. Nevertheless, as John Blassingame has 
29 
shown, they have tremendous potential for illuminating the slaves' past. " 
The study of slavery in the United States has benefited immea-
surably from the foresight of scholars who recognized the potential con-
tribution that the recollections of ex-slaves could make. The effort 
to collect these reminiscences of life under slavery culminated with a 
government-sponsored project in the late 1930s. Ultimately, thousands 
of ex-slaves gave testimony about their lives; the scope covered in the 
A. Palmer, Slaves of the White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650 (Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, 1976); Price, comp. Maroon Societies: Rebel 
Slave Communities in the Americas (Baltimore, 1979); Paul A. David, Her-
bert Gutman, Richard Sutch, Peter Temin and Gavin Wright, Reckoning with 
Slavery (New York, 1976); Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, Time on the 
Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (Boston, 1974); Eugene 
Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York, 1974); 
Gutman, Numbers Game; The Black Family iji Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 
(New York, 1976); Kulikoff, "The Beginnings of the Afro-American Family;" 
"The Origins of Afro-American Society;" "A 'Prolifick' People;" Lawrence 
W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk 
Thought from Slavery to Freedom (New York, 1977); Menard, "Maryland 
Slave Population;" Leslie Howard Owens, This Species of Property: Slave 
Life and Culture in the Old South (New York, 1976); Sutch, "The Breeding 
of Slaves for Sale and the Westward Expansion of Slavery, 1850-1860," 
in Engerman and Genovese, eds., Race and Slavery in the Western Hemi-
sphere: Quantitative Studies (Princeton, New Jersey, 1975); Peter H. 
Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 
through the Stono Rebellion (New York, 197417" 
v u -- John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community. 
41 
questions posed the slaves, and the size of the cohort interviewed, 
have, as scholars like 011i Alho, Paul Escott, Julius Lester, George 
Rawick and Norman Yetman show, permitted a much fuller understanding 
of slaves' lives. Even a cursory perusal of these documents illustrates 
the diversity of life, and the vitality and creativity of slaves that 
even the oppression of servitude could not stifle. George Rawick found 
the divergence between the activities of slaves as field laborers and 
their lives outside this labor regime, after work and during other time 
off, so striking, that he incorporated the dichotomy into the metho-
dology of his study: 
The slaves labored from sunup to sundown and sometimes beyond. This 
labor dominated part of their existence—but only part. Under 
slavery, as under any other social system, those at the bottom of the 
society were not totally dominated by the master class. They found 
ways of alleviating the worst of the system and at times of domi-
nating their masters. They built their own community out of materials 
taken from the African past and the American present, with the values 
and memories of Africa giving meaning to the new creation. They lived 
and loved from sundown to s u n u p . 3 0 
South African writer Andre Brink may convey some of the essence 
of the dichotomy in the words of advice an African woman gave her son 
in the novel Looking On Darkness. She told him "Joseph, look, inne 
daytime I work my blerry arse off fo' the white people, but when it gets 
dark it's our turn. The Lawd give us the night to have a bit of happi-
ness, for the days are hell." Poet LeRoi Jones (Imamu Amiri Baraka), in 
3 0 Oili Alho, The Religion of Slaves (Helsinki, 1976); Paul D. 
Escott, Slavery Remembered (Chapel Hill, 1979); Julius Lester, Jo Be A 
Slave (New York, 1968); George P. Rawick, From Sundown to Sunup: The 
Making of the Black Community (Westport, Connecticut, 1972), 11-2; Nor-
man Yetman, Life Under the 'Peculiar Institution' (New York, 1970). 
42 
a stanza that concludes a series of essays entitled Home, captures another 
dimension of the dichotomy: 
The fair are 
fair, and death 
ly white. 
The day will not save them 
and we own 
31 the night. 
Much of the activity that Rawick and the others describe went 
on beyond the ken of whites, and as such rarely found its way into the 
whites' chronicles. Historians must, therefore, not only recognize the 
partiality of white testimony on slavery, that it undoubtedly misses 
much of the family and community life of slaves "from sundown to sunup," 
but also discern the importance of uncovering testimony slaves left. 
None of the other American societies in which slavery existed 
are as richly endowed with slave narrative collections as the United 
States, and, since few ex-slaves are alive, there is no way to fill this 
lacuna. Nevertheless, slave testimony is still being uncovered. The 
leading scholars in these efforts come largely from outside the his-
torical profession. Their findings, however, are of great importance 
to historians; indeed, they indicate directions which historians cannot 
31 Andre P. Brink, Looking On Darkness (New York, 1975), 38; 
LeRoi Jones/Imamu Amiri Baraka, Home (New York, 1966), 252. 
43 
ignore. The work of anthropologists such as Marvin Harris, Mintz, Price 
and Szwed has been able to disclose much concerning life under slavery 
by analyses of Afro-American cultures. The archaeological work of Jerome 
Handler and Frederick Lange in Barbados, and Barry Higman in Jamaica, 
has shown how much can be learned from excavating the sites of slave 
villages and graveyards on sugar plantations. The potential of these 
32 
fields of inquiry has, as yet, not been fully realized. 
Recent historiography, thus, has made salutary progress in ana-
lyzing the slavery experience. Both its methodology and findings have 
challenged traditional interpretations of the "peculiar institution." 
The comparative technique, and the recognition of the role of slaves 
as a motive and creative force in determining the structure of slavery 
forced reorientation of the debate. 
i v 
Sugar slavery justifiably earned its reputation, throughout the 
Americas, as the "Sweet Malefactor." To titillate the palates of white 
Western Europeans and North Americans, black slaves suffered and died. 
The use of a Hobbesian analogy in describing the lives of sugar slaves 
as "nasty, brutish and short*" may err only in underestimating the 
op 
Harris, Patterns of Race; Mintz and Price, Anthropological 
Approach; Szwed, "Politics of Afro-American Culture"; Szwed and N. 
Whitten, eds., Afro-American Anthropology (New York, 1970); Jerome S. 
Handler and Frederick W. Lange, Plantation Slavery in Barbados: Ar^  
Archaeological and Historical Investigation (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 
1978); Higman, "A Report on Excavations at Montpelier and Roehampton," 
Jamaica Journal, VIII (1974), 40-5. 
44 
horrors and torment undergone by the enslaved Africans and Afro-
33 Americans. 
There exist, throughout recorded time, few more shameful instan-
ces of man!s inhumanity to man than the institution of black slavery 
in the Americas. Slaves, however, proved capable of transcending the 
brutality of the planters and their agents. Slave community life 
throughout the reign and dominion of King Sugar exhibited tremendous 
vitality; the hundreds of thousands of people who lived their entire 
lives and died in bondage displayed resourcefulness, endeavor, creativity, 
dignity and courage, the array of humanity's attributes which even as 
coercive a system as slavery could not stifle. The triumph of slaves 
over the adversity of bondage is displayed in numerous aspects of their 
lives: art and music, family and community development, religion, 
resisting and rebelling against their enslavement. 
Slaves also established, within plantation communities, economic 
systems independent of the planters. A study of sugar slavery in 
Jamaica and Louisiana reveals that, throughout the two plantation soci-
eties, and, indeed, within every sugar estate, slaves developed such 
systems. The independence and creativity of slaves is manifest in their 
economic activities. An analysis of the internal economy thus offers 
unique insight into how slaves lived within the institution of sugar 
plantation slavery. 
* Thomas Hobhes, Leviathan or the Matter, Forme and Power of a 
Commonwealth Ecclesiastical! and Civil TT651, rpt. New York, 1962), 
100; Sheridan, "Sweet Malefactor." 
Part I 
The Internal Economies 
Chapter 1 
The Internal Economy of 
Sugar Plantation Slaves in Jamaica 
47 
The slave communities on sugar plantations in Jamaica had thriving 
and dynamic internal economies. Slaves who in law were defined as chattels, 
the property of a master, had in reality property rights of their own and 
controlled the accumulation and disposal of earnings and possessions. 
These de facto rights had no legal status. Nevertheless, they existed in 
the two plantation societies under study, and indeed elsewhere in North 
America and the British Caribbean, and appear as binding as the legal 
recognition given the property rights (peculium) of slaves in Spanish 
American slave societies. 
It is important to recognize that there was no protection in law 
for the internal economy, or any of its components such as holdings of 
real estate, stock, crops and manufactures, disposal of labor and accumu-
lation of money and goods. Slaves had, for example, no legal right to the 
land they cultivated or to the revenue accrued from the sale of crops; 
no legal right to own or dispose of poultry, pigs, goats and other live-
stock; and no legal right to sell their labor on certain days. Legal 
provisions, however, were less important in structuring relations between 
slaves and planters than was a modus operandi which took into considera-
tion the power of the slave community. 
Although the planters monopolized the means of violence and had 
wide latitude over the treatment of slaves, the slaves exercised some 
control over their work and lives. For example, slaves could affect the 
productiveness of their labor by undertaking job actions such as malin-
gering, breaking tools, work slowdowns and poisoning or maltreating live-
stock. Planters responded to such actions by coercing slaves' labor 
48 
through threats, punishments (primarily, though not exclusively, whip-
ping), or the removal of recalcitrants by sale or execution. The 
extent and effect of such punishment should not be minimized, yet it 
does not fully explain slave/planter relations. 
In slave societies, labor was expensive and scarce. Develop-
ing plantation societies had sufficient capital for investment and an 
abundance of fertile virgin land, but there was a shortage of labor. 
This in fact is the classic definition of H. J. Nieboer's "open 
resource" society: conditions which, he contended, must be present in 
order for slavery to exist. Thus, if planters wanted to realize the 
potential wealth of their estates, they needed the labor of a coerced 
work force J 
Slaves undoubtedly recognized the value of their labor. Working 
within the limits of the power relations of the plantation societies, 
they could extract from the planter concessions regarding their personal 
lives and their individual autonomy. 
The internal economy of the slave community was part of the 
body of rights to which the slaves laid claim and which the planters 
acknowledged. Although statutory law did not recognize these rights, 
they existed de facto, the result of the process in which slaves infor-
mally negotiated conditions of life and labor. Planters transgressed 
these rights at their peril, for transgression could cause a decline 
in labor productivity. Only unusual circumstances impelled planters 
1 H. J. Nieboer, Slavery as^  ar^  Industrial System (The Hague, 
1900), 387-91. 
49 
to such action since they were aware of the realities of labor relations 
and the consequences of breaking the established compact. 
Jamaican planter Ezekiel Dickinson exemplified this, albeit 
from the perspective of an absentee. Time and again he counselled his 
nephew Caleb, manager of his St. Elizabeth sugar plantations, to accom-
modate the wishes of the slaves. He was "very desirous of . . .all our 
People having ev'ry reasonable indulgence" and asked "that no care or 
attention . . . be wanting to the Negroes," pointing out "the Gang of 
Negroes is the Planter's riches: the attention and care of them was 
one means that enabled our ancestors to settle and cultivate their 
Estates with such success." He insisted that all whites on the estate 
recognize the need for such attention to the slave labor force and 
contended that an overseer who was not humane to slaves was "not fit to 
2 
run an Estate." 
In the years 1815 to 1816, the novelist Matthew Gregory Lewis 
visited his sugar estate in Jamaica which, in his absence, had been 
managed by an attorney. The following section of his journal clearly 
shows that the slaves on the plantation knew their rights and acted in 
concert when they were violated. 
On the Sunday after my first arrival, the whole body of Eboe 
negroes came to me to complain of the attorney, and more particularly 
of one of the book-keepers. I listened to them, if not with 
unwearied patience, at least with subdued fortitude, for about an 
hour and a half; and finding some grounds for their complaint against 
Ezekiel Dickinson to Caleb Dickinson, 19 August 1786, 28 
November 1786, 10 February 1787, from Letterbook of Ezekiel Dickinson, 
Papers of Caleb and Ezekiel Dickinson, University of the West Indies, 
Mona, Jamaica. 
50 
the latter, in a few days I went down to their quarter of the village, 
told them that to please them I had discharged the book-keeper, named 
a day for examining their other grievances, and listened to them an 
hour more. 
,The Lewis plantation slaves acted as a united labor force, aware 
of their power, value and rights, and not as chattels, deprived of all 
rights. Lewis, however, not only dealt with disputes on his own planta-
tion, but also confronted the grievances of slaves from nearby estates. 
He recorded a series of such occurrences. 
A large body of negroes, from a neighbouring estate, came over to 
Cornwall [Lewis1 estate] this morning, to complain of hard treatment, 
in various ways, from their overseer and drivers, and requesting me 
to represent their injuries to their trustee here, and their proprie-
tor in England. 
I went down to the negro-houses to hear the whole body of Eboes lodge 
a complaint against one of the book-keepers, and appoint a day for 
their being heard in his presence. On my return to the house, I found 
two women belonging to a neighbouring estate, who came to complain 
of cruel treatment from their overseer, and to request me to inform 
their trustee how ill they had been used, and see their injuries 
redressed. 
A young mulatto carpenter, belonging to Horace Beckford's estate of 
Shrewsbury, came to beg my intercession with his overseer.4 
Again, the slaves exhibited by their actions an awareness of a 
body of rights whose abridgement they protested. Further, the slaves 
implied by their actions that their "owners" not only recognized these 
rights, but also knew that their interests were best served by preserving 
and protecting them. 
3 Matthew Gregory Lewis, Journal o£ a^  West India Proprietor 
(London, 1834), 187-8. 
4 Ibid., 115, 129-30, 144. 
51 
The internal economy was a fundamental part of the customary 
rights claimed by slaves. It, in its turn, was based primarily on the 
exercise of property rights and the use of labor time for their own 
personal gain. 
Slaves accrued profit from property held in land, livestock 
and manufactures. In both Jamaica and Louisiana, slaves had de facto 
control of certain tracts of land on the plantation. These lands fall 
i 
into two categories, gardens and grounds. The occupant had the use of 
the small garden area around each house in the slave village, while 
elsewhere on the plantation slaves received individual apportionments 
of more sizable areas of land from tracts specifically set aside for 
their use. 
In Jamaica, the estate provided slaves little food. Planters 
gave slaves only a meager protein ration, usually salt herring, and 
expected the slaves to provide the rest of their food themselves from 
their provision grounds. This meant, however, that the slaves could 
work for themselves and keep the profit. They received both, land and 
time off from regular plantation work to cultivate the crops. Many 
slaves raised both their subsistence needs and a surplus which they sold 
for gain. Planters agreed to this practice, and accepted that slaves 
kept the accrued profits. 
Slaves controlled both the crops and the land on which they were 
grown. Although they lacked legal title to the land, they asserted 
rights to it that the planters recognized and respected. Government 
records contain testimony illustrating the extent of slave control. John 
52 
Blackburn, a 35-year resident of Jamaica who managed 30 sugar estates, 
gave evidence in 1807 before a governmental committee on the commercial 
state of the West Indies. Blackburn's testimony, although couched in 
typically inflated planter rhetoric, did indicate that slaves exercised 
certain control over the provision grounds: 
in the infancy of a Plantation the Negro provision grounds are near 
their houses, which again are close to the works; that in the exten-
sion of the Plantation, it becomes necessary to cultivate in cane 
the Negro provision-grounds, and give them others at some farther 
distance, and in doing so, it is a matter of great delicacy to be 
done with much leisure and caution; you must give them other grounds 
of better quality, and well stocked with provisions fit for use, and 
pay them money to get their consent to make the exchange. You must 
particularly take care, by bribery or otherwise, to get the sanction 
of the head people, or your slaves would probably get discontented, 
and careless of their own property and of yours. 
Blackburn went on to refer to "their houses, their provision grounds, 
their gardens and orchards, (which they consider as much their own 
5 • 
property as their Master does his Estate)." 
Colonial Office records contain similar evidence. In the "Min-
utes of the proceedings of the Committee of Secrecy and Safety in the 
Parish of St. James" for February 1792, reference was made to a Mr. 
Whitaker who: 
had sold a property called Windsor Castle and told his Negroes that 
as they were to leave the place he would pay them for their Grounds 
which he did at the valuation which the Negroes themselves put upon 
them, although that valuation amounted to several hundred Pounds more 
than the valuation that had been put on them by the Gentlemen who 
Testimony of John Blackburn, Report from the Committee on the 
Commercial State of the West India Colonies, ordered to be printed 24 
July 1807 (London, 1807), 40, 43. 
53 
had been appointed to estimate the value of the property and on whose 
estimation the place had just been sold. I understand that the 
Negroes Grounds were valued at about £280, and that Mr. Whitaker paid 
them for their grounds, for some stock and to compensate their incon-
veniences on leaving the place near £1000.6 
Provision grounds on established estates in Jamaica were usually 
some distance from the slave village. They were therefore not readily 
accessible either for keeping stock requiring daily attention, or for 
brief working spells. Slaves kept most of their stock closer to the 
i 
quarters, usually in the plots adjacent to their houses. They also 
used these plots as kitchen gardens, where they cultivated various crops 
for domestic consumption and sale and in which they may have had small 
orchards. 
In these kitchen gardens, also called "shell-blow grounds," 
slaves might spend odd times during the work week, especially at midday 
dinner-break and at sundown. They were called "shell-blow grounds" 
because slaves could work there during dinner and be able to respond to 
the shell-blow alarm summoning them to the fields for the afternoon's 
labor. Descriptions of the kitchen gardens indicate that some 
appeared prosperous. 
William Beckford saw slave houses situated in gardens containing 
fruit trees and in which he said there was often a hut that functioned 
as a store house and stock house. In addition, some gardens had 
enclosed pig-sties. It was his impression that "most negroes in Jamaica 
6 "Minutes of the proceedings of the Committee of Secrecy and 
Safety in the Parish of St. James, Jamaica, February 1792," in C.O. 
137/90, Correspondence, Original—Secretary of State, November 1791 to 
October 1792, Public Record Office, London. 
54 
have either fowls, hogs, or cattle; some have all." Hector McNeill, a 
staunch defender of the plantocracy, mentioned that in his travels in 
Jamaica he had seen slave houses encircled by kitchen gardens contain-
ing plantain groves, banana and orange trees, hog-sties and flocks of 
fowl. He also noted that slaves kept larger stock, presumably cattle, 
in the plantation pen, although fewer slaves, however, owned cattle 
than owned poultry and smaller livestock. The attorneys for John Foster 
Barham's plantations wrote to him that "each [slave] possessing stock 
consider[s] them as much their own Property (using their own words 'as 
Massa does Plantation').1,7 
The pens and sties Beckford and McNeill saw in the kitchen gar-
dens probably resembled in construction a description contained in a 
contemporary journal. Slaves built "inclosures of pales, sticks placed 
near [their] houses to confine stock." Hog-sties were built with logs 
piled pyramidally in squares crossing at the ends and covered with boughs 
at the top. Slaves built these sties on the sides of hills when possi-
ble, in order to drain moisture and effluent out of them. Stock pens 
comprised "upright posts placed very near each other, sustaining a slight 
g 
roof of stick and thatch." 
7 William Beckford, A Descriptive Account of the Island of 
Jamaica (London, 1790), 229; Remarks upon the Situation of Negroes 2H 
Jamaica (London, 1788), 91; Hector McNeill, Observations on the Treatment 
of Negroes in the Island of Jamaica (London, [1788?]), 3-4; J. C. Grant 
and J. R. Webb to J. F. Barham, Westmoreland, 12 September 1813, Barham 
Papers, MS. Clarendon dep. c. 358. Bundle 1. Jamaica correspondence 
1809-1816, Bodleian Library, Oxford. 
8 Anon., "Characteristic Traits of the Creolian and African 
Negroes in Jamaica," The Columbian Magazine; or Monthly Miscellany, 
(Kingston), 3 (September, 1797), 253. 
55 
Typical kitchen gardens would have been less well supplied than 
those described by Beckford and McNeill. Still, slaves usually put the 
land around their houses to use in raising stock and provisions which 
could "not only furnish [them] with sufficient food for their own con-
Q 
sumption, but an overplus to carry to market." 
According to Rev. John Riland, a sugar planter in northern 
Jamaica, slaves did not always have to venture abroad to find a market 
for their surplus commodities. He maintained that, from the pigs and 
poultry raised in the kitchen gardens, "the master usually purchase[d] 
the provisions of his table, paying the Negroes the common price for 
which they would sell at the market." Various plantation records show 
that this was normal practice. For example, plantation accounts for 
1788 of Charles Gordon's Georgia Estate included the entry, "To cash 
paid Mason Prince for a young Steer raised by him on the Estate £8:10:0." 
David Ewart, the agent on Lord Penrhyn's King's Valley Estate bought 
stock belonging to the plantation slaves. "I make it a practice to buy 
the Calves when they are a year old at a Doubloon each. . . . I think 
it is a fair bargain for both parties, the Negroes are satisfied with 
it." Early in December 1807, Ewart reported that he bought the slaves' 
stock, comprising "bullkins and heifers" for £140. He paid the slaves 
cash as "money is more acceptable to them at this Period of the Year 
as they wish to lay it out in little matters of finery etc. for Xmas." 
Ewart limited the amount of stock which each slave could have, probably 
9 John Stewart, A View of the Past and Present State of the 
Island of Jamaica (1823, rpt. New York, 196977 267. 
56 
because they were kept in the plantation pen. He wrote to Lord Penrhyn, 
"I found several negroes had 4 or 5 head of Stock and I expressed a wish 
that each negro shall have but one meaning that they should distribute 
them amongst their children and relations or sell them to the Estate 
to which they readily agreed and several were transferred from one negro 
to another." The slaves apparently wanted to keep the stock, as none 
availed themselves of the option of selling stock to the estate. Ewart 
did not mention whether slaves who received the cattle paid those who 
had formerly owned them. It may have been that those who divested them-
selves of stock transferred the animals to members of their family and 
actually retained control over them.^ 
In their kitchen gardens slaves raised numerous fruits and 
vegetables. Fruit trees may have included coconuts, oranges, mangoes, 
akees and avocadoes. Some may have had small stands of bananas, the 
local staple plantain, and various indigenous vegetables such as yams, 
eddoes, okra and calalu. Although slaves had to be concerned initially 
with providing adequate food for themselves and their families, many 
were also able to produce a surplus which they could sell. 
Slaves controlled the disposal of cash crops elsewhere within 
the environs of the plantation. On John and Charles Ellis's Caymanas 
Estate slaves apparently laid claim over all the coconut trees on the 
plantation. The yield from marketing the fruit of a single coconut 
1 0 Rev. John Riland, Memoirs of a West India Planter (London, 
1827), 151 ; 1788, Charles Gordon, Account Current with Francis Grant, 
Gordon of Buthlaw and Cairness Papers, 1160/6/61, University of Aberdeen 
Library; David Ewart to Lord Penrhyn, 26 October 1807 and 8 December 
1807, Penrhyn Castle Papers, 1479 and 1495, University of the West Indies. 
57 
tree was about £5:6:8 (one doubloon) per annum, so control of this 
abundant plant meant the possibility of substantial earnings. Slaves 
on the Caymanas Estate were able to exert influence in their claim to 
this crop. Reportedly, when some coconut trees had to be felled to make 
way for the construction of an overseer's house, the slaves who 
claimed title over them received remuneration, although the trees were 
not actually growing in their gardens.1^ 
Slaves grew most of the crops they consumed and marketed in 
the provision grounds. Although slaves grew a variety of plants, by 
far the most important crop in the provision grounds was the plantain, 
and much of the land was laid out in walks of that staple. Slaves kept 
little stock at the provision grounds because they could not give the 
animals sufficient attention, although, according to Thomas Cooper who 
had spent some time in Robert Hibbert's estate, they did keep some goats 
12 
there, presumably tethered or hobbled. 
The Consolidated Slave Acts of Jamaica (1792) decreed that 
planters "allot and appoint a sufficient quantity of land for every 
slave . . . and allow such slave sufficient time to work the same, in 
order to provide him, her, or themselves, with sufficient provisions 
for his, her, or their maintenance." The Act deemed "sufficient time" 
11 The Jamaica Journal, 1 (November 1818), 312-318. 
1 2 Thomas Cooper, Correspondence Between George Hibbert Esq. 
and the Rev. Thomas Cooper Relative to the Condition of the Negro 
Slaves in Jamaica (London, 1824), 37. 
58 
to be "one day in every fortnight, to cultivate their own provision 
grounds, exclusive of Sundays, except during the time of crop."13 
According to John Stewart, a Jamaican planter, the amount of 
land adult slaves received as provision grounds was "about half an acre." 
Those with families got "an additional proportion of land." Provision 
grounds comprised the land unsuitable for sugar cultivation. In devel-
oping plantations, this was a function of distance. In their early 
years, plantations put the land closest to the sugar works into cane 
and allotted slaves provision grounds at a farther distance. As plan-
tations developed, the allotment of provision grounds became a function 
not only of distance but also of quality. Mature sugar estates ulti-
mately put into cane as much of the suitable land as possible. Slaves 
therefore got as their provision grounds lands unfit for sugar: the 
less fertile scrub and uplands. These were usually at the periphery 
of or even outside the estates, a considerable distance from the slave 
villages. William Hylton, an American who had settled in Jamaica as a 
sugar planter, lamented that the distance from the slaves' homes to 
their provision grounds led to fatigue. Another planter expressed simi-
lar misgivings, pointing out that the provision grounds were sometimes 
miles from the plantation. Such extensive travel and the arduous work 
at their grounds debilitated slaves already overworked by plantation 
labor. William Beckford described the process. If slaves got Saturday 
off, they would travel to the provision grounds, which were sometimes 
1 3 Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the 
British Colonies in the West Indies (1793, rpt. New York, 1972J, II, 
145, 15s: 
59 
five to seven miles distant. There they would spend the day working 
their grounds, returning in the evening with enough provisions for them-
selves for the coming week and for sale at Sunday market. If the slaves 
only got Sunday off they would have to go first to the provision grounds 
and then to the market, and in so doing would have to travel consider-
able distances, to say nothing of the work they had to do at their 
14 grounds and at market. 
Although the Consolidated Slave Acts mandated "one day in every 
fortnight . . . exclusive of Sundays, except during time of crop," 
actual practices varied. Slaves did no plantation work on Sundays. 
Those capable and willing devoted this day to working in their provi-
sion grounds and at market—Sunday was market day throughout Jamaica. 
The number of "negro days" other than this was not as uniform, and 
various plantation journals reflect this disparity. The work schedule 
for the Rose Hall plantation, for example, lists slaves, during harvest, 
"taking days" in their grounds only on Sundays. Harvest lasted from 
January through May. For the rest of the year, slaves were "taking 
15 
days" twice a week, on Sunday and either Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. 
On Braco Estate in Trelawny, overseer James Galloway's work 
book showed an eight-week spell of harvest labor assignments from 8 
1 4 John Stewart, A View, 267; Letter from William Hylton, 26 
June 1808, MS 670, Institute of Jamaica, Kingston; [A Jamaica Planter], 
Observations upon the African Slave Trade, and^ on the Situation of 
Negroes in the West Indies (London, 1788), 29; Beckford, A Descriptive 
Account, 152-3. 
1 5 Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, II, 158; Rose Hall 
Journal, 1817-1822, IB/26, No. 1, Jamaica Archives, Spanish Town, 
Jamaica. 
60 
May to 26 June 1796, which listed work schedules for every day except 
Sundays. Nothing was recorded for the eight Sundays, so one may infer 
that the slaves were "taking days" then, for in the following year, 
throughout harvest time, the notation for each Sunday read "in their 
grounds." In the twelve weeks, all out of crop, between 1 October and 
18 December of that year, the slaves had "negro days" on six occasions 
both on Saturday and Sunday, on four occasions both on Friday and Sun-
day, and twice only got Sunday off. Apparently, they received compen-
satory time out of crop for not having had their days off every other 
week during the harvest. There was thus established on Braco a work 
pattern which predated by twenty years any comparable legislation. It 
was not until 1816 that an act for "the better regulation and government 
of slaves" incorporated this principle by mandating 26 "negro days" per 
annum, an average of one every other week both in and out of crop. 
Another example shows that slaves on Braco were accustomed to the 
philosophy of compensatory time. Slaves who had been working in the 
mountains, perhaps at the pen, and had not been able to spend their 
usual time in the provision grounds were recompensed on their return. 
The work schedule for Friday 22 August 1797 recorded regular plantation 
work for all slaves on the plantation "except those who lost their day 
while in mountains [who were] in their grounds."1^ 
It was, of course, in the planters' interest that the provision 
grounds be well kept and productive, because they supplied the slaves 
with most of their food. This partly explains why the tradition of 
1 6 Braco Estate Journal, May 1795-November 1797, 4/2, Jamaica 
Archives; Geo. Ill, c. 25 (.1816), An Act for the Subsistence, Clothing 
and the Better Regulation and Government of Slaves. 
61 
"negro days" was not interfered with; extant plantation records con-
sistently show that slaves got at least one day a week off throughout 
the year. Many slaves, however, put these "negro days" to additional 
use: not only to raise enough food for their consumption, but also to 
produce a surplus for sale. With such compelling interests at stake, 
it is likely that if planters had attempted to abridge the number of 
"negro days," slaves would have resisted. Slaves were in a position to 
shape such work relations. If their traditional rights were abrogated 
they could sabotage the plantation's operations in various ways. To 
paraphrase John Blackburn's testimony quoted above, planters did not 
want the slaves to be discontented and careless of their own and the 
plantation's property.17 
Earnings accumulation through the sale of surpluses produced 
in gardens and grounds was tremendously important in the development 
of the internal economies of slave communities in Jamaican sugar 
estates. To fully understand the dynamics of this process of accumula-
tion, however, one must place it within the context of both plantation 
and island societies. 
In the first place, a terribly exacting work regime, over and 
above the labor expected of them by the planter, confronted slaves who 
undertook to raise surplus provisions for market. Before dawn and in 
the evening, after a full day's labor, these slaves had to tend their 
stock, which also meant gathering fodder. They spent lunch-times 
("dinner break" in plantation terminology) in their shell-blow grounds, 
1 7 Testimony of John Blackburn, Report from the Committee, 40, 
43. 
62 
thus getting little rest from their morning's exertion before returning 
to the fields until sunset. They spent "negro days" and Sundays in 
their provision grounds and at market, usually travelling considerable 
distances between their homes, their grounds, and the market. There-
fore they faced extensive travel and a great deal of hard work. Often 
all of this had to be done in a single day, Sunday. At the provision 
grounds, the slaves had little time to tend their allotments of land. 
The soil was usually the most inhospitable scrub or high land in the 
area, less fertile and harder to work than the acreage in cane. In 
the brief time at their disposal, slaves had to tend their crops as 
best they could and harvest what they were to eat during the week ahead 
besides what they wanted to sell at market. Then, perhaps on the same 
day, they journeyed to market with their load of provisions, which they 
sold or bartered before returning to the plantation. One can 
readily see that this was a considerable undertaking, one which required 
both physical ability and strong commitment. 
A division of labor may have evolved from this schedule because 
of the time constraints. Women in Jamaica have traditionally domi-
nated the retail side of a still-flourishing market system, the charac-
teristics of which, as Sidney Mintz points out, were formed during 
slavery. This may have resulted from the difficulty of tending the 
crop, harvesting it, and transporting enough for both home consumption 
and market, all in the same day. J. B. Moreton, in his study of Jamai-
can slavery, indicates that slaves "who lived in pairs together, as 
man and wife, Iwere] mutual helpmates to each other," and one may con-
jecture that the women became the market retailers in what were family 
63 
endeavors. The system would have entailed husband and wife going 
together to the provision grounds and quickly harvesting the produce to 
be sold. The wife then took it to market, spending the rest of the day 
selling it (retailing may have been more compatible with other women's 
roles such as child-rearing), while the man tended the grounds and har-
vested enough for the family's consumption. In any event, slaves com-
18 
mitted tremendous energy and effort to raising and selling their crops. 
Allied to the consideration of the exacting work regime is the 
recognition that not all slaves could or would undertake it. Not all 
slaves were able to grow surplus produce, so not all slaves were 
involved in at least this aspect of the internal economy, and the accu-
mulation and disposal of earnings derived from it. Those consistently 
excluded from profiting financially from this pursuit fall into two 
categories: the physically unfit and those unwilling to commit them-
selves to the exacting labor involved. 
The unfit included the aged, the infirm and disabled, the sick, 
and the young. No matter how willing, they were physically unable to 
take part fully in marketing produce. Some were able to contribute to 
the effort (the superannuated and the children often looked after stock 
and worked in the kitchen gardens), but the extent to which they bene-
fited was often limited to the extent of their involvement. Those 
who could not contribute at al1 fared worse. There were also slaves who, 
3 Sidney W. Mintz, "The Jamaica Internal Marketing Pattern," 
Social and Economic Studies, 4: 1 (March 1955), 95-103; J. B. Moreton, 
West India Customs anc Manners (London, 1793), 150. 
64 
although physically able, did not commit themselves to the effort. 
They were thus also deprived of whatever psychological and material 
benefits accrued from controlling property and commerce and garnering 
earnings. 
Some slaves not involved with this arduous aspect of the inter-
nal economy took part in some of its other components, while others, 
by virtue of kinship or community ties, were incidentally involved in, 
and thus benefited from, the sale of provisions. For example, children 
and other relatives incapable of full participation in growing and mar-
keting produce nevertheless shared in the profits gained by the active 
adults of the family. 
Jamaican planter Gilbert Mathison contended that "every well-
conditioned Negro on a plantation keeps one or more pigs, and poultry, 
or trafficks in tobacco, or sells his surplus provisions at market." 
In noting that "those less fortunate suffered from poverty," however, 
Mathison recognized that not everyone could profit from raising sur-
pluses. He deplored the poverty and poor diet of the many slaves who 
could not even raise enough, to supply themselves. This group, he 
noted, comprised the idle, the sick, the old and those with a large 
number of children: in fact, the very people least able to withstand 
poverty and want.19 
Indeed, circumstances often militated against even those slaves 
who, through their exertions, could expect to profit from marketing 
1 9 Gilbert Mathison, Notices Respecting Jamaica in 1808-1809-
1810 (London, 1811), 30, 39-40. 
65 
produce. Slaves invested most of their time and acreage to raising 
plantains, and provision grounds often were little more than extensive 
groves of this staple. Plantain, like its relative the banana, is the 
fruit of a tall and delicate tree, on which the autumnal tropical 
storms of the Caribbean frequently wreaked havoc. When their staple 
crop was wiped out in this way, slaves had to revert to their various 
ground provisions, especially root crops, which suffered less damage. 
Even this expedient could prove inadequate, however, and slaves, far 
from profiting from the sale of surplus provisions, were faced with 
starvation and in dire need of supplemental food allocations from the 
plantation. 
The overseer on. Nathaniel Phillips' Pleasant Hill Estate 
recorded just such an occurrence. A gale in early November of 1791 
caused so much damage to the slaves1 provision grounds that he was 
"obliged to purchase for the support of the Negroes." It was not until 
mid-April of the next year that he recorded "that the period is nearly 
arrived again when they'll be able to go to market with Plantains, as 
usual." It was not until mid-June of 1792, however, more than seven 
months after the storm, that he wrote to Phillips that the slaves were 
20 
"now selling Plantains on Sundays as usual." 
Slaves on Charles Gordon Gray's St. James Parish sugar estate 
suffered similarly in 1812. A storm had so injured the provision 
grounds that many of the slaves did not have sufficient food. Gray 
o n 
^ Letters from Thomas Barritt, Pleasant Hill, Jamaica, to 
Nathaniel Phillips, London, 2 November 1791, 10 April 1792, 13 June 
1792, Nathaniel Phillips Papers, 8384, 8392, 8397, University of the 
West Indies, Mona. 
66 
recorded that slaves spent additional days in their provision grounds 
and plantain walks trying to repair the damage. These efforts met with 
limited success, since even three months later Gray noted, "the Negroes 
21 
are complaining of Hunger as Plantain is a rarety." 
The time and energy of even the most industrious of slaves was 
often quickly eradicated. Horticultural practice, which relied heavily 
on the delicate plantain, and the fierce tropical weather, which the 
fall hurricane season frequently brought, could combine to devastate 
provision grounds. If this happened, slaves, far from accruing wealth 
from the sale of surpluses, could not even feed themselves. Earnings 
potential through the sale of surplus produce was thus based on an 
arduous work regime which many slaves were either unwilling or physi-
cally unable to undertake. Further, the entire economic endeavor was 
in constant jeopardy because of an over-reliance on the plantain. 
The weekly markets held throughout the island serve as another 
example of the centrality of the labor of slaves to virtually every 
aspect of the Jamaican economy. Their exertions resulted in "the vast 
quantities of provisions, vegetables, and fruits" which William Sells 
saw "brought to Kingston market." According to Gilbert Mathison, 
slaves were the Kingston market's exclusive suppliers of such commodi-
ties as poultry, pigs, fruit and vegetables, a pattern repeated 
throughout the island. As suppliers of virtually all such fresh pro-
duce, slaves involved themselves extensively in the commerce of Jamaica. 
21 Letters from Charles Gordon Gray to his father, 26 November 
1812, 18 February 1813, MST 163, Institute of Jamaica. 
67 
In this case, however, unlike other aspects of the island's commerce, 
slaves not only created the wealth, but also accumulated it and direc-
22 
ted its disposal. 
Growing and marketing fresh produce involved groups other than 
sugar plantation slaves. All slaves had rights to provision grounds 
and "negro days," and could engage in the internal market system. A 
business as extensive and lucrative as provisioning the whole island 
doubtless also attracted the entrepreneurial talent of members of the 
free black population, many of whom lived as a landed peasantry. Most 
slaves in Jamaica, however, worked on the plantations that raised the 
principal crop, sugar, and they had a correspondingly high involvement 
in the market system. Moreover, the extent and profitability of the 
system demonstrates its importance to the economic activities of these 
slaves. 
In addition to fresh provisions, slaves bought and sold a wide 
range of commodities at market. These included various artifacts manu-
factured on the plantation, notably basketwork, pottery and woodwork. 
Thus slaves unable or unwilling to engage in the physically demanding 
labor of raising provisions, or with the skills and aptitude for craft 
work, could take part in the market's economic activities through 
various cottage industries. A broad range of slave community members 
engaged in this aspect of the trade. Although Bryan Edwards disparaged 
the quality of these goods, some of the finer articles were made by 
22 
Wi 11 iam Sells, Remarks on the Condition of the Slaves iji 
the Island of Jamaica (London, 182TJ\ 11; Mathison, Notices, 1. 
68 
slave tradesmen who, in their spare time, turned their skill to their 
own profit. Incapacitated and elderly slaves who spent much of their 
time at the slave village also manufactured various goods for sale. 
Other members of the community devoted spare time during breaks from 
23 
work, evenings and days off, to such activities. 
Descriptions by contemporary observers of the Sunday markets 
describe both the variety of goods on sale and the slaves' domination 
of the trade. Bryan Edwards, for example, claimed slaves raised pro-
visions for market, and some also made "a few coarse manufactures, such 
as mats for beds, bark ropes of a strong and durable texture, wicker 
chairs and baskets, earthern jars, etc. for all which they [found] ready 
sale." "Sunday is their day of market," described Edwards, "and it is 
wonderful what numbers are then seen, hastening from all parts of the 
country, towards the towns and shipping places, laden with fruits and 
vegetables, pigs, goats, and poultry, their own property." He estimated 
"that upwards of 10,000 assemble every Sunday morning in the market of 
Kingston, where they barter their provisions, etc. for salted beef and 
pork, or fine linen and ornaments." Although Edwards shared a typical 
planter outlook in depicting slave life as an Arcadian idyll, which it 
certainly was not, he and others, like Gilbert Mathison, showed much 
consistency in their descriptions of the weekly markets, which other 
letters and journals corroborate. In sum, the evidence indicates that 
slaves controlled these markets, and therefore an important sector of 
O 1 
" Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, II, 125. 
69 
the island's internal commerce, without any real impediment.24 
Slaves on their weekly sojourn to town or to market had the 
opportunity of spending any money they had accumulated. Although the 
revenue from selling goods they produced contributed to their cash hold-
ings, they had other sources, principally gifts, theft and gambling. 
Money, sometimes in significant amounts, entered the slaves' 
internal economy by way of gifts and incentives from planters and their 
agents. A few slaves on Nathaniel Phillips1 plantation, for example, 
received an "Xmas Box" containing a small sum of money. In December 
1788, out of a slave population of about 300, 21 slaves, all male, 
received cash gifts ranging from six shillings and eightpence to two 
shillings and sixpence. The following year, 54 slaves, both male and 
female, got from thirteen shillings and fourpence to one shilling and 
eightpence, the average gift being about five shillings. These 
Christmas presents probably went to privileged slaves: drivers, sugar 
boilers, distillers, tradesmen, perhaps domestics and others in posi-
tions of influence and authority. Not all planters emulated the prac-
tice followed on the Phillips' estates. James Chisholme told the over-
seer on his Trouthall Estate that he never gave slaves money at Christ-
mas nor would he countenance doing so in the future. When they dis-
tributed cash, planters consistently exhibited the ulterior motive of 
wanting to influence in some way the behavior of slaves. While one may 
infer this from the case of a small minority of slaves in Phillips1 
2 4 Ibid., II, 125; Mathison, Notices, 1. 
70 
estates receiving money at Christmas, in other cases it was more readily 
apparent.25 
Slaves received cash payments as a result of planter concern 
over slave fertility. The net natural decrease of the slave population 
greatly worried planters. Especially when the abolition of the slave 
trade became a possibility, and then actuality, they undertook various 
measures to promote circumstances in which slave women bore more chil-
dren. Some planters, for example, sought to promote an increase in the 
number of children born by rewarding those concerned: the mothers, of 
course, and often the medical attendants. 
In a letter to Lord Penrhyn, attorney Rowland Fearon explained 
the practice he employed on Penrhyn's plantations: 
To encourage the Midwives to perform their duty with attention and 
ability, every Child she brings me one Month old, as a reward, 
I give her 6/8 and the Mother of the infant 3/4 to buy the stranger 
a Fowl to commence its little stock in life. 
Penrhyn's agent on his King's Valley estate followed a similar practice: 
As soon as the Month is out [i.e., when the baby is a month old], 
every Mother comes to me with the Child, and I give her two dollars 
in Money, with some other little thing for the Child--I also give 
the Grandee, or Midwife, two dollars—for in this Country I have 
observed that a good deal depends upon her attention and good will--
Since I took charge of Kings Valley [2-3 months ago] I have had the 
pleasure of paying two in this way, and I hope I may have many more--
I also give the Mother two dollars when she weans the Child." 
2 5 Diaries, 1788 and 1789, Nathaniel Phillips Papers, MSS 9418, 
9419; Letter from James Chisholme, Bath, to James Craggs, Vere, Jamaica, 
5 December 1803, Letterbook of James Chisholme, Papers of William and 
James Chisholme, MS 5476, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. 
Letter from Rowland W. Fearon, Clarendon, Jamaica to Lord 
Penrhyn, 26 January 1805, Penrhyn Castle Papers, MS 1361; Ewart to Penrhyn, 
6 August 1807, Penrhyn Castle Papers, MS 1477. 
71 
The code of regulations Gilbert Mathison required his overseers 
to follow stipulated that the midwife be given ten shillings for every 
child she delivered that reached the age of one month. (By the age of 
one month, the child had survived the period of greatest risk of con-
27 
tracting tetanus, the principal cause of infant mortality.) 
The private papers of Jamaican planters abound in similar ref-
erences to cash payments encouraging child-bearing. Ezekiel Dickinson 
counselled his nephew Caleb to make "it in the Interest and Wealth of 
breeding Women to be particularly attentive to Nursing and breeding up 
their children." He desired "that the Breeding Women and Midwives . . . 
[have] some pecuniary reward." The attorneys to John Foster Barham1s 
sugar plantation in Westmoreland recommended "giving the Mothers some-
thing handsome," the sum suggested being "a couple of Doubloons," and a 
year later mentioned that "Every woman bringing up a Child, attended 
by the Midwife, commonly about the expiration of the Month receives 28 
26/8 and . . . the Midwife of late receives the same sum of money." 
Planters also offered inducements of food, clothing and other 
gifts to women who bore children. Since the slave women probably wore 
and consumed these commodities on the plantation, they would have had 
little effect on the internal economy. In other cases, however, this 
was less true, as one can see from another of the policies adopted on 
2 7 Mathison, Notices, 107-117. 
2 8 Ezekiel to Caleb Dickinson, 6 May 1786, Papers of Caleb and 
Ezekiel Dickinson; Grant and Webb to Barham, 11 August 1810, Webb to 
Barham, 14 September 1811, Barham Papers. 
72 
Barham's plantations in the vain attempt to check the net natural 
decrease of the slave population. The attorney wrote: 
I am holding forth every Judicious encouragement to the Women in 
rearing their Children, and shall now adopt the plan you propose of 
allowing those mothers who are deserving to keep a Cow or two for 
the benefit of themselves and children—this can be done by my pur-
chasing a Heifer for each instead of giving them money, this I have 
suggested to them with which they are very well pleased--I have also 
indulged them in having the Stone wall rebuilt round their Houses 
for the benefit of their raising hogs.29 
Rewards to women who had children and to midwives who delivered 
them, along with Christmas gifts to some slaves, comprised the princi-
pal ways in which planters gave slaves money. Less common occurrences 
included rewards to slaves for learning a trade and as a means of influ-
encing the actions of newly purchased slaves. 
Ezekiel Dickinson, concerned with the high cost of hiring 
tradesmen, advised his nephew to reward slaves for apprenticing to a 
trade on the plantation. He noted "the large payments made Barton 
Estate for Tradesmen's Labour," and pointed to "the great advantage 
arising from bringing up Young Slaves under experienced tradesmen either 
White or Black, which I recommend to your notice by giving them a yearly 
30 
consideration for their encouragement." 
Dickinson, who owned four plantations in the parish of St. 
Elizabeth, also proposed rewarding slaves who assisted with the process 
of seasoning slaves recently arrived from Africa, which he had purchased 
?Q " Webb to Barham, 2 September 1812, Barham Papers. 
3 0 Ezekiel to Caleb Dickinson, 23 November 1784, Ezekiel and 
Caleb Dickinson Papers. 
73 
to supplement the plantations' labor force. The seasoning of "bozale" 
African slaves involved not only acclimatizing them to Jamaica's weather 
and disease environment, but also acquainting them with the system of 
slavery and, the planters hoped, reconciling them to a life of bondage. 
In trying to achieve this, planters meted out various punishments and 
rewards. Dickinson also recognized the importance of the "bozales"' 
peer group, the slave community present on the plantation, in influenc-
ing their behavior. From the context of the letter to his nephew, he 
appeared unhappy with the socialization process of previously purchased 
slaves. He therefore tried to influence the new "bozales"' behavior 
to suit his interests by sending a slave in whom he had trust to the 
pen in the mountains where the new slaves underwent acclimatization 
prior to taking residence on the sugar plantation itself, Dickinson 
recommended that the "trusty" be rewarded for his efforts. 
The purchase you have made of ten young Men and Boys is much to my 
satisfaction; hope to hear they turn out well. Would it not be right 
to fix on the Penn at Delacross a Black Person of Character which 
might be the means of preventing these young men you have placed 
there from falling into the like errors and vices their predecessors 
have done; such a Person would be intituled to some reward for his 
fidelity.31 
Similar references, to rewarding and encouraging slaves indicate 
that it was a common practice for planters to signify their approval 
or appreciation by small cash gifts. Slaves could also get cash 
rewards from agencies outside the plantation. The Consolidated Slave 
Act of Jamaica (1792) mandated such a policy in cases where slaves acted 
31 Ezekiel to Caleb Dickinson, 11 May 1785, Ezekiel and Caleb 
Dickinson Papers. 
74 
in the interests of the plantocracy. Slaves who caught runaway slaves 
or assisted in their capture by supplying information got a reward "not 
exceeding twenty shillings." Slaves who killed other "slaves in actual 
rebellion" received £3, and if they took the rebel slaves alive, the 
reward was £5 "and a blue cloth coat, with a red cross on the right 
shoulder."32 
Slaves thus had various opportunities to involve themselves in 
the cash economy of the island. Off the plantation, money was an 
important medium of exchange at the weekly markets, and slaves who acted 
in accordance with the stipulations of the Consolidated Slave Acts could 
receive cash bounties. On the plantation, slaves received money in the 
form of gifts and rewards for behavior approved by the planters, and 
as payment or compensation for stock and provisions. Opportunities also 
occurred on the plantation for slaves to sell their labor. Although 
planters purchased and held sole title to slaves, they could not exert 
commensurate control. Planters could make only limited demands on the 
time and labor of slaves. As noted above, slaves on the Braco estate 
who lost their "negro days" while doing plantation work received com-
pensatory time off. In other instances, slaves got cash payments. The 
accounts for Hugh Hamilton's plantations record payments "to the Negroes 
attending the [Indigo] Vatts on a Sunday." Slaves thus profited mone-
tarily from the small industry of indigo-making practiced as a sideline 
33 on the sugar plantation. 
3 2 Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, II, 149-50. 
3 3 Accounts, Hugh Hamilton and Company, settled 31 December 1784, 
Indigo Account, Hamilton of Pinmore Papers, Scottish Record Office, Edin-
burgh. 
75 
Again it is important to note that not all slaves benefited from 
whatever cash economy the slave community took part in. On most sugar 
plantations, cash had a limited circulation and an uneven distribution 
among members of the slave society. On the other hand, it is unlikely 
that any slave plantation community had none. Plantation policy and 
even the legislative structure of the island incorporated the conven-
tion of cash payments to slaves, and, of course, by extension, the 
slaves' right to control the accumulation and disposal of such monies. 
Few slaves in Jamaica left first-hand records of their experi-
ences. Any assessments the historian makes about slave life must rely 
on a judicious use of the copious records left by the plantocracy. Such 
documentation, which includes plantation records, an extensive body of 
published literature, and voluminous government records, indicate the 
widespread incidence of theft among the slave population. Accepting 
for a moment the accuracy of these observations, questions arise concern-
ing the morality of the act of stealing. 
The prevailing philosophical and religious dogma of the time 
clearly condemned the action. This was reflected in the codes and 
behavior of both the slave and non-slave communities. What is clearly 
seen in the laws of Jamaica and the Weltanschauung of the plantocracy 
vis-a-vis the discountenancing of theft may be inferred from the 
activities of the slave community. John Stewart made reference to vari-
ous uses of obeah, a fetishistic religious belief which had the capa-
bility, among other things, of preventing or revenging crimes on a per-
son whom its powers protected. Stewart noted that an obeah fetish, 
placed in the gardens or grounds of slaves became "an excellent guard 
76 
or watch, scaring away the predatory runaway and midnight plunderer with 
more effective terror than gins and spring-guns." He also recorded its 
use by slaves wanting revenge for crimes perpetrated on them. Robert 
Renny, another Jamaican planter, substantiated Stewart. In his History 
of Jamaica, Renny described how slaves, if robbed by members of their 
community, went to the obeah men in order to discover the culprit. The 
aggrieved slave purchased an obi, which comprised a farrago of mater-
ials such as blood, feathers, parrots1 beaks, dogs1 teeth, alligators' 
teeth, broken bottles, grave dirt, rum and eggshells. This was then 
"stuck in the thatch, hung over the door of a hut, or up on the branch 
of a plantain tree." The obi instilled such fear in the thief that he 
would "tremble at the very sight of the ragged bundle, the bottle or 
the egg shells." Bryan Edwards also referred to obeah being used by 
34 
slaves to detect a thief among their fellows. 
The preceding evidence indicates that both slave and non-slave 
communities condemned theft. Neither group, however, universally con-
demned the act. This study is not concerned with the grand larceny 
perpetrated by the plantocracy in, to paraphrase Eric Williams, steal-
ing Africans to work lands they stole from the Indians in America, nor 
with any other of that group's felonious activities. It is concerned 
with the incidence of theft in the slave community, and particularly 35 its contribution to the internal economy. 
3 4 John Stewart, A View, 278-9; Robert Renny, A History of 
Jamaica (London, 1807), 172; Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, II, 
W. 
3 5 Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (London, 1964), 9. 
77 
The differential application of the condemnation of theft, as 
perpetrated and judged by the slave community, hinged on the status of 
the victim. Slaves on sugar plantations lived in a bifurcated social 
system: the two components were slave black and free white. Simply 
stated, slaves condemned intra-group theft and condoned inter-group 
theft to the extent that it was perpetrated by members of the slave 
community. John Stewart, in the history he wrote of Jamaica, mentioned 
the duality with which slaves regarded theft: "to pilfer from their 
masters they consider as no crime, though to rob a fellow slave is 
36 
accounted heinous." 
Intra-group theft, when slaves stole from slaves, precipitated 
actions on the part of the victim to locate the perpetrator. Inter-
group theft, when slaves appropriated the property of the plantation, 
or that of the white residents, was apparently not condemned by the 
slave community. One should recognize, therefore, that the value-laden 
word theft is only appropriate in viewing the action from the perspec-
tive of the plantocracy who, of course, to a man condemned such acts. 
Slaves exhibited consistency in their rationalization of "stealing" 
from the plantation or the planter. Their common attitude argued "What 
I take from my master, being for my use, who am his slave, or property, 
he loses nothing by its transfer." This was obviously a rather glib 
rationale, but it exhibited a kernel of the slaves1 philosophy on such 
acts, an extension of which encompassed a condemnation of both the 
3 6 John Stewart, A View, 249. 
78 
person and the institution responsible for depriving them of their lib-
erty. Such "thefts," therefore, should be viewed not only as the relo-
cation of the various goods of a property holder, but also as 
resistance to the individual slave-holder and the system of slavery. 
The "thefts" had an additional attraction for slaves. Not only were 
they part of an extensive system of resistance, but they also could 
37 
benefit the perpetrators by improving their diet and life style. 
To resolve the question of the frequency of theft among slaves, 
one must return to the planters' records. Undoubtedly slaves perpe-
trated both intra-group and inter-group thefts, and the,indications 
are that the latter was widespread. The former, of course, would have 
been less fully documented because of the exclusion of whites from much 
of the community activities of slaves. Slaves had, in the form of obeah, 
an internal authority structure with which to regulate crime, so much 
of the intra-group theft was beyond the ken of whites. 
Even so, there remains evidence of intra-group theft. As noted 
above, Edwards, Renny and John Stewart referred to intra-group theft 
in their descriptions of obeah. These and similar testimonies by other 
planter-historians indicate that the gardens and provision grounds of 
slaves were the most frequent targets for theft by other slaves. Tre-
lawny planter James Stewart maintained that slaves would "steal the 
provisions of their neighbours at the time their own grounds yield 
abundance," while an anonymous article on the condition of slaves 
published in Quarterly Review contended that improvident slaves 
79 
subsisted by stealing from their "owner, neighbours, or fellow-slaves." 
Such theft could not be carried out with impunity. Slave grounds were 
on occasion protected by obeah fetishes, and often guarded by members 
of the slave community. William Beckford had a low opinion of the cali-
bre of such policing. He saw invalid, crippled and superannuated slaves 
sent to watch the provision grounds, and disparaged their ability to 
perform such guard duties because he observed that some of them were 
not able to walk, let alone run, in the prosecution of such work. As 
can be seen from the following entry in the accounts of slave deaths 
on the Worthy Park plantation, however, some plantations were more 
efficiently guarded: 
March 27 [1793] Roman shot by one of the Watchmen 
belonging to Tydixton Park named 
Watty in their Negroe grounds 
stealing provisions. 
The records of slave deaths on Nathaniel Phillips1 Pleasant Hill Estate 
include: 
Aug. 19 [1811] Tom of a chop in the head received 
at Winchester in the act of 
stealing a hog. 
Slaves raised most of this kind of stock on the estate, so it is likely 
that the hog Tom was stealing on the neighboring plantation of Winches-
ter belonged to a fellow slave. The accounts of the demise of Roman 
and Tom suggest that the category of intra-group theft may be sub-
divided into inter-[slave] community and intra-[slave] community theft. 
Slaves, therefore, were possibly less reticent about stealing from 
80 
slaves on neighboring estates than from members of their own plantation 
38 community. 
One can imply that, if slaves had guns with which to perform 
guard duties, thefts from "negro grounds" comprised a widespread source 
of concern. Such sporadic references to these thefts, as are cited 
above, probably do not accurately reflect the prevalence of the crime 
throughout the Jamaican plantation system. The frequency with which 
slaves perpetrated inter-group theft, however, dwarfs the extent of 
their involvement in intra-group theft. 
Planters constantly referred to slaves' proclivity to steal. 
Both James and John Stewart used precisely the same term in describing 
this; they maintained slaves were "addicted to theft." Robert Renny 
viewed slaves as "thievish," and J. B. Moreton referred to them as 
"born thieves." Even abolitionist Thomas Cooper asserted that slaves 
were "addicted to thieving," while the anonymous fictional piece Marly: 
or a Planter's Life in Jamaica contains the passage "whenever you see 
a black face you see a thief." Extant court proceedings, such as 
those of the "Record Book of Court of Parish of St. Ann 1787-1814 -
Slave Court," bear witness to the widespread incidence of theft. 
OQ 
James Stewart, A Brief Account of the Present State of the 
Negroes in Jamaica (Bath, T792), 18; Anon., "Condition of the Negroes 
in our Colonies," Quarterly Review, 29: 58 (1823), 489-90; Beckford, 
Remarks, 17; Increase and Decrease of Negroes, 1793, Worthy Park Plan-
tation Book, 1791-1811, Worthy Park Estate Papers, 4/23-3, Jamaica 
Archives; Increase and Decrease of Slaves on Pleasant Hill, Nathaniel 
Phillips Papers, MS 9502. 
81 
Robbery, along with running away, various assaults and arson comprised 
39 
the most frequently cited crimes. ~ 
The bulk of the evidence concerning the amount of stealing per-
petrated by slaves rests on the most impressionistic of the evidence 
left by planters: their published histories and recollections. They 
indicate the pervasiveness of "thefts" among slaves on the island. 
Indeed, judging from the consistency with which slaveholders throughout 
the Americas referred to the "thievery" of slaves, it seems to have 
been endemic to the peculiar institution of black slavery. 
A different picture emerges, however, if such actions are viewed 
4 
not as theft but as resistance to enslavement, and the appropriation and 
redistribution of illicitly accrued wealth. Slaves' clandestine steal-
ing from the planter and plantation attacked the institution of slavery 
by diminishing its profitability to the slavocracy. The coerced labor 
of slaves created the wealth of the plantation, and the colony func-
tioned to protect this system of forced labor. Jamaica's wealth, which 
accrued from slave labor, was vested in those who coerced the work, not 
in those who performed it. If the relationship between labor and value 
in slavery is viewed in this way, one must reconsider whether the 
reappropriation of wealth by those who created it can legitimately be 
termed "theft." As a tool of resistance these actions had considerable 
OQ 
^ James Stewart, A Brief Account, 18; John Stewart, A View, 
249; Renny, A History, 166; Moreton, West India Customs, 161; Thomas 
Cooper, Facts Illustrative o£ the Condition of the Negro Slaves in 
Jamaica (London, 1824), 17; Anon., Marly; or a Planter's Life in Jamaica 
(Glasgow, 1828), 36; Record Book of the Court of Parish of St. Ann -
1787-1814: - Slave Court, MS 273, Institute of Jamaica. 
82 
advantages over other methods. Stealing was a clandestine act which 
was relatively easily perpetrated but difficult either to prevent or 
detect. It thus had advantage over other forms of resistance such as 
assault. Also, it led not only to the diminution of the victim's 
wealth but to the aggrandizement of the perpetrator's. As such it per-
formed a dual function not present in acts of resistance like arson or 
the poisoning of livestock. 
Not all such actions fall into the category of resistance, how-
ever, nor did their proceeds all enter the internal economy. Much of 
the appropriation of plantation property comprised the desperate 
actions of deprived and hungry slaves acting from the motive of sur-
vival. A series of statements by the attorney on Georgia Estate to 
absentee owner Charles Gordon exemplified this. Writing to Gordon 
through the autumn of 1781, the attorney Francis Grant noted: 
We are making a little rum from the Molasses on hand, but they will 
yield very little, and the Negroes, impelled by hunger, have 
lessened the quantity considerably by frequently breaking into the 
Curing house. For sometime past they have had nothing to support 
them of their own. . . . 
I believe I shall be forced to cut canes sooner than I could 
wish to prevent their being destroyed by Negroes, for not only your 
own but your Neighbour's are making very free with them of late not-
withstanding some of the best and [obscured] People belonging to you 
are watching them. 
A month later he attributed the low sugar yield "to the Negroes steal-
ing the Canes which it was impossible wholly to prevent." Even into 
the next year he asserted that the harvest was slow because "the 
83 
Canes were mostly destroyed by Negroes during the late Scarcity of Pro-
visions. 1,40 
Whereas in the above case, a scarcity of provisions appears to 
have affected the entire slave community of the plantation, some slaves 
experienced this deprivation throughout the duration of slavery. For 
whatever reasons, some slaves always needed supplies they could not pro-
vide for themselves. For example, provision grounds may have failed, 
or some slaves may have been unable to get their grounds planted or 
may have been too sick to tend them. When slaves faced deficiencies, 
as they did to a greater or lesser extent at all times throughout the 
slavery period, they could revert, as did the slaves on Gordon's 
Georgia Estate, to appropriating supplies from the plantation. 
Some planters manifested concern over the possibility of depri-
vation among the slave community. Gilbert Mathison, for example, in 
the codification of regulations for his overseer insisted that slaves 
who, for whatever reason, had abandoned or neglected grounds be fed 
"abundantly" from the plantation store. Nevertheless, there was wide-
spread malnutrition and dietary deficiency among slaves, who, in their 
state of need, took supplies from the plantation without the authoriza-
tion of the planter. One therefore must temper any assessment of the 
impact of inter-group theft on the internal economy with the recogni-
tion that not all the proceeds of these activities entered the economy. 
4 0 Letters from Francis Grant, Georgia Estate to Charles Gordon 
of Cairness, near Fraserburgh, Scotland, 27 August 1781, 23 September 
1781, 23 January 1782, 6/14(2), 6/15(1), 6/21, Gordon of Buthlaw and 
Cairness Papers. 
84 
While the proceeds of some thefts entered the internal economy, other 
stol en goods, particularly foodstuffs, were consumed directly by slaves 
41 to avert want and starvation. 
Appropriations of the plantation's property, however, not only 
helped compensate for any deficiencies suffered by slaves, but also could 
contribute to the growth of their internal economy. According to the 
fictional account of plantation life, Marly, slaves referred to the 
"Calibash Estate" as a metaphor for their depredations on the goods of 
the plantation. Slaves used calabashes as containers into which to divert 
quantities of the plantation's rum, sugar and other produce. The cala-
bashes which provided the activity with its metaphorical title facili-
tated the storage and transportation of such commodities. To extend the 
metaphor, the capitalization of all the "Calibash Estate's" property 
42 
occurred at the weekly markets. 
Planters were at a disadvantage in trying to deal with the 
unauthorized appropriation of the plantations' property. Not only were 
whites tremendously outnumbered by slaves, but they could look for little 
assistance from anyone but their own community in detecting those respon-
sible. The slave community in general sanctioned the action of taking 
plantation property. Moreover anyone who performed such actions was 
shielded by his fellow slaves. Planters who sought information within 
the slave community as to the identity of a perpetrator probably returned 
empty handed. Plaintive comments about this abound in the planters' 
4 1 Mathison, Notices, 107-17. 
AO , Tl~ Anon., Marly, 43. 
85 
records. For example, Charles Gordon Gray, in a letter to his father 
from his St. James Parish plantation, wrote that the slaves "lately broke 
open my Fowl House and took away 12 Fowls. I have not found out the 
thief." Nor, on a plantation with 171 close-mouthed slaves and a hand-
ful of whites, was it likely that he would. What is more likely is that 
when he stocked his larder with purchases from the market that week, he 
bought back his own chickens, all neatly plucked and trussed. The mar-
kets were, of course, the primary supplier of domestic provisions to 
everyone, black and white, slave and free, on the island.43 
Planters recognized that they were at a disadvantage regarding 
their susceptibility to having their goods taken from them by slaves. 
Their principal recourse was to vigilance, preferably by fellow whites. 
When supervision over slaves diminished, the extent to which they seized 
the plantation's property rose accordingly. The possibility of just 
such an occurrence caused Nathaniel Phillips1 overseer Thomas Barritt to 
bemoan the continuance of martial law at the time of the Trelawny_ Maroon 
Rebellion in 1795. Whites who would normally be overseers and bookkeep-
ers had to perform the military duties attendant with the provisions of 
martial law, and therefore they were unavailable to supervise the har-
vest. Barritt complained, "if this Military Duty should continue during 
Crop, we shall be much puzzled how to take them [the canes] off, and 
there will be great pilfering going on, as we shall be obliged to trust 
much to the Negroes." Here was a clear recognition of how slaves 
4 3 Charles Gordon Gray to father, 17 July 1810, MST 163, Insti-
tute of Jamaica. 
86 
regarded the plantation's property. It also provides the historian with 
an insight into the dynamics of white/slave relations and the very deli-
cate balance of power between the two groups. Where the balance was 
disturbed there was a corresponding adjustment of expectations and 
44 
behavior. 
Disproportionate punishments for slaves convicted of theft fur-
ther illustrate the planters' ineffectiveness in controlling the activ-
ity. The plantocracy sought to institute a structure of punishments 
whose severity would compensate for the inadequacy of preventative mea-
sures. Slaves convicted in court for theft received punishments which 
incorporated hard labor in the workhouse and whipping. The records of 
the St. Ann Parish Slave Court show slaves receiving stipulated terms 
in the workhouse, from a matter of days or months up to life for theft. 
A specified number of lashes, for example 39 lashes each week for a given 
length of time, invariably accompanied these sentences. A local journal, 
the Columbian Magazine, recorded the proceedings from the trial of a 
slave named William Wynter of Hampshire Estate in St. Thomas in the 
Vale. He was found guilty of breaking into the estate's still-house 
and stealing rum, and was sentenced to two years hard labor in the work-
house with 39 lashes every three months until the expiration of his 
term. Colonial Office documentation of slave trials includes the sen-
tence of 3 months in the workhouse with 25 to 39 lashes going in and 
25 to 39 lashes coming out for the crime of receiving stolen coffee. 
Other sentences meted out included transportation off the island for 
4 4 Barritt to Phillips, 13 November 1795, 9210, Nathaniel 
Phillips Papers. 
87 
stealing sheep and execution for stealing steers. In cases where slaves 
were transported or executed the planter received in cash the valuation 
45 
the court placed on the slave. 
Court trials were atypical; more often planters dealt directly 
with slaves who had been caught appropriating the plantation's property. 
Plantation justice invariably meant that the slave was whipped, and 
this punishment may have been accompanied by some form of incarceration 
or restriction of the slave's movements. Slaves, for example, would be 
shackled and confined in the hot-house except for when they were taken 
to work in the fields each day. 
A paucity of sources prevents an accurate assessment of the 
volume and profitability to the slave community of inter-group theft. 
One can imply, however, from the frequency with which it was referred 
to, and the almost resigned attitude planters had to the incorrigibility 
of slaves vis-a-vis theft, that such activities were widespread. If 
one accepts the ubiquity of inter-group theft, one can reasonably infer 
that it made a significant contribution to the cash accumulation by 
slaves and, by extension, to the internal economy as a whole. Drawing 
on the efforts of probably tens of thousands of slaves, the "Calibash 
Estate" was perhaps one of the most lucrative concerns on the island. 
The sources similarly do not reveal which slaves took part in 
inter-group theft. Presumably not all slaves were prepared or 
45 
Record Book of the Court of the Parish of St. Ann, Institute 
of Jamaica; Columbian Magazine, 7 (September 1799), 126; C.O. 137/147, 
Trials of Slaves, 1 July 1814 to 30 June 1818, Public Record Office. 
88 
motivated to accept the risks attendant to these activities. Inter-
group theft, however, did affect the lives of a much larger group of 
slaves than just those directly involved. It comprised a substantial 
source of profit which caused a corresponding impact on the internal 
economy of slaves. Slave communities were intimate groups who had, as 
is shown below, very fluid economies. Thus the gains derived from inter-
group theft had an effect on those slaves who involved themselves in 
any of the economy's components. 
A large part of the slaves' economic activities as buyers and 
sellers centered on the weekly market There they disposed of the com-
modities they had raised, made or appropriated. It was also where they 
purchased various consumer goods. 
The markets supplied most of Jamaica's fresh produce, primarily 
raised by slaves, and therefore drew purchasers from all classes on the 
island. Slaves retailing this produce based their transactions either 
on barter or cash. In their dealings with other tradespeople at market 
they bartered, while the medium for transactions involving persons 
there solely as purchasers was cash. 
Although slaves provided most of the agricultural produce for 
market, other groups traded there. The Rev. Richard Bickell's descrip-
tion of Kingston market noted that there: 
were Jews with shops and standings as at a fair, selling old and 
new clothes, trinkets, and small wares at cent, per cent, to adorn 
the Negro person; there were some low Frenchmen and Spaniards, and 
people of colour, in petty shops and with stalls; some selling their 
bad rum, gin, tobacco, etc.; others salt provisions, and small arti-
cles of dress; and many bartering with the Slave or purchasing his 
surplus provisions to retail again. 
89 
Another contemporary commentator indicated the involvement of traders 
other than slaves: 
The Sabbath was . . . almost the only time plantation negroes had 
for the culture of their grounds and vending their commodities at 
the public markets, which are held on this day; from which irreligi-
ous and impolitic custom the lower Jews who keep shops are particu-
larly benefitted: the negroes taking the sole opportunity of being 
in town to supply themselves with cloth, and foreign p r o v i s i o n . 
The ubiquitous higglers comprised the one other group, along 
with the plantation slaves and white retailers, involved in the vending 
side of the weekly market. Slaves and free blacks made up this group, 
and they essentially played the role of middle men in the marketing 
process. 
In cases where slaves either did not want to make the trip to 
market or did not intend to spend market day retailing their produce 
themselves, they reverted to trading with higglers. This group jour-
neyed throughout the island buying up produce, manufactures and appro-
priated goods which they in turn would sell at market on Sundays. Their 
margin of profit, of course, was the difference between what the plan-
tation slave would accept in order to be rid of the work of transporting 
and selling the goods himself, and the higher price which the goods 
would fetch when retailed at market. Higglers also bought up produce 
on Sundays when the slaves arrived with it in town. This indicates the 
willingness of slaves to give up some margin of profit in order to put 
their time in town to other uses. 
4 6 Rev. Richard Bickell, The West Indies As They Are (London, 
1825), 66; Anon., "Characteristic Traits," Columbian Magazine, 3 (August 
1797), 168. 
90 
Higglers, in their transactions with plantation slaves, dealt 
in either barter or cash. It was an occupation which involved members 
of the non-plantation slave population and also probably some members 
of the free black and free colored populations. A contemporary descrip-
tion of their activities, albeit a somewhat jaundiced one, shows clearly 
the scope of their activities. 
HIGGLERS 
In the towns there is a species of occupation very agreeable to the 
indolent and desultory disposition of the negroes. They are sent 
abroad by their owners, to work out as it is called, for which 
liberty they are obliged to pay a certain rate per week or month. 
. . . Turned loose on the community, they are guilty of every kind 
of fraud and forestalling, to make up their respective allotments. 
They are the receivers and venders of stolen goods and occasionally 
thieves themselves; the most honest part of their employment being 
to monopolize roots, greens, fruit,, and other edibles, which they 
purchase from the country negroes, and retail at exorbitant prices.47 
Many of the dealings between plantation slaves and others trad-
ing at market involved barter, although there was some cash used. 
Slaves also dealt with those wishing only to purchase goods. In such 
instances, with no exchange of commodities, cash was the trading medium. 
The purchasers in these instances included planters or their represen-
tatives, buying for their own table or supplementing their imported 
provisions, ship chandlers, army quartermasters and townspeople. 
Kingston was a large city hy the late eighteenth century, and a number 
of other ports and administrative boroughs on the island had sizable 
urban populations. Markets were held within the environs of every town 
4 7 Anon., "Characteristic Traits," Columbian Magazine, 2 (April 
1797), 702. 
91 
of any size on the island each week. They were an integral part of 
Jamaica's food supply, well patronized by town dwellers who bought what 
they needed with ready money. This was the principal route by which 
cash entered the internal economy of plantation slaves. 
Planter historian Edward Long, whose History of Jamaica was pub-
lished in 1774, estimated that slaves held a significant share of the 
coin in circulation in the island at that time. His calculations reveal 
that slaves held approximately twenty percent of Jamaica's circulating 
coin, and this comprised about sixteen percent of all coin then on the 
island. (See Table 1-1.)48 
Long does not reveal the source of his data, and himself acknowl-
edged the speculative nature of the calculations. Nevertheless, they 
were part of an extensive and informed consideration of the economy of 
the island which, in the absence of any other data, at least offers a 
general indication of the relationship of the cash component of the 
slaves' internal economy to the economy of the island in general. One 
must bear in mind that the figure of £10,437:10:0 incorporated the cash 
holdings of all 170,000 slaves on the island, not just the approximately 
49 
105,000 who worked on sugar plantations. 
Long bemoaned the shortage and debasement of Jamaica's coin, 
and exhibited some concern over the decreasing amount of the small cur-
rency units which slaves traded in. For example, he condemned the 
Edward Long, The History of Jamaica (1774, rpt. New York, 
1972), I, 537. 
4 9 Ibid., I, 496. 
92 
Table 1-1 
Coin in Circulation in Jamaica, 1776 
Quantity of coin in present circulation 
in Jamaica £ s d 
The Negro slaves possess, chiefly in small silver, about 10,437 10 0 
The rest of the inhabitants 39,562 10 0 
50,000 0 0 
And there rests inert or uncirculat-
ing, in the chancery chest, treasury, 
and private hoards about 15,000 0 0 
65,000 0 0 
Source: Edward Long, The History of Jamaica (1774, rpt., New York, 
1972), I, 537. 
93 
intra-Caribbean trade in mules, horses and cattle. Jamaica's role was 
as a purchaser, and this had dire consequences for the island's currency 
supply: 
This trade drains away much of the old hammered silver, and the 
milled ryals, and indeed renders them so scarce, that it is to be 
feared, the want of them must some time or other prove very distress-
ful to the Negroes, who would fall into a miserable state if ever 
the island should be deprived of small silver.50 
Longls analysis contained two solutions which he contended would 
facilitate the trade carried on by slaves: 
It has been proposed to obtain a small silver milled coin from 
Britain, appropriated to the circulation within the island; that is 
to say, such a quantity of it as might enable the housekeepers and 
Negroes to carry on their marketing for butcher's meat, poultry, hogs, 
fish, corn, eggs, plantains, and the like. 
The solution Long preferred involved putting copper coins of small 
denomination into circulation. These, he argued, would: 
supply to a great extent, the necessities of the internal commerce; 
whilst, at the same time, they would establish a measure for the 
lowest kinds of barter, or traffic, that can be carried on by the 
Negroes, and poorer housekeepers, who are put to great difficulty 
and loss, by having no other than a silver currency, of too high 
value for their ordinary occasions. The inhabitants would grow more 
thrifty than at present they are: for they [are] accustomed to handle 
none other but a silver coin* the lowest denomination whereof is 
equal to fivepence sterling. 
In addition to the shortage of currency, slaves suffered loss 
through the debasement of the silver coinage in circulation. Long 
5 0 Ibid., I, 549. 
51 Ibid., I, 562, 571. 
94 
referred to the "notorious clippers" who trimmed off part of the coin's 
silver. They then exchanged the coin at face value rather than the 
value by weight which had been lessened to the extent that it had been 
clipped. Slaves no doubt were part of the group of "notorious clippers," 
but Long indicated that they were also victims of currency debasement. 
He accused white traders of profiting from the trade by accepting 
debased coins at an assessed part of their face value and then return-
ing them into circulation in the market at the face value. According 
to Long, slaves lost out at both ends of this deal. "Debased currency 
circulated] chiefly in the retail branch of internal commerce; in which 
its passage from one person to another [was] so rapid, that its imper-
fections escape[d] notice." This, he said, mainly affected slaves: 
for they have their dealings chiefly with the retail shopkeepers, 
who are a sort of middle-men between them and the merchant importers; 
these shopkeepers, who, for the major part are Jews, look with great 
circumspection on the coin they receive, knowing, that if it is too 
much depreciated, it will not pass on the merchant; whenever there-
fore they take diminished money from the Negroes, it is with design 
to profit upon them; and this is usually managed, by giving but a 
trifling value of their goods for it; and then, by watching for 
opportunities to change it for heavy money; and, as the light money 
reverts into circulation, and can have no outlet by trade, so it 
continues to run current so long as any heavy money can be picked 
up; when this is exhausted, the shopkeepers begin to cry down the 
light and counterfeit coins; the Negroes are unable to carry on 
their traffic; and a general confusion ensues. 
One would suspect that the trading and financial acumen of slaves 
regularly dealing at market was more refined than Long indicated. 
Whether or not he was accurate in his assessment of such victimization 
of slaves, his analysis does reaffirm the extensive involvement of 
52 slaves in Jamaica's cash economy. 
5 2 Ibid., I, 573. 
95 
Retailing the goods they brought was only one of the activities 
slaves engaged in at the weekly market. Invariably they were also there 
as consumers bent on purchasing various commodities. Furthermore, con-
sistent with the traditions of many other peasant and rural peoples, 
market day had important social implications for slaves. 
Slaves as consumers executed their transactions either by bar-
ter or with cash. Their purchases included clothing and accessories, 
food, alcohol and tobacco and housewares. Slaves, who already monopo-
lized the raising of domestic provisions, were interested primarily 
in purchasing imported provisions at market. Mathison included in a 
list of slave purchases, commodities such as salt pork and beef, cod, 
meat, rice, flour and bread. Bryan Edwards also mentioned that 
53 
slaves purchased salt beef and pork. 
The part of this study devoted to clothing shows the extent to 
which slaves furnished their own garments. The planter supplied only 
work clothes, while the slaves provided themselves with clothes to wear 
outside working hours. They bought at market the finery, jewelry and 
accessories, with which they adorned themselves on holidays or Sundays. 
Many slaves enjoyed smoking and spent some of the money they 
accrued from marketing provisions to the purchase of tobacco and pipes. 
A contemporary commentator observed that "Negroes of both sexes regale 
themselves with smoaking tobacco." Both men and women smoked pipes 
5 3 Mathison, Notices, 1; Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial , 
I I , 125. 
96 
which often had leather caps, covering the bowl and fastened to the 
54 
stem, in order to prevent tobacco and embers falling out. 
At market, slaves had the opportunity to buy various housewares 
and personal items. Included among such purchases were the manufactures 
other slaves had taken to market—bowls, furniture, bed mats, baskets 
and the like—as well as imported manufactures like jewelry, pocket 55 
knives and other metal ware. 
Plantation slaves also apparently bought a lot of alcohol. At 
market there emerged two consumption practices. Slaves bought alcohol 
to take back to the plantation for consumption during the week. They 
perhaps transported it in receptacles similar to those described in 
The Columbian Magazine in 1797. 
The most common utensil is a calabash bottle, stopt with the stem 
on which the Indian corn grows. A cane is sometimes used for this 
purpose, to fit it for which they clear it of the membranes at the 
joints and cork the upper end: a large cane will hold a considerable 
quantity, and serves the double purpose of a bottle and a walking 
stick.516 
Slaves also consumed alcohol when socializing at market. As 
many studies document, the consumption of alcohol is often central to the 
5 4 Anon., "Characteristic Traits," Columbian Magazine, 3 (July 
1797), 108-9. 
5 5 Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, II, 125; Sells, 
Remarks, 11. 
) Anon., "Characteristic Traits," Columbian Magazine, 3 (July 
1797), 109. 
97 
market day activities of rural communities; Jamaican slaves proved no 
57 exception to this practice. 
Weekly markets were the locus of Jamaican slaves' principal 
social activities off the plantation. On their weekly sojourns to town, 
slaves got clear of the regulatory plantation authority, putting dis-
tance between them and the white overseers and book-keepers. The mar-
kets were bustling, crowded affairs, which afforded slaves anonymity and 
a broader scope for autonomous activities than they had, day-in, day-out, 
laboring in a gang under the eye and whip of overseer, book-keeper and 
driver. The factors of distance and anonymity served to loosen, both 
physically and psychologically, the bonds of servitude. Slaves 
reflected in their actions at market the latitude conferred by these 
circumstances. 
The diurnal plantation regulations functioned not only to 
inhibit the autonomy of slaves but also to limit inter-plantation con-
tact. Slaves' nocturnal activities in part compensated for this, and 
planters repeatedly complained of the night ramblings of slaves going 
from plantation to plantation to visit friends and relatives. Other 
than night ramblings and holiday visits, however, slaves from 
5 7 Included in the extensive body of anthropological work on 
this topic are, Paul Bohannon and George Dalton, eds., Markets in 
Africa (Evansville, 1962); Thomas F. De Voe, The Market Book (1862, rpt. 
New York, 1970); Enrique Mayer, Sidney W. Mintz, and G. William Skinner, 
Los campesinos y el wercado (Lima, Peru, 1974); and Robert H. T. Smith, 
ed., Market- lace Trade—Periodic Markets, Hawkers, and Traders in Africa, 
Asia, and Latin America (Vancouver, 1978). ScottishTTterature, of course, 
provides the example of Tam O'Shanter: 
Frae November till October 
Ae market-day [he] was nae sober 
Robert Burns, The Complete Works of Robert Burns (Boston, 1863), 172. 
98 
different plantations had limited opportunities for contact with each 
other. The weekly markets offered the chance to remedy this. Thus, 
going to market not only allowed the slaves to get away from the loca-
tion of their daily grind and from the eye of their daily oppressor, 
but brought them in closer contact with their fellows. The laxity of 
regulation and surveillance at market permitted them to indulge, with 
little impediment, in whatever activities they chose. 
The first indication of how slaves regarded their visits to 
market comes from the way in which they prepared for them. Going to 
market was an occasion for some to dress up in their Sunday best: 
clothes which they had acquired by their own efforts. They therefore 
not only put the plantation behind them, but also divested themselves 
of the identifiable accoutrements of slavery, plantation garb. Gilbert 
Mathison, for example, stated that many of the slaves who went to mar-
ket were "dressed in finery." Others, who either had no finery, or 
were unwilling to wear it for the working and walking entailed in 
going from plantation to provision grounds to market and back, wore 
work clothes. (Appendix 1-a comprises a contemporary print of a Jamai-
58 
can slave woman on her way to Sunday market.) 
The activities of slaves at market differed little from the 
market day experiences of many other rural populations in Europe, North 
America and elsewhere. The early part of the day they spent in carry-
ing out their tasks as purveyors and purchasers. This was a time of 
great activity and bustle. Mathison recollected the noisiness as slaves 
5° Mathison, Notices, 3. 
99 
and others indulged in loud and extended bargaining over their transac-
tions. As the commercial activity of the market diminished in the later 
part of the day, social activities took over. Having completed all 
their transactions slaves took time to visit with friends and perhaps 
spend some of the money they had made earlier in the day on food and 
drink. Rum shops ministered to the needs of the slaves: 
Many houses are kept for their [the slaves'] entertainment, where 
they have a meal of coarse bread, salted fish and butter, and a bowl 
of new rum and water for one ryal, which is about five pence ster-
ling. 59 
The extent to which the planters and others condemned the drink-
ing and socializing probably reflected its popularity with slaves. Rev. 
R. Bickell complained that very often slaves spent the money accumu-
lated from selling provisions on "new destructive rum, which intoxi-
cate[d] them, and drownfed] for a short time, the reflection that they 
[were] despised and burthened slaves." He noted that "the drunkenness 
of some with the imprecations and obscenities of others put one in mind 
of a pandemonium." Dr. John Williamson, who practiced on the Earl of 
Harewood's St. Thomas in the Vale estate, mentioned that market day 
was "concluded by scenes of excess and brutal debauchery," while another 
contemporary observer noted that, after slaves had disposed of their 
goods at market, they frequently went to "regale and debauch" themselves 
before going back to the plantation. Edward Long also complained of the 
5 9 Anon., "Characteristic Traits," Columbian Magazine, 3 (July 
1797), 108. 
TOO 
latter part of the Sunday "being uselessly dissipated in idleness and 
lounging, or (what is worse) in riot, drunkenness, and wickedness."60 
Post-market festivities also allowed slaves to indulge in the 
pastime of gambling where they had the opportunity of adding to their 
day's gains (and also, of course, of losing their shirt). The author 
of an anonymous article which appeared in a Kingston journal in 1797 
claimed that male slaves were addicted to gambling and that many gam-
bling houses in Kingston accommodated their habit. As gaming houses 
were illegal in Jamaica precautions had to be taken by proprietors, but 
apparently few were discovered or suppressed. In other cases, in order 
to prevent discovery, slaves retired to secluded open air venues to 
gamble—Kingston burial ground was one such place. The article's author 
contended that slaves played a number of gambling games, including not 
only cards and dice, but also some of their own devising. In these 
games slaves apparently bet sums of money against stolen goods.^ 
Clearly, there was a wide range of social activities in which 
slaves indulged after market. No doubt the Rev. R. Bickell accurately 
perceived that slaves imbibed spiritous liquors as a way of drowning 
their sorrows and putting the day-by-day realities of slavery behind 
6 0 Bickell, West Indies, 66; Anon., Negro Slavery; or a View of 
Some of the More Prominent Features of that State of Society as it Exists 
in the United States of America and in the Colonies of the West Indies 
especially in Jamaica~TLondon, 1823), 57; Anon., "Characteristic Traits," 
Columbian Magazine, 3 (August 1797), 170-1; Long, History, II, 492. 
6 1 Anon., "Characteristic Traits," Columbian Magazine, 3 
(August 1797), 168-9. 
101 
them momentarily. In addition, the rum shops offered an opportunity for 
conversation and cameraderie in an atmosphere less readily found on the 
plantation.62 
Whites viewed slaves1 activities on market-day with distaste 
and, in times of unrest on the island, with alarm. They recognized that 
large congregations of slaves over whom there was little surveillance 
potentially threatened the security of the island and the safety of the 
white minority. One such instance of this came as a consequence of the 
Haitian Revolution in the early 1790s. News of this slave rebellion 
caused Jamaican planters to reconsider the security of the island. 
They were especially unhappy about the fact that virtually all of the 
male slaves regularly attending market carried cutlasses or machetes. 
Since these work tools were also potentially offensive weapons, the 
whites decided to deal with the problem on the next market day. They 
were thwarted, however, because the slaves came to market that day 
without their cutlasses. This further discomfited the whites not only 
because it showed slaves were reluctant to be disarmed, but also because 
of the rapid dissemination throughout the slave population of the infor-
mation that whites planned to take steps against cutlass-bearing slaves.' 
The weekly market, therefore, gave slaves opportunities to 
indulge in a panoply of social activities deprived them on the planta-
tion. Many of these social activities, however, depended on the 
6 2 Bickell, West Indies, 66. 
6 3 C.O. 137/90, Correspondence, Public Record Office. 
102 
slaves' financial competence; that is, depended on the success of their 
trading activities earlier in the day. For example, grog cost money 
and it took money to gamble. The contact which slaves had with non-
slave groups at the market provided the inflow of ready cash into their 
internal economy. This in turn depended on the control slaves had over 
domestic provisions and manufactures. As Edward Long pointed out; 
In this island they [the slaves] have the greatest part of the small 
silver circulating among them, which they gain by sale of their hogs, 
poultry, fish, corn, fruits, and other commodities, at the markets 
in town and country. 
The market was therefore a crucial component in the slaves' internal 
economy. Those who had readiest access to it and the greatest amount 
of commodities to offer stood to profit most. Many, however, found 
themselves excluded from this trade and thereby economically disadvan-
* ^ 6 4 
taged. 
Some slaves could compensate for their lack of mobility or lack 
of access to markets by trading the provisions they raised and the goods 
they appropriated to higglers. Others were unable even to profit in 
this way. All slaves who lived on plantations, however, were part of 
slave communities which had internal economies and economic activities 
in which cash was invariably one of the exchange media. The internal 
economy within plantation slave communities affected more slaves than 
those involved in the market activities on a Sunday. If the Sunday mar-
kets were the source of much of the revenue which fuelled the internal 
economy, the plantation community was the base of much of its activity. 
6 4 Long, History, II, 411. 
103 
Bryan Edwards maintained that slave-owners never interfered with 
any wealth accumulated by slaves at market or elsewhere. He insisted 
that those who had property or capital could dispose of it in any manner 
they thought fit. Through bartering, buying and selling at market, 
slaves converted much of their earnings and resources into consumer 
goods. Some of the profit accrued at market, however, returned with 
the slaves to the plantation in the form of cash. Slaves either spent 
65 
this money at a subsequent market or on the plantation, or saved it. 
Jamaican slaves based their plantation economies, in part, on 
cash. Most of the money injected into this system had been brought 
back by slaves from market. This meant that slaves other than those 
involved in the market dimension of the internal economy shared in a 
cash economy. By providing various services and commodities on the 
plantation, slaves could be part of the plantation economy and its cash 
component, although not directly involved in the weekly markets which 
were the source of much of this revenue. 
The capture and sale of rats on the plantation, for example, 
provided income. Rats infested the cane fields and caused extensive 
damage to the sugar crop. Planters either employed slaves as rat-
catchers or offered a bounty for those caught. The bounty on some 
plantations comprised "a quantity of rum, proportioned to the number 
taken, which is known by the number of tails." The rest of the 
rat's body was also a marketable commodity. The consumption by slaves 
of rat's meat was apparently a widespread dietary practice. It caused 
Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, II, 125. 
104 
one commentator to claim that the bounty for catching rats was unneces-
sary as "the animals themselves are sufficient inducement for taking 
them, as they [the slaves] eat them with as much satisfaction as we 
[planters] should some species of game. On the plantation that pro-
vided the setting for the novel Marly, the slave delegated the respon-
sibility for catching rats in turn sold them to other slaves on the 
plantation for food. Slaves, incidentally, nicknamed rats "Sir Charles 
Price" after a leading Jamaican planter. Plantation records contain 
few references to rat catching and selling activities, and it is there-
fore difficult to determine their extent. If, however, slaves con-
trolled the sale of the twenty rats a day which one slave on Charles 
Gordon Gray's St. James Parish estate reportedly caught, it obviously had 
the potential of being quite a lucrative endeavor.66 
When slaves attended community celebrations and festivities, 
they purchased food and drink from those who had prepared it. J. B. 
Moreton's description of West India Customs and Manners indicates that, 
on these occasions, such fare as "strong liquors" and various dishes 
of swine, poultry, salt beef, pork, herrings, vegetables and roasted 
rats were divided into calabashes and sold at a bit and a half bit per 
67 serving. 
Slaves unable or unwilling to raise their own crops could find 
work in the grounds of other slaves. An anonymous article on the 
6 6 Anon., "Characteristic Traits," Columbian Magazine, 3 (July 
1797), 107; Anon., Marly, 46; Charles Gordon Gray to father, 16 August 
1810, MST 163, Institute of Jamaica. 
6 7 Moreton, West India Customs, 155-6. 
105 
condition of slaves, published in the Quarterly Review in 1823, contended 
that slaves who were "too improvident to cultivate their provisions" 
sometimes worked in the provision grounds of others and in return 
received "a small allowance for their present wants." It may be, there-
fore, that those unable to or unwilling to invest their time extensively 
in raising their own provisions were part-time beneficiaries of the 
provision ground/market system. They probably were not involved in the 
marketing aspect, and had no control over the grounds or the crop, but 
ca 
exchanged their labor for a share of the proceeds.uu 
The practice of obeah involved the transferal of money. The 
value which the rare and obscure components of the amulets, fetishes 
and charms had was compounded by the magical qualities vested in them 
by the obeah practitioner. In his post-Emancipation study of obeah in 
the West Indies, Hesketh Bell mentioned, "the most valuable of the sor-
cerer's stock, namely, seven bones belonging to a rattlesnake!s tail--
these I have known sell for five dollars each, so highly valued are 
they as amulets or charms." He went on to comment on "how profitable 
was the trade of Obeah-man." Similar practices of buying charms and 
fetishes must have been carried out by slaves on sugar plantations 
69 
seventy or one hundred years earlier. 
Various reports relevant to slave deaths offer the historian 
further evidence of the vitality of the internal economy. Both Edwards 
6 8 Anon., "Condition of the Negroes," Quarterly Review, 29: 58 
(1823), 489-90. 
6 9 Hesketh J. Bell, Obeah; Witchcraft in_ th<e West Indies (1889, 
rpt. New York, 1970), 16. 
106 
and Long maintained that slaves made bequests of capital and property 
on their deaths. Edwards claimed, "they are permitted . . . to dispose 
at their deaths of what little property they possess: and even to 
bequeath their grounds or gardens to such of their fellow-slaves as they 
think proper." Long contended that: 
the black grandfather, or father, directs in what manner his money, 
his hogs, his poultry, furniture, cloaths, and other effects and 
acquisitions, shall descend, or be disposed of, after his decease. 
He nominates a sort of trustees, or executors, from the nearest of 
kin, who distribute them among the legatees, according to the will 
of the testator, without any molestation or interruption, most often 
without the inquiry, of their master; though some of these Negroes 
have been known to possess from 50£ to 200£ at their death; and few 
among them, that are at all industrious and frugal, lay up less than 
20£ or 30£. For in this island they have the greatest part of the 
small silver circulating among them, which they gain by sale of their 
hogs, poultry, fish, corn, fruits, and other commodities, at the 
markets in town and c o u n t r y . 7 0 
Some indication can be derived from burial ceremonies that slaves 
incurred financial debts. John Stewart's View of the Past and Present 
State of the Island of Jamaica offers evidence of this: 
Previous to the interment of the corpse it is sometimes pretended 
that it is endowed with the gift of speech; and the friends and rela-
tives alternately place their ears to the lid of the coffin, to hear 
what the deceased has to say. This generally consists of complaints 
and upbraidings for various injuries,--treachery, ingratitude, injus-
tice, slander, and, in particular, the non-payment of debts due to the 
deceased. This last complaint is sometimes shown by the deceased in 
a more cogent way than by mere words; for on coming opposite the door 
of the negro debtor, the coffin makes a full stop, and no persuasion 
nor strength can induce the deceased to go forward peaceably to his 
grave till the money is paid; so that the unhappy debtor has no 
7 0 Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial, II, 125; Long, His-
tory, II, 410-1. 
107 
alternative but to comply with this demand, or have his creditor 
palmed upon him, as a lodger, for some time.71 
The internal economies of sugar plantation slaves were charac-
teristically fluid. Edward Long pointed to the fluidity of the market 
system in referring to the rapid circulation of small currency "in the 
retail branch of internal commerce." Slaves were less likely to accumu-
late significant savings than they were to spend, within a short space 
of time, what they had earned. Some slaves saved enough money to pur-
chase their freedom, but typically these were not plantation slaves; 
or, if they were, they held positions of privilege on the plantation: 
tradesmen, domestics and the like. The involvement of most plantation 
slaves in the internal economy was at a much smaller scale. Agricultural 
activities epitomized the small-hoiding pattern: a variety of staples 
suitable for consumption and sale, and a few head of small stock. 
Income derived from these sources may have been supplemented by cottage 
industries, gifts and bequests, "thefts" and appropriation, working for 
remuneration on days off, and sale of goods and services. Slaves spent 
most of the money derived from these activities more or less as it was 
earned, on clothing, food, furniture, tobacco and other consumer items. 
What was not spent at market purchased various goods and services on the 
plantation. Historian Orlando Patterson contends that "very few [Jamai-
can] slaves managed to save anything." There was little opportunity to 
accumulate savings, and Long correctly indicated the atypicality of 
71 John Stewart, A View, 275-6. 
108 
slaves who left £50 to £200 on their deaths. He was also overly sanguine 
79 
in asserting the typicality of bequests of £20 to £30. 
The system of slavery permitted few slaves to prosper and forced 
many into abject poverty. Largely through the assertion and mobilization 
of their own power, however, many members of the slave population of 
Jamaica!s sugar plantations took part in an economy of exceptional 
vitality and diversity. Unimpeded by either the planters or the unten-
ability of their position in law, slaves averred their right to accumu-
late and dispose of cash, and laid claim over property and the disposal 
of their labor. In so doing, despite their de jure status as chattels, 
they involved themselves in a multiplicity of autonomous actions and 
choices such as management, retail and purchasing decisions. 
Slaves' economic activities entailed much hardship and sacri-
fice and promised few opportunities for prosperity. Nevertheless, 
Jamaican sugar plantation slaves established and developed an internal 
economy, the vitality of which stands as testimony both to the courage 
and endeavor of individual slaves and to the strength and vigor of the 
slave community. 
7 2 Long, History, I, 573; II, 410-1; Orlando Patterson, The 
Sociology of Slavery (London, 1967), 229. 
109 
Appendix 1-a 
West Indian Slave Woman Going To Sunday Market 
A contemporary print of a West Indian slave woman on her way to 
Sunday market. Among the wares she is carrying are sugar cane, pine-
apples, poultry, a calabash and a bottle. Note also the elaborate 
clothing and accessories worn by the woman and the person with whom she 
is talking. 
Source: Reproduced in Susanne Everett, The Slaves (New York, 1978), 81. 
no 
Appendix 1-a (continued) 
Chapter 2 
The Internal Economy of 
Sugar Plantation Slaves in Louisiana 
112 
Slaves on Louisiana sugar plantations engaged in a wide range 
of economic activities. The internal economy on Louisiana estates, in 
which slaves accumulated and disposed of money and property, showed 
the same vitality as that developed by Jamaican slaves. In both plan-
tation societies the internal economy was central to slave family and 
community life. 
Louisiana law offered no protection to slaves involved in the 
internal economy. The legal status of slaves defined them as chattels, 
the property of another person. The laws of Louisiana, like the laws 
of Jamaica, conferred on planters extensive rights and powers over 
slaves. 
The modus vivendi established on Louisiana sugar estates, how-
ever, did not come solely from the exercise of the planters' power. 
Slaves also had power that derived from their ability to affect pro-
ductivity. Thus slaves, whose labor created the wealth of the sugar 
plantations, could influence profitability by withholding their labor 
or working less efficiently. Although they risked punishment at the 
hands of the planters, slaves engaged in job actions such as running 
away, malingering, working slowly, feigning sickness, being unrespon-
sive to orders or responsibility, and sabotaging crops, tools and 
livestock. As John Blassingame points out, slaves knew their value 
as workers to the plantation and "parlayed it into better treatment." 
They used their power to shape aspects of plantation life such as the 
quality of housing, clothing and food, and conditions of work. They 
also sought protection for their economic activities and secured 
113 
customary rights that permitted the extensive development of the inter-
nal economy.^ 
Like their Jamaican counterparts, Louisiana slaves controlled 
the use of some land on and around the plantation, where they raised 
livestock and grew crops for their personal consumption and sale. 
Although the crops differed, slaves in both societies held and culti-
vated the land similarly. 
In slave villages, on Louisiana estates, gardens surrounded 
the houses so that occupants could, if they wished, raise a kitchen 
garden and keep some livestock. Travelers often commented on these 
gardens. T. B. Thorpe's 1853 description of slave villages on Louisi-
ana sugar plantations included the observation that: 
in the rear of each cottage, surrounded by a rude fence, you find a 
garden in more or less order, according to the industrious habits 
of the proprietor. In all you notice that the 'chicken-house1 
seems to be in excellent condition. 
In his Diary North and South, London Times correspondent William Howard 
Russell's description of a Louisiana sugar plantation slave village 
included mention of "the ground round the huts . . . amidst which pigs 
and poultry were recreating." He added that "the negroes rear domes-
tic birds of all kinds." On another plantation Russell noted that 
"behind each hut are rude poultry hutches, which, with geese, turkeys 
and a few pigs form the perquisites of the slaves. . . . " A former 
slave, Elizabeth Ross Hite, confirmed the traveler's accounts, recalling 
1 John Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in 
the Antebellum South (New York, 1972), 213. 
114 
"we had a garden right in front of our quarter. We planted ev'rything 
in it. Had watermelon, mushmelon, and a flower garden." Similarly, 
ex-slave Catherine Cornelius remembered the "garden patch, wid mustard 
2 
greens, cabbage, chickens too." 
Louisiana slaves put their kitchen gardens to diverse uses, 
raising a variety of fruits and vegetables, and small livestock, espe-
cially poultry and hogs. The close proximity of these gardens to the 
slave village meant that slaves could work them at odd times through 
the week, as for example, during the midday break and in the evenings. 
Moreover, old slaves, who did little plantation work and spent most of 
their time in the quarters, labored in the kitchen gardens. One 
ex-slave recalled that her grandmother did not go to work in the fields, 
but "would tend to the lil patch of corn, raise chickens, and do all 3 the work around the house." 
2 
T. B. Thorpe, "Sugar and the Sugar Region of Louisiana," 
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 7 (November 1853), 753; William Howard 
Russell, My Diary North and South (London 1863), 371, 396; Interview 
conducted under the auspices of the Slave Narrative Collection Project, 
Federal Writers' Project, Works Progress Administration. Interviewee-
Elizabeth Ross Hite: Interviewer—Robert McKinney: Date—ca. 1940, 
Louisiana Writers1 Project File, Louisiana State Library, Baton Rouge, 
Louisiana; Interview conducted under the auspices of a Slave Narrative 
Collection Project organized by Dillard University using only black 
interviewers. This project developed alongside the Federal Writers' 
Project program. Interviewee—Catherine Cornelius: Interviewer—Octave 
Lilly, Jr.: Date—ca. 1939, Archives and Manuscripts Department, Earl K. 
Long Library, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana. 
Interviewee—Mel inda [last name unknown]: Interviewer — 
Arguedas: Date—ca. 1940: F.W.P. Interviews, Federal Writers' Project 
Files, Melrose Collection, Archives Division, Northwestern State Univer-
sity of Louisiana, Natchitoches, Louisiana. 
115 
Besides their kitchen gardens, slaves had more extensive allot-
ments of land elsewhere on the plantation. There they generally cul-
tivated a cash crop, most commonly corn. While some of the crops raised 
in the kitchen garden were destined to be eaten at the slaves' table, 
this was less true of the crops in the "negro grounds," which they 
raised primarily for market. In addition to corn, slaves grew other 
market staples such as pumpkins, potatoes and hay. Usually located on 
the periphery of the plantation, beyond the land in sugar, the "negro 
grounds" were less accessible than the kitchen gardens. On Houmas 
Estate, an Ascens ion Parish sugar plantation belonging to John Burnside, 
it was "on the borders of the forest" that the slaves "plant[ed] corn 
4 
for their own use." 
Since they were less accessible, the "negro grounds" could not 
be worked in the same way as the kitchen gardens, that is, during spare 
time and at the end of the day. Slaves needed time both to work in 
the grounds and to travel to and from them. Only on weekends, when 
slaves often did no work for the plantation, did they have time to tend 
these more distant grounds. The exception to this rule was during 
sugar harvest, when, in an attempt to gather the crop as swiftly as 
possible to avoid the dangers of frost, slaves worked every day of the 
week. In return, slaves sometimes received compensation for this 
debilitating work in the form of days off at the end of harvest equal 
to the number of Sundays worked. The 1849 plantation journal for Elu 
Landry's estate, for example, recorded that, after completion of the 
4 Russell, My Diary, 399. 
116 
sugar harvest on 20 November, slaves had the following three days off 
(21 to 23 November) for working on Sundays during the harvest. Such 
systems of compensatory time off were common throughout the sugar region 
5 
of Louisiana, and replicated practices found on Jamaican sugar estates. 
Out of harvest, slaves could, if they wished, spend Sundays at 
work in their grounds. On some plantations, moreover, slaves had time 
off other than on Sundays. William Howard Russell claimed that on a 
sugar plantation he visited the slaves had "from noon on Saturday till 
dawn on Monday morning to do as they please." On other plantations, 
however, slaves did regular plantation work for six days and some light 
work for part of the Sunday. Ex-slave Elizabeth Ross Hite recalled 
that "de Sunday wurk was light. Dey would only pull shucks of corn." 
Sunday work usually entailed the performance of a specific task, which 
after completion the slaves could devote the remainder of the day to 
their own activities. Entries in the plantation journal for Samuel 
McCutcheon's Ormond Estate in St. Charles Parish recorded that on 
Sunday, 5 August 1838, the slaves were at work shelling corn and 
gathering fodder till 10:00 a.m.; on 23 September, the men were brand-
ing oxen and the women making hay until noon; and a month later, on 
28 October, the slaves shelled corn until 8:00 a.m. Qn each occasion, 
when they completed the task, the slaves had the rest of the day off. 
Ex-slave Catherine Cornelius recalled a similar system in operation 
on Dr. William Lyle's Smithfield Plantation in West Baton Rouge Parish. 
5 Plantation Diary and Ledger, Landry (Elu) Estate, Department 
of Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. 
117 
On this estate, however, the task work system applied to Saturdays, 
while slaves invariably had Sunday off except during harvest: "dat 
[Saturday] was de day fo' ourselves," Cornelius explained. "We all 
had certain tasks to do. If we finished dem ahead of time, de rest of 
de day was ours.1,6 
Slaves could also devote time out of the annual holiday periods 
to work for themselves. Holidays usually came at Christmas and New 
Year (although these could be delayed -by a late harvest), and perhaps 
at the end of planting, when the crop was laid-by in mid-summer, and 
immediately prior to the commencement of harvest. The holiday before 
the beginning of the sugar harvest was particularly important to 
slaves, for it permitted them to harvest their crops before they were 
expected to labor full-time cutting and grinding cane. Slaves on 
Isaac Erwin's Shady Grove Plantation had two days1 holiday (28 and 29 
September 1849) before the sugar harvest commenced on 1 October. They 
devoted the days to "dig[g]ing their Potatoes & Pinders." Similarly, 
on Valcour Aime's St. James Parish plantation, on the day preceding 
the commencement of the 1851 sugar harvest, the slaves had a "free day 
to dig their potatoes." When such free time was not available for 
harvesting crops, the work had to be done on slaves1 regularly 
scheduled days off.7 
6 Russell, My Diary, 399; Interview with Elizabeth Ross Hite, 
loc. cit.; Plantation Diary, Volume I, 1838-1840, McCutcheon (Samuel) 
Papers, Archives, LSU; Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. cit. 
7 Erwin (Isaac) Diary, Archives, LSU; Plantation Diary of Valcour 
Aime, Louisiana Historical Center, Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans. 
118 
Slaves engaged in a variety of money-making activities besides 
raising crops and livestock for sale. Technological developments in 
the sugar industry permitted Louisiana slaves an opportunity to earn 
money that the Jamaican slaves did not have. Mechanization of the 
grinding and milling of sugar allowed Louisiana sugar planters a 
higher yield and made possible larger harvests than the water-, wind-, 
or animal-powered mills used in late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth 
century Jamaica. The machines used in Louisiana, however, required 
a source of power. Almost without exception, locally-gathered wood 
provided the fuel. Experiments with burning imported coal or canes 
that had already had the juice extracted (called trash or bagasse) 
usually proved unsuccessful because of the expense of coal and the 
g 
slow technological development of the bagasse-burner. 
Louisiana planters, therefore, faced the problem of getting 
enough wood to fuel their sugar mills, and, although wood-gathering 
became part of the regular plantation labor schedule, this source 
proved insufficient for their needs. Planters were always in the 
market for wood, and thus afforded slaves the opportunity to engage 
in a very lucrative endeavor. Slaves collected wood on their days off 
in the summertime and early fall prior to the beginning of the sugar 
harvest. This schedule permitted the slaves to tend and weed their 
o u In October 1858, for example, William Palfrey's "Bagasse 
burner proved a failure." Plantation Diary, 1842-1859, 1867 (Volume 
17), Palfrey (William T. and George D.) Account Books, Archives, LSU; 
In 1842, 225 barrels of "Pittsburg Coal" costing $90.00 were purchased 
for the Gay family's sugar estate. Box 11, Folder 81, Gay (Edward J. 
and Family) Papers, Archives, LSU. 
119 
crops in spring. By summer these crops had grown high enough to be 
laid-by and left until harvest. With their crops laid-by, slaves could 
devote their attention to gathering wood. 
Wood-collecting was onerous, unpleasant work. The wood had to 
be taken from swamp and bayou areas abutting the river-front planta-
tions. Slaves, therefore, either worked from a flat-boat or had to 
stand for long periods in the water. The wood they cut was floated or 
boated out. Invariably, only men did this work, which, although ardu-
ous, was remunerative. In 1849, slaves who cut wood on Lewis Stirling's 
plantations received six bits (seventy-five cents) per cord, while three 
years before, slaves on the Uncle Sam Estate in St. James Parish got 
fifty cents a cord. The price paid on the Uncle Sam plantation remained 
constant through the rest of the antebellum period, for there is a 
journal entry for 25 October 1859: "Paye aux negres pour 2018 Cordes 
Bois —$1009.25," and in the fall of 1861, 61 slaves cut 1598 cords of 
wood and received $799.00. In 1861, the most wood cut by one slave 
was eighty cords and the least was three cords. Most slaves cut 
between fifteen and forty cords. There were, incidentally, some 130 
slaves on the plantation at that time. The Gay Estate in Iberville 
Parish also paid slaves fifty cents a cord for any wood they cut, as 
did Colonel W. W. Pugh on his Woodlawn Plantation in the years 1848-55, 
while throughout the 1850s George Lanaux paid sixty cents a cord to 
9 
slaves on his Bellevue Estate. 
9 Box 7, Folder 39, Stirling (Lewis and Family) Papers, Archives, 
LSU; Box 1, Uncle Sam Plantation Papers, Archives, LSU; Joseph K. Menn, 
The Large Slaveholders of Louisiana--1860 (New Orleans, 1964), 353-4; 
Plantation Record Book 1849-1860 (Volume 36), Gay Papers; Journal 1851-
1860 (Volume 14), Lanaux (George and Family) Papers, Archives, LSU. 
120 
During harvest, sugar mills consumed huge quantities of wood. 
In 1853, for example, slaves on the Stirling family's plantation har-
vested 306 acres of cane, which yielded 533 hogsheads of sugar, 953 
barrels of molasses, and 59 barrels of cistern sugar. In processing 
this crop, the sugar house burned 1,350 cords of wood. The following 
year, the crop of 500 hogsheads of sugar, 833 barrels of molasses, and 
22,242 pounds of cistern sugar required 1,125 cords of wood. William 
T. Palfrey's sugar mill was much less efficient than that of the Stir-
ling plantation. Palfrey ran out of wood during the 1857 harvest after 
the mill "used at least 1800 cords of wood" to make around 440 hogsheads 
of sugar. At this stage, eleven arpents of cane still had to be ground. 
In the following year, after the "Bagasse burner proved a failure," 
he used 1 ,520 cords of wood to make 385 hogsheads of sugar but still 
had 130 arpents to grind. He again ran out of wood, and had to buy 
an additional 253% cords at $4.00 a cord from his son in order to com-
plete the harvest.^0 
Since it took from two to four cords of wood to make one hogs-
head of sugar, huge amounts of wood were required to process Louisiana's 
sugar crop whose annual total twice topped 400,000 hogsheads in the 
decade preceding the outbreak of the Civil War. Time given over to 
wood-collecting in the regular plantation labor schedule could not 
supply all that was required. Contracting for wood off the plantation, 
as William Palfrey found out in 1858, was an expensive proposition. 
The efforts of slaves working in their own time gathering wood thus 
1 0 Plantation Diary 1851-1863, Stirling Papers; Plantation 
Diary 1842-1859, 1867 (Volume 17) W. T. & G. D. Palfrey Papers. 
121 
proved the most effective and efficient means for planters to supple-
ment their fuel supply. It also gave slaves the opportunity to earn 
substantial amounts of money.^ 
The price planters paid slaves for wood (fifty or sixty cents 
per cord) was considerably below the market price. Although slaves 
always had a ready market on the plantation for the wood they cut 
they could not sell it off the estate because planters had sole pur-
chasing rights. In addition to a cash payment per cord, however, 
slaves received other perquisites in the form of tools and equipment. 
Although working for themselves, slaves used the plantation's axes 
and saws, and also had access to the estate's flat-boats, work animals 
and tackle necessary to bring the wood out of the swamp and back to 
the mill. It is also probable that where slaves got special issues of 
clothing, such as boots, for cutting wood as part of the plantation 
work, they used them for their private wood-gathering. Furthermore, 
of course, slaves did this work on land owned by planters, and felled 
12 
trees over which, in law, the planters had title. 
Regardless of relative profitability and price-exploitation, 
a great many slaves throughout the Louisiana sugar region cut wood for 
their own profit. Few extant plantation records fail to mention slaves 
working for themselves, collecting wood for sale to the estate. 
"Statements of the Sugar and Rice Crops Made in Louisiana," 
by L. Bouchereau, (New Orleans, 1871) in Box 1, Folder 1, UU-211, #555, 
Pharr Family Papers, Archives, LSU. 
1 2 Plantation Diary 1842-1859, 1867, W. T. & G. D. Palfrey 
Papers. 
122 
Woodcutting comprised one of the more lucrative of the slaves' eco-
nomic endeavors, and made a significant contribution to the internal 
economy. 
Wood was just one of many goods and services for which planters 
paid slaves. If they desired, slaves could devote as much of their 
free time to filling such needs as they cared. In return, of course, 
they received cash. 
Planters usually would pay slaves to dig ditches. A good and 
well-maintained irrigation system was vital to the sugar estates because 
of the topography of that region of Louisiana and its proximity to the 
Mississippi River. As with wood-cutting, the amount of ditching done 
as part of the regular plantation labor schedule proved insufficient 
to the estates' needs, and planters often reverted to hiring ditchers, 
either gangs of jobbing slaves, or wage laborers. Many planters, 
alternatively or additionally, were willing to pay slaves on the plan-
tation for any ditching they chose to do on the weekends or on holidays. 
The amount paid slaves for this work varied according to the 
type of ditches they dug. On Duncan Kenner's plantation, slaves got 
$3.00 per acre for digging a six-foot ditch, while the payment for 
shallower ditches of one to two feet in depth was from fifty cents to 
$1.00 per acre. The records of W. W. Pugh's Woodlawn Plantation show 
1 3 that digging 344 yards of "cross-ditching" earned slaves $5.50. 
1 3 Diary 1847 (Volume 1), Kenner (Family) Papers, Archives, 
LSU; Plantation Record Book 1849-1860 (Volume 36), Gay Papers; Cashbook 
for Negroes 1848-55 (Volume 6), Col. W. W. Pugh Papers, Archives, LSU. 
123 
Wood-cutting and ditching were, perhaps, the most arduous tasks 
slaves did for the plantation. There were, however, a multitude of 
other jobs they could do. Louisiana plantation records include lists of 
work done by slaves in their spare time, for which they received cash. 
On W. W. Pugh's estate, slaves who made shingles got $3.00 per thousand, 
staves paid $5.00 per thousand, pickets $1.25 per hundred, and boards 
2% cents per four-foot board. Pugh bought shuck collars for 37% cents 
each and hogsheads for 75 cents each. Hauling wood paid 75 cents a 
day since it was light work that entailed driving a cart. Slaves who 
wanted to do regular work for the plantation on Sundays or holidays 
got from $1.00 to $1.25. (This, incidentally, matched the cost of hir-
\14 
ing jobbing slaves .) 
Slaves on the Gay family's sugar estate in Iberville Parish 
also got paid for a variety of jobs on the estate that they did in their 
time off from plantation work: sugar-potting, making hogsheads and 
barrels at $1.00 each, fixing and firing kettles, collecting fodder 
for 1 cent per bundle, making iron hoops, mending shoes at 12% cents a 
pair, counting hoop-poles for 50 cents a day, and serving as watchmen 
at $1.00 a month. Skilled slaves were able to make money during sugar 
harvest. In the mid-1840s the sugar-maker received $30.00 for his 
services at harvest, while his deputy got $15.00; the chief engineer 
and the kettle-setter each got $10.00. The firemen, kettle-tenders 
1 4 Cashbook for Negroes 1848-55 (Volume 6), W. W. Pugh Papers; 
Plantation Record Book 1849-1860 (Volume 36), Gay Papers. 
124 
and the second engineer got $5.00 for the work they did during the har-
15 
vest season. 
On Benjamin Tureaud's estate, slaves received remuneration for 
such work as making bricks, hogsheads, shuck-collars and baskets, while 
on the Wilton Plantation in St. James Parish, estate accounts note 
cash paid to slaves for ditching, "levying," and making rails and hand-
barrows. Such extensive documentation attests that throughout the 
Louisiana sugar region, plantation slaves had numerous opportunities 
to earn money by doing work for the estate.16 
Since a number of the jobs listed above could only be performed 
by tradesmen, they represented an opportunity for slaves skilled as 
coopers, waggoners, blacksmiths and the like to use their training 
for their own profit. Large-scale projects performed by skilled slaves 
were potentially quite lucrative. One set of slave accounts on the 
Gay family's plantation record that a slave named Thornton got $20.00 
for making a cart J 7 
On some estates, the slave tradesmen's plantation labor 
involved a piece-work system in which each worker had to produce a 
specific quantity of items. This system, which was employed on John 
1 5 Oaybook 1843-1847 (Volume 5); Plantation Record Pook 1849-
1860 (Volume 36); "Memorandum relative to payments to negroes Dec. 
1844," Box 11, Folder 81, Gay Papers. 
1 6 Ledger 1858-1872, Tureaud (Benjamin) Papers, Archives, 
LSU; S-124 (9) #2668, Bruce, Seddon and Wilkins Plantation Records, 
Archives, LSU. 
1 7 Plantation Record Book 1849-1860 (Volume 36), Gay Papers. 
125 
Randolph's Nottoway Plantation on the Bayou Goula, afforded the coopers 
an opportunity to make money for themselves by exceeding the number of 
barrels the planter required them to produce. In December 1857, Cooper 
Henry received payment of $19.50 for making 26 barrels and 13 hogsheads 
above his required quota. His fellow-tradesmen Cooper William and 
Cooper Jack got $16.00 and $8.00 for their extra production of 22 
barrels and 10 hogsheads, and 10 barrels and 6 hogsheads respectively. 
Although the plantation records give no indication, it may have been 
that the coopers worked for themselves during the regular plantation 
labor schedule after having completed their set tasks. There is no 
mention of what would have happened had a cooper not fulfilled the 
• ^ * 18 required quota. 
Of course, most slaves were not skilled, and thus were unable 
to benefit, at least directly, from the sorts of paying jobs available 
to the tradesmen. Further, many of the tasks that did not require 
specific skills required great physical stamina. Wood-cutting and 
ditching are two examples. Other than the few jobs which required 
neither of these prerequisites, such as counting hoop-poles and col-
lecting fodder, slaves had few opportunities to work for the planta-
tion in any capacity other than making themselves available for 
whatever day-work the planter delegated. Such work presumably would 
take into consideration the abilities of the individual slaves since 
it was purely a voluntary effort on the part of the slaves. If the 
work did not suit them, they would not do it. Many slaves chose not 
1 8 Journal 6, Plantation Book 1853-1863, John H. Randolph 
Papers, Archives, LSU. 
126 
to do such task work for the plantation, preferring a more independent 
labor system centered on their smal1-holding agricultural activities, 
while others combined working for themselves with working for the plan-
tation . 
Slaves who worked for themselves concentrated on raising crops 
and livestock, hunting and fishing, and collecting and drying a very 
marketable crop that grew in profusion in that part of Louisiana, 
Spanish moss. Although slaves grew a number of cash crops, the prin-
cipal one was corn: poultry and pigs comprised most of their live-
stock. Slaves found a market on the plantation for much of the crops 
and livestock they raised, although they occasionally had other out-
lets such as river traders and markets in nearby towns. Slaves con-
signed their dried moss, and barrels of molasses, to major entrepots 
on the Mississippi, chiefly St. Louis, New Orleans and Natchez. 
Spanish moss (tillandsia usneoides) is a plant indigenous to 
the sugar region of Louisiana. The grayish-green moss, whose hair-
like strands festoon trees, is well-known to anyone who has been in 
that region. Before the advent of man-made fibers, Spanish moss was 
one of the principal commodities used for stuffing in furnishing and 
upholstery. The moss was much in demand, for it was relatively scarce, 
since, despite its abundance in Louisiana and other parts of the 
southern United States, it grew nowhere else on the North American 
continent. There was a demand for as much Spanish moss as could be 
gathered, and slaves in Louisiana were excellently placed to take 
advantage of it. 
127 
Hunton Love, who for the first twenty years of his life had 
been a slave on John Viguerie's sugar plantation on the Bayou Lafourche, 
recal1ed that: 
Once I heard some men talkin' an1 one sed, "You think money grows 
on trees," an' the other one say, "Hit do, git down that moss an' 
convert it into money," an' I got to thinkin' an' sho' 'nuff, it 
do grow on trees. 
This anecdote, taken from a more extensive testimony on slave life 
given by Love in the late 1930s, indicates the importance of the col-
lection and sale of moss to the economic activities of slaves in 
. . . 19 Louisiana. 
The records of various plantations mention that slaves 
exploited the market for moss. On Robert Ruffin Barrow's sugar plan-
tations on the Bayou Lafourche, slaves set aside Sundays for collect-
ing and processing their moss crop, and the accounts of Magnolia 
Plantation, a relatively small sugar estate with a slave population 
20 
of between forty and fifty, recorded payments to slaves for moss. 
The records of the Gay family's sugar estate in Iberville Par-
ish contain much more extensive documentation of moss-gathering, 
1 9 
Interviewee--Hunton Love: Interviewer—unknown: Date--
ca. 1940: FWP Interviews, Louisiana State Library. 
20 
Letter from J. L. Rogers (Overseer), Caillou Grove, to Robert 
Ruffin Barrow, Residence, 29 October 1853, Box 2, Folder 1850s-20; Resi-
dence Journal of R. R. Barrow, 1 January 1857-13 June 1858, (copied from 
original manuscript in Southern Historical Collection, University of 
North Carolina),, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Department of Archives, 
Tulane University, New Orleans; Book of Accounts of the Magnolia Plan-
tation 1829-1853, Louisiana State Museum. 
128 
including the collection and marketing pattern, and payment schedules. 
In the mid-1840s, the plantation was being run by Colonel Andrew Hynes 
and Joseph B. Craighead, while Edward Gay lived in St. Louis and acted 
as agent for the estate's produce. In 1844, Gay wrote to Hynes and 
Craighead suggesting that the slaves pick moss and send it to St. Louis 
where he could guarantee it would sell for a good price. Thereafter, 
moss was an integral part of the internal economy of the slave commu-
nity on the Gay Estate. Within a few months, the first shipment of 
dried moss sold in St. Louis at two cents a pound. Twenty-two slaves, 
two of whom were women, sent in all 9,705 pounds of moss and received 
a total of $162.03 ($196.10 less $34.07 freight and commission). Indi-
vidual payments ranged from the $26.55 Jacob Young received for 1,490 
pounds of moss, to $4.30 paid Thornton for one bale weighing 260 
, 21 pounds. 
Up until the Civil War, slaves continued to send their bales 
of moss to St. Louis for sale. The price per pound dropped from two 
cents to 1% cents in 1849-51 but returned to two cents a pound in 1852, 
after which it remained constant through 1861. The moss was shipped 
to Gay's agency in St. Louis on steamers bound up the Mississippi. 
Each year, several shipments were made, on average four or five per 
annum. When the moss had been sold, Gay sent a receipt of the 
transaction to Hynes, listing the name of the slave, the number 
pi 
Letter from Edward Gay, St. Louis, to Hynes and Craighead, 
Iberville, 6 April 1844; "Account 1844, Memorandum, Sale of moss for 
the negroes," Box 11, Folder 81, Gay Papers. 
129 
of bales, the poundage, price, expenses and net proceeds. Hynes then 
22 
reimbursed the slaves. 
A record book documenting moss-gathering and sale on the Gay 
plantation in the years 1849-61 shows the extent of the slave commu-
nity's involvement. These data, transcribed in Appendix 2-a, show that, 
in the thirteen-year period, 160 slaves, 41 of whom were women, sold 
moss. The number engaged in collecting and drying it was probably 
larger than this, for some of the shipments were sent jointly by a 
husband and wife, and they had probably been assisted in these early 
processes by their children and other family members. Since the total 
number of slaves, including children, on the estate in 1850 was 224 
and in 1860 stood at 240, it would appear that a majority of adult 
slaves on the plantation took part in this money-making venture. A 
summation of the total shipments for the period shows that at least 
$4,000 entered the internal economy, that is an average of some $300 
23 
a year. 
Picking moss from the trees was a relatively easy task that 
required little other than some agility and application. With the 
assistance of a long staff the non-parasitic plant could readily be 
detached from a tree's trunk and limbs. After it had been dried in 
the sun, the moss was bound in bales weighing 250-350 pounds, and was 
ready for shipment. The slaves on the Barrow plantation used the 
2 2 Moss Record Book 1849-1861 (Volume 35); Boxes 11-13, Folders 
81-96, Gay Papers. 
2 3 Moss Record Book 1849-1861 (Volume 35); Estate Record Book 
1848-1855 (Volume 34), Gay Papers; Menn, Large Slaveholders, 244-5. 
130 
estate's oxen to transport the bales to the riverside wharf, where they 
were loaded into the first available steamer. There is no indication 
that the slaves paid for the use of the oxen, and it is likely that this 
aspect of transporting the bales was a perquisite. Slaves did, however, 
have to pay for the cartage aboard ship, and the agent's sales commis-
sion. This amounted to from 75 cents to $1.25 a bale in total. When 
the receipts arrived at the plantation, slaves were reimbursed for the 
total net proceeds of their moss, usually around $4.00 to $5.00 a bale. 
The planter made no deductions from this sum although the moss had been 
picked on his land, and the bales had been hauled to riverside by his 
draft animals. Planters did not interfere with the rights of slaves to 
collect and sell moss, and to be sole beneficiaries of the subsequent 
24 
profi ts. 
Slaves picked moss during time off from plantation work. They 
rarely devoted their days off, however, to a single economic endeavor. 
Slaves who worked for themselves invariably developed an extensive 
and integrated system of economic activities. Slaves, for example, 
may have worked a bit for the plantation doing the occasional day or 
half-day's work. As well as moss-picking, they perhaps spent time col-
lecting fodder to sell to the plantation, tending their crops of corn, 
potatoes and pumpkins, and raising some small livestock. 
Poultry and hogs, the livestock most commonly raised by slaves, 
found their principal market on the plantation, although river traders 
2 4 Residence Journal of R. R. Barrow, 1857-1858, Barrow Papers; 
Boxes 11-13, Folders 81-96, Gay Papers. 
131 
and town markets sometimes provided alternative retail outlets. Few 
travelers failed to comment on the proclivity of slaves to keep poultry. 
Descriptions of slave villages on Louisiana sugar plantations invariably 
mention the chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese ranging through the 
25 
quarters. 
Raising poultry was ideally suited to the economy of the slave 
community. Fowl needed little attention and provided a dual income as 
slaves marketed both eggs and the birds themselves. Except, perhaps, 
for the initial expense of buying fledglings, raising poultry required 
only a small capital outlay while providing a steady income, particularly 
since birds and eggs were so readily marketed. 
The prices paid by planters varied little throughout the period 
of the sugar boom. Chickens sold at anywhere from 10 cents to 25 cents 
each and the price of eggs was from 12% cents to 15 cents a dozen. On 
W. W. Pugh's Woodlawn Plantation in Assumption Parish, muscovy ducks 2 6 
sold for 37% cents each in the early 1850s. 
Ellen McCollam, who, with her husband Andrew, owned a small 
sugar plantation in Assumption Parish, recorded in her diary in August 
1847: 
oc 
" Thorpe, "Sugar and the Sugar Region," 753; Russell, My Diary, 
373. 
J Letter from Thomas Haley (Overseer), Grande Cote, to Mrs. 
Mary Weeks, New Iberia, 11 April 1841, Box 9, Folder 29, Weeks (David 
and Family) Papers, Archives, LSU; Notebook 1853-1857 (Volume 9), The 
Weeks Hall Memorial Collection, Weeks (David and Family) Collection, 
Archives, LSU; Daybook 1843-1847 (Volume 5), Gay Papers; Ledger 1851-
1856 (Volume 18), Lanaux Papers; Cashbook for Negroes 1848-55 (Volume 
6), W. W. Pugh Papers. 
132 
1 bought all their chickens in the Quarters From Little Jack 5 for 
2 bits, 5 for 4 bits and 4 hens one dollar, Molly 3 hens 6 bits 1 
pullet 20 cents, Barrel 1 hen 2 bits 3 little chickens 15 cents-
Big Isaac 2 hens 4 bits 1 chicken 5 cents little Isaac 9 young 
chickens 10 cents a piece and one rooster 11 cents Mary one pullet 
20. 
A little over a year later she "bought of little Isaac 5 hens 2 roosters 
[and] a little chicken [for] $1.00.1,27 
Judging from the scene which William Howard Russell witnessed, 
slaves in their dealings with planters over the sale of poultry showed 
a trading acumen consistent with their position as independent 
retailers. When visiting John Burnside's Houmas Plantation in Ascen-
sion Parish, he recorded that: 
An avenue of trees runs down the centre of the negro street, and 
behind each hut are rude poultry hutches, which, with the geese and 
turkeys and a few pigs, form the perquisites of the slaves, and the 
sole source from which they derive their acquaintance with currency. 
Their terms are strictly cash. An old negro brought up some ducks to 
Mr. Burnside and offered the lot of six for three dollars. "Very 
well, Louis; if you come tomorrow, I'll pay you." "No massa, me want 
de money now." "But won't you give me credit, Louis? Don't you 
think I'll pay the three dollars?" "Oh, pay some day, massa, sure 
enough. Massa good to pay de tree dollar; but this nigger want money 
now to buy food and things for him leetle family. They will trust 
massa at Donaldsonvi11e, but they won't trust this nigger." I was 
told that a thrifty negro will sometimes make ten or twelve pounds a 
year from his corn and poultry." 
This fascinating exchange between the slave Louis and the planter 
John Burnside shows the slave as a retailer with a knowledge both of the 
value of his commodity and the terms of the transaction. Louis showed 
97 
" Diary and Plantation Record of Ellen E. McCollam, McCollam 
(Andrew and Ellen E.) Papers, Archives, LSU. 
2 8 Russell, My Diary, 396. 
133 
his bargaining acumen, and he was prepared to contradict the planter in 
the course of the negotiations. The money he accrued from the sale was 
earmarked for purchases for himself and his family. Although he found 
a market for his goods on the plantation, apparently he planned to spend 
his cash off the estate in the nearby town of Donaldsonville, where, by 
virtue of his understanding of the terms demanded by the merchants there, 
he had presumably traded before. Burnside would have had no influence 
in determining how Louis spent his money. 
Slaves marketed their other livestock on the plantation. On 
the Gay family's estate in 1845, for example, the selling price for a 
breeding sow stood at $3.00. The plantation on which they lived pro-
vided slaves with the principal market for their crops and livestock. 
Slaves, however, could bypass the plantation completely by selling their 
commodities either at the markets in nearby towns, or to the river 
29 
traders who plied the waterways in this region. 
In their own grounds, slaves practiced a somewhat diversified 
system of agriculture, raising a number of different cash crops. Some 
land may have been given over to pumpkins, which the planters bought for 
one to two cents each. On Benjamin Tureaud's estate, a slave named 
Big Mathilda received $10.00 for the 700 pumpkins she sold to the plan-
tation in 1858, while slave accounts for the Gay plantation show that, 
in 1844, seven of the 74 slaves recompensed by the plantation for goods 
and services derived part of their earnings from the sale of pumpkins 
2 9 Daybook 1843-1847 (Volume 5), Gay Papers. 
134 
at two cents a piece. In the previous year, the plantation's record book 
30 
includes an entry for "Pumpkins 4000 bought of our Negroes...$80." 
Slaves may also have put some of their land in potatoes, while 
hay was another crop that found a ready market on the plantation. An 
additional advantage to raising a crop of hay, of course, was the small 
amount of labor required. About the same proportion of slaves on the 
Gay family's plantation as had raised pumpkins in 1844 sold hay to the 
estate. The retail price in that year stood at $3.00 a load, while a 
year before, the total crop of hay made by the slaves on the Gay estate 
was 3,000 pounds for which they received $30.00, or one cent per 
pound. ^  
Another commodity sold by slaves was molasses. On Duncan Kenner's 
Ashland plantation, the overseer, W. C. Wade,recorded, in January 1852, 
"sold the negroes molasses," while slaves on the Gay plantation regularly 
shipped molasses for sale in St. Louis where it fetched $8.00 to $12.00 
a barrel through the 1840s. The net returns to slaves for molasses sold 
in St. Louis on 29 April 1845 listed Ned Teagle receiving $11.80 for the 
barrel of molasses he sent, while Martin and Big Maria were paid $11.18 
and $10.00 respectively for their shipments of one barrel each. In the 
next two months, nine slaves sent a total of 6h barrels of molasses to 
St. Louis where it sold for a comparable price. The largest shipment 
3 0 Ledger 1858-1872, Tureaud Papers; Daybook 1843-1847 (Volume 
5), Gay Papers. 
-3 "I 
Plantation Diary of Valcour Aime, Louisiana State Museum; 
Daybook 1843-1847 (Volume 5), Gay Papers. 
135 
of molasses recorded at this time was the 19^ barrels sent to St. Louis 
on board the Highlander. This shipment, sold by W. H. Belcher on 8 
January 1847, netted the fifteen slaves involved a total of $148.89. 
The plantation records indicate, however, that throughout the late 1840s, 
shipments of molasses regularly accompanied the bales of moss slaves sent 
north to St. Louis by steamer. The records do not reveal whether slaves 
grew cane in their grounds and processed it in the estate's mill, or 
whether they received molasses in payment for services rendered the plan-
tation. The latter explanation perhaps is the more likely since slaves 
32 
did not sell any of the other cane products—sugar or cistern sugar. 
All of the above crops were minor in comparison with the raising 
of corn. The growing and retailing of corn was possibly the most lucra-
tive dimension of Louisiana sugar plantation slaves' internal economies, 
and the one which involved the largest proportion of the slave population. 
Extant plantation records abound with references to slaves growing corn 
in their grounds, and selling it, primarily to the plantation, but often-
times elsewhere. 
Both slaves and planters benefited from retailing the corn crop 
within the confines of the plantation. By selling corn to the planta-
tion, slaves did not have to go to the expense and effort of shipping 
and marketing their crop, while the planters, by buying from the slaves, 
were also saved the various fees attendant to purchasing through an 
3 2 Ashland Plantation Record Book, Archives, LSU, Daybook 1843-
1847 (Volume 5); Box 12, Folder 86; "Sales of Moss & Molasses belonging 
to the Negroes," Box 13, Folder 100; Box 12, Folder 93; Box 13, Folder 
96, Gay Papers. 
136 
agent. The planters, of course, wanted to purchase the crop since corn 
meal, along with meat, comprised the rations they supplied the slaves 
on their plantations. The planters may, in some cases, have limited 
slaves' movement off the plantation to gain priority in purchasing the 
corn crop. In other cases, however, planters even put the estate's 
transportation at the disposal of slaves who went off the plantation to 
market their crop. For example, Elu Landry's plantation diary recorded 
that, on 7 October 1849, Landry "gave [the slaves] permission & pass to 
sell their corn in the neighborhood—lent them teams for that purpose." 
In another instance, slaves on the estate of Mr. Ventress, a Bayou Goula 
sugar planter, sold their 1859 crop of 1,011 barrels of corn to J. H. 
Randolph of Nottoway Estate and received a cash payment of $758.00 (75 
cents a barrel). Selling corn off the plantation, however, remained 
the exception. As a rule, the crop was sold for cash to the planter 
33 
on the estate on which the slaves lived. 
On the plantation, the purchase price of corn ranged from 37h 
cents to 75 cents a barrel. Slaves on George Lanaux' Bellevue Estate 
received 75 cents a barrel for the corn they harvested in 1851 and 
1852, while twenty slaves on William T. Palfrey's Ricohoc Estate got 
75 cents (6 bits) a barrel for the 275 barrels they sold to the planta-
tion in 1861. Through the 1830s slaves on Lewis Stirling's Wakefield 
and Solitude Estates sold their corn at 62^ cents (5 bits) a barrel, 
with the exception of 1831. A successful 1830 crop realized $189.56^ 
Plantation Diary and Ledger, Landry Papers; Journal 6, Plan-
tation Book 1853-63, Randolph Papers. 
137 
for the 306 barrels of corn grown by 37 slaves on the Solitude Estate, 
but the 1831 crop yielded only 109% barrels for the 22 slaves involved, 
and sold for only 31% cents per barrel . A note appended to the account 
explained the drop in price. It stated, "I allow but 2% bits a barrel 
for Corn this year because there was a great deal of rotten corn amongst 
it." In subsequent harvests, however, the price rose again to five bits. 
In 1838, for example, 49 slaves on the two Stirling estates sold a total 
of 621 barrels of corn at this price, realizing $388.13. Through the 
1850s, corn sold for 50 cents a barrel on John Randolph's Nottoway 
Estate, and slaves regularly harvested a crop totalling 200 to 300 bar-
rels. Slaves on the Gay family's plantation received 50 cents a barrel 
for their corn in 1844, while a year before they had sold their crop of 
900 bushels for $375.00, or 41% cents per bushel. By 1857-59 the price 
slaves received for their corn on Lewis Stirling's Wakefield Estate 
stood at 50 cents a barrel : they harvested 384% barrels, 322% barrels 
and 456 barrels respectively in these years. This tariff represented a 
12% cents a barrel increase from the price paid the previous year (1856). 
The reason for the price fluctuation is unexplained, although it may 
34 have resulted from the instability of the regional corn market. 
34 
Journal 1851-1860 (Volume 14), Lanaux Papers; Plantation 
Diary 1860-1868, 1895 (Volume 18), W. T. & G. D. Palfrey Papers, Ration 
Book 1828, 1830-38 (H-13), Stirling Papers, Plantation Book 1853-63, 
Journal 6, Randolph Papers; Daybook 1843-1847 (Volume 5); Estate Record 
Book 1842-1847 (Volume 12), Gay Papers; "Negroes Corn for 1857," Box 9, 
Folder 54; "Negroe's Corn Sept. 18, 1858," Box 9, Folder 56; "Negroes 
corn 1859," Box 9, Folder 57; "Negroes Corn [1856]," Box 8, Folder 52; 
"List of the Negro Corn [1852]," Box 7, Folder 44, Stirling Papers. 
138 
The prices slaves received for their corn on the plantation 
were somewhat below the commodity's market price in New Orleans where, 
from 1847 through 1860, the cost per barrel fluctuated between 45 cents 
and $1.40. Shipping, handling and commission charges could account for 
the price differential; the plantation price would thus reflect the 
equivalent of a local market price. The large fluctuation in the price 
of corn on the New Orleans market in this fourteen-year period (repro-
duced in Table 2-1) was in part a consequence of the lack of an organized 
retail market for the crop. Corn was grown throughout the sugar region, 
and most growers sought to be self-sufficient while giving little thought 
to retailing their surplus as a cash crop. As Sam Bowers Hilliard 
points out, the retail trade in corn was a local enterprise in which 
prices could fluctuate significantly as a result of a bad harvest 
creating strong local demands. Additionally, since the level of trans-
actions on the New Orleans market was small, prices fluctuated widely 
from year to year. Moreover, the undeveloped market probably accounted 
for part of the variance in the cost per barrel paid slaves on the 
plantation. 
Slaves managed to obtain protection for their crops in case of 
loss or damage. In 1859, Lewis Stirling's Wakefield Estate accounts 
record that twelve slaves "lost all their corn" (a total of 47 barrels). 
They were, however, recompensed by the planter at the full price of 50 
3 5 De Bow's Review, IV (November 1847), 393; VI (December 1848), 
436; VII (November 1849), 420; IX (October 1850), 456; XI (November 
1851), 496; XIII (November 1852), 512; XV (November 1853), 528; XVII 
(November 1854), 530; XIX (October 1855), 458; XXI (October 1856), 368; 
XXIII (October 1857), 365; XXV (October 1858), 469; XXVII (October 1859), 
477; XXIX (October 1860), 521; Sam Bowers Hilliard, Hog Meat and Hoecake 
(Carbondale, 111., 1972), 155. 
139 
Table 2-1 
Average Price Per Barrel of Corn Sold in 
New Orleans in Year Ending 31 August 
1847 $1.10 
1848 .60 
1849 .45 
1850 .90 
1851 .90 
1852 .70 
1853 .75 
1854 .90 
1855 $1.40 
1856 .80 
1857 $1.25 
1858 .50 
1859 $1.00 
1860 $1.00 
Source: De Bow's Review, IV (November 1847), 393; VI (December 1848), 
436; VII "[November 1849), 420; IX (October 1850), 456; XI (November 1851), 
496; XIII (November 1852), 512; XV (November 1853), 528; XVII (November 
1854), 530; XIX (October 1855), 458; XXI (October 1856), 363; XXIII 
(October 1857), 365; XXV (October 1858), 469; XXVII (October 1859), 477; 
XXIX (October 1860), 521. 
140 
cents a barrel. In a similar instance two years previously, six slaves 
had "lost their corn by the hogs,11 but nevertheless received payment of 
$22.00. Unfortunately the records reveal no indication of the precise 
reason why or on what grounds planters indemnified slaves for lost or 
damaged crops. The existence of such arrangements, however, shows the 
importance to the plantations of the private agricultural endeavors of 
slaves and the extent to which planters would go to assure slaves' con-
tinued involvement. 
Slaves used their time off, particularly on weekends, to culti-
vate their corn crops. At spring planting and fall harvesting slaves 
had to devote the greatest amount of their free time to these crops. 
Sometimes, particularly during harvest, slaves secured additional time 
off from the regular plantation schedule in order either to take in their 
crop or market it. On Duncan Kenner's Ashland Plantation, slaves, on 
Sunday, 10 October 1852, "gathered their corn, made a large crop." Two 
days later, on the Tuesday, "all but a few hands went to Donaldsonvi11e," 
a nearby town, presumably to market their crop, or, if they had sold it 
to the plantation, to spend their earnings. The next day, the sugar 
harvest began. From this time (13 October) until the journal ended on 
31 December 1352 slaves worked at sugar harvest every day, including 
Sundays and Christmas. The sugar harvest was still in progress when 
37 the journal ended. 
3 6 "Negroes Corn for 1857," Box 9, Folder 54; "Negroes corn 1859," 
Box 9, Folder 57, Stirling Papers. 
3 7 Ashland Plantation Record Book. 
141 
Christmas was a time when some slaves could expect to receive 
cash payments in the form of a holiday bonus. Such was the case on John 
Randolph's Nottoway Estate. Through the early 1850s, regular entries 
in the plantation books recorded the amounts of money paid for the 
"Negroes' Christmas." (See Table 2-2.) The slave population on Nottoway 
was, at this time, around 150 in total. The records do not show pre-
38 
cisely how or to whom the Christmas money was distributed. 
Extant plantation manuscripts contain numerous references to 
cash paid slaves without mention of the reason for the payments. In the 
Stirling family's sugar plantation records, for example, there is a 
"Memorandum of Money Paid or Given to the Negroes in 1854." This list, 
reproduced as Appendix 2-b, shows that 95 slaves, 50 women and 45 men, 
got cash payments ranging from $15 to 10 cents; one slave on the list, 
George Austin, apparently received no money. The total amount paid was 
$314.55. While some of the payments may have been gifts, it is likely 
that most of them recompensed slaves for goods and services. Some of 
the larger payments went to two people, and these slaves undoubtedly were 
partners in some money-making venture, for example, wood-cutting. A 
like list, probably dating from the following year, (the manuscript of 
which is reproduced as Appendix 2-c) shows that 78 slaves received a 
total of $258.50. Similarly, in the early 1840s, there were a number of 
cash payments, for which no explanation was recorded, to slaves on the 
Gay family's plantation—from 24 September to 28 December 1840 the 
3 8 Journal—Plantation Book 1847-1852 (Volume 5); Journal 6, 
Plantation Book 1853-63, Randolph Papers. 
142 
Table 2-2 
"Christmas Money" Paid Slaves on 
John H. Randolph's Nottoway Estate 
25 December 1850 
27 December 1851 
25 December 1852 
9 January 1854 
25 December 1854 
21 December 1855 
25 December 1856 
"Paid Negroes Christmas" 
"Paid Negroes Christmas" 
"Paid Negroes Christmas" 
"Paid Negroes for Christmas money' 
"To Cash Paid negroes for corn & 
Extra Money" 
"To Negroes as Christmas money" 
"Paid out to the Negroes about" 
$150.00 
$175.00 
$200.00 
$300.00 
$500.00 
$188.00 
$200.00 
Source: Journal -- Plantation Book 
6, Plantation Book 1853-63, John H. 
Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana 
Louisiana. 
1847-1852 (Volume 5), and Journal 
Randolph Papers, Department of 
State University, Baton Rouge, 
143 
planter paid slaves some $600.00, while one year later, between December 
1841 and January 1842, 34 men received a total of some $200.00, the indi-
vidual payments ranging from $1.00 to $20.00. The time at which these 
payments were made indicates that they were either for some of the slaves' 
39 
crops or for work performed during harvest. " 
Hunting and fishing provided slaves with another source of reve-
nue. Game and fish abounded in southern Louisiana, and provided sugar 
plantation slaves with the opportunity to supplement their diet and pos-
sibly earn some income. Ex-slave Martha Stuart recalled that slaves 
would "go rabbit huntin', or if dey felt lak fishin', dey'd go." She 
said that slaves would sometimes borrow guns from the planter to go hunt-
ing. This was often unnecessary "cause dey had dogs to catch rabbits and 
possums and coons; but ef dey wanted to hunt birds or patridge or sumptin 
dey used de marster's gun and gived 'im half of whut dey kilt." Another 
former slave, Elizabeth Ross Hite, recalled that her father, a slave on 
Pierre Landreaux1 Trinity sugar estate, went hunting at night: "mah 
father caught possum. . . . He went out at night trapping, but de drivers 
didn't know it. No sir, he wasn't allowed to go out at night but would 
steal out." Former sugar plantation slave West Chapman provided a color-
ful description of "possum hunting" in his recollections of life as a 
slave: 
We sure did eat 'possums, an' we had fun gettin' dem. We always took 
a dog an' it run de 'possum up a tree--a small tree so the critter 
3 9 Box 8, Folder 49; Box 8, Folder 51, Stirling Papers; Estate 
Record Book 1831-1945 (Volume 8); Cashbook/Daybook 1837-1843 (Volume 18), 
Gay Papers. 
144 
could wrop his tail 'round it—he would stay dere till Gabriel blow 
his trumpet, if we didn't cut dat tree down. We jes' pull him off 
den we clean and wash him good and wropped him in hot embers, pair-
broiled him, an' den roasted him alongside sweet pertaters. You could 
dry him too by smoking him like a ham. 
As well as providing variety to the pork and corn diet supplied slaves 
by the planter, slaves may have sold or bartered some of their catch either 
to fellow-slaves, traders or planters.40 
Some slaves received money for catching runaways. The estate 
accounts of Magnolia Plantation for 1829 include the payment of $2.00 to 
one of the slaves on the plantation for stopping a fugitive slave. 
Similarly, John Randolph entered in his journal for 1850, "Paid Gus for 
catching Ben -- $3.00." Both these men were slaves on Randolph's plan-
tation. Eight years later Randolph paid "To Cropper's [an Iberville 
41 
Parish sugar planter] Negro Man for Catching Runaway -- $25.00." 
Within the confines of the plantation, slaves who were willing 
and able had a wide range of opportunities to provide goods or services 
for which they received cash remuneration. Money earned in these ways 
may have been supplemented by holiday gifts from the planter. The home 
plantation, however, was not the only source of revenue. As indicated 
above, some slaves were involved in marketing produce both in the neigh-
borhood of the plantation and at major entrepots on the Mississippi 
River. 
4 0 Interviewee—Martha Stuart: Interviewer—Octave Lilly, Jr.,: 
Date—ca. 1938: Dillard Project, Archives, UNO; Interview with Elizabeth 
Ross Hite, loc. cit.; Intervi ewee—West Chapman: Intervi ewer—Di 11 on: 
Date—ca. 1940: F. W. P. Interviews, Natchitoches. 
41 Book of Accounts of the Magnolia Plantation 1829-1853, Louisi-
ana State Museum; Journal 6, Plantation Book 1853-53, Randolph Papers. 
145 
While transactions in such entrepots as St. Louis, Natchez and 
New Orleans involved retail agents, transactions in the general locale 
of the home plantation could take a number of forms. In the instances 
cited above, the slaves on the Ventress estate apparently contracted 
with J. H. Randolph for the sale, at 75 cents a barrel, of their sizable 
corn crop of 1,011 barrels. On the other hand, slaves on Elu Landry's 
plantation borrowed the estate's draft animals and wagons to sell their 
42 
crops throughout the neighborhood. 
Slaves had still other options for marketing their crops and 
goods. Those who lived near towns could avail themselves, as did their 
Jamaican counterparts, of the village markets. Rev. P. M. Goodwyn, 
who was at the time living on his brother-in-law Edward Gay's sugar 
plantation in Iberville Parish, indicated the prevalence of this market-
ing practice in the portion of a letter, entitled "Sabbath scenes and 
reflections," that he wrote on Sunday, 26 August 1860: 
I see going to and from the place of trade—wagons & carts, loaded 
and empty—servants walking and riding, carrying baskets—bundles-
packages etc.--and I ask, why all this?—Can it be possible that there 
is a necessity for it?—If so, then it is excusable,--and, vice versa,--
Has the Master gone, or is he going to the house of God today?—How 
will he—how ought he to feel--as the thought comes up while he is 
attempting to worship—"My Servant, or Servants, have a permit from 
me,--and now, while I am here, they are trading and traficing in the 
stores of the town [probably PIaquemine].3 
A O 
"r<" Journal 6, Plantation Book 1853-63, Randolph Papers; Plantation 
Diary and Ledger, Landry Papers. 
4 3 Letter from Rev. P. M. Goodwyn, St. Louis Place, to Edward 
Gay, 27 August 1860, Box 29, Folder 255, Gay Papers. 
146 
Despite Rev. Goodwyn's Christian disdain over the violation of 
the sanctity of the Sabbath, Sunday was obviously a very important trad-
ing day for slaves able to journey to nearby towns. The importance of 
these markets for the internal economy of slaves rested not only in their 
function as an outlet for the various goods the slaves raised and pro-
duced, but also provided them the opportunity to spend their earnings. 
The slave, Louis, who, as mentioned above, sold his ducks to John Burn-
side, owner of Houmas Estate, was obviously well acquainted with the 
retail outlets in the nearby town of Donaldsonville. He insisted on a 
cash payment for the poultry as he intended spending the money in the 
town's stores where "they will trust massa [with credit] . . . but they 
44 
won't trust [him]." 
The market-day activities of Louisiana sugar slaves were not 
confined to retailing and purchasing goods. As with their Jamaican 
counterparts, some Louisiana slaves apparently used this day to shake 
off the routine and restrictions of the plantation. For going to market, 
slaves may have donned their best clothing, the "strangely cut [and] 
wonderfully made" Sunday clothes that William Howard Russell observed 
they had. In conformity with a prevalent market-day practice, 
Louisiana slaves apparently spent some of their earnings on alcohol. A 
letter from P. E. Jennings, the Mayor of Plaquemine, to Edward Gay stated 
that "Several Negroes were lately caught in this town drunk and gambling 
on Sunday in the day time in the house of a Free Negro woman." These 
4 4 Russell, My Diary, 396. 
147 
illicit "shebeens" were, no doubt, a feature of market towns throughout 
45 
the Louisiana sugar region. 
Even when the Sabbatarian scruples of either slave or planter 
militated against Sunday trading, slaves could still find a retail outlet 
for their goods in town markets. An instance, cited in the plantation 
records of the Weeks' family's Grande Cote Island sugar estate, provides 
evidence of this. A letter, written by William Weeks, mentioned that a 
slave named "Amos has heard of the flat boats [trading vessels] being in 
New Town & has asked my permission to spend a portion of his crop on 
them—In consideration of his faithful services on all occasions, and his 
really conscientious scruples about trading on Sunday, I have concluded 
to let him go tomorrow." The letter was written on Sunday, 31 January 
1853. Amos, therefore, had the Monday off, a working day on the plan-
tation, to go to town to trade on his own behalf. The letter also 
implies, of course, that other slaves on the estate did trade on Sun-
^ 46 days. 
Slaves, of course, were not the only people benefiting from the 
marketing of their products in town. The townspeople and other resi-
dents of the area, including perhaps the planters themselves, could pur-
chase the fresh produce raised by the slaves. These purchasers, in turn, 
provided the slaves with cash which may have been reinvested in the 
local economy, since slaves bought goods from the towns' merchants. 
4 5 Ibid., 373; Letter from P. E. Jennings, Mayor of Plaquemine, 
to Edward Gay, 25 August 1858, Box 25, Folder 221, Gay Papers. 
4 6 Letter from W. F. Weeks, Grande Cote, to Mary C. Moore, 31 
January 1853, Box 31, Folder 82, Weeks Papers. 
148 
Compared with the Jamaican experience, a smaller percentage of 
Louisiana sugar slaves had the opportunity of marketing in towns. This 
was principally a function of distance. Jamaica is a relatively small 
island (a little over 4,000 square miles). The land suitable for rais-
ing sugar during slavery was, of course, considerably less than this. 
i 
Consequently, the distances from all but the most remote of Jamaican 
sugar plantations were not great enough to prevent slaves from walking 
to the nearest town or cross-roads market, trading, and returning to 
the plantation within the space of a day. This was not the case in 
Louisiana, the 23 parish sugar region of which encompassed some 14,000 
square miles. The Louisiana sugar region not only was much larger than 
the entire island of Jamaica, but it also had fewer towns, relative to 
its size, than had Jamaica. A much greater proportion of the Louisiana 
slave population, therefore, did not have recourse to markets outside 
the plantation they lived on, where they could buy and sell commodities. 
In Louisiana, the plantation became the market. The town market 
as a retail and purchasing outlet was replaced, in large part, by a sys-
tem which, as far as the slaves were concerned, was carried on within 
the plantation itself. Typically, this took the form of planter as 
purchaser of goods and services, or intermediary with an external agent, 
as in the sale of Spanish moss. The planter also performed an inter-
mediary role in many of the expenditures made by slaves; that is, slaves 
made their purchases through the planter, the cost being debited from 
personal accounts the planter administered. Even in the cases where 
this planter/plantation-centered marketing pattern existed, however, 
149 
slaves also had the opportunity of marketing outside of it. The most 
important dimension of this was the trade slaves carried on with itiner-
ant peddlers. 
Travelling salesmen plied the highways and waterways of the 
Louisiana sugar region trading with plantation slaves. Frances Doby, 
who as a child was a slave on Lucius Dupre's St. Landry Parish sugar 
plantation, recollected that "some time de banana wagon come or de dago 
man sell in pom cake. We run to de wagon to buy wid de picayons."47 
Ex-slave Martha Stuart recalled the salesmen who "come thru the coun-
try," while another former slave, Catherine Cornelius, remembered trad-
ing done with "de ped'lers on de riber." A Canadian, William Kingsford, 
who travelled in the southern United States in the mid-1850s, gave an 
excellent description of river traders in his reminiscences. From the 
deck of a steamer heading to New Orleans from Natchez, Kingsford 
observed: 
the small vessels which, owned by pedlars, pass from plantation to 
plantation, trading with the negroes principally, taking in exchange 
the articles which they raise, or, when the latter are sold to the 
boats, offering to their owners the only temptations on which their 
money can be spent. These vessels are generally unwieldy and i n -
built, got up cheaply, for they are intended but for one trip. As a 
rule, they are constructed on the Ohio, passing down that river to 
Cairo, when they turn into the Mississippi, proceeding to New 
Orleans, where they are broken up and sold for lumber. Now and then 
you come upon one of them, moving sluggishly down stream, or moored 
Pi cayon or Picayune was a term used in Louisiana to refer to 
small denomination coins. The word comes from picayune, a Spanish half-
real piece formerly current in Louisiana. 
150 
inshore, where the owner is dispensing his luxuries, in the shape of 
ribbons, tobacco, gaudy calicoes, and questionable whiskey.48 
Of the two types of merchants, highway and river traders, the 
latter had more extensive contact with plantation slaves. Inadequate 
roads often made travel by land difficult, while Louisiana sugar plan-
tations all had direct access to navigable waterways. The bayous and 
rivers of southern Louisiana, therefore, facilitated a widespread and 
vigorous trading netv/ork involving river traders who were, for the most 
part, white, and sugar plantation slaves. Moreover, river traders were 
not subject to as many controls as their counterparts on land. River 
traders could move in and out of areas quietly and quickly and thus trade 
clandestinely in illicit goods; highway traders were more likely to be 
constrained to trade in ways approved by planters. 
Access to a trading network outside the control of planters was 
extremely important to slaves. This network allowed for more than an 
alternate market; it provided slaves the opportunity to sell goods the 
planter would not buy, and to buy goods the planter would not sell or 
order. The principal commodity that slaves could rarely buy through 
the planter was alcohol. They could obtain liquor from river traders, 
who in turn were on the market for a variety of commodities, including 
stolen goods which, of course, could rarely find a place in the trans-
actions between slaves and planters. Whereas in Jamaica, slaves used 
A O T U Interviewee--Frances Doby: Interviewers--Arguedas-McKinney: 
Date--1933: F. W. P. Interviews, Natchitoches; Interview with Catherine 
Cornelius, loc. cit.; [William Kingsford], Impressions of the West and 
South during a Six Weeks' Holiday (Toronto, 1853), 47-8. 
151 
weekly markets and higglers for trading considered illicit by planters, 
in Louisiana, slaves who did not have access to town markets traded with 
river peddlers. 
The independence that this external trading network conferred 
on slaves may have been attractive to them. Planters had no influence 
over either the form of the trade or the goods being dealt in. Indeed, 
often the river trade was carried out in direct opposition to the dic-
tates of the planter. Slaves, thus, divested themselves of the con-
straints of the plantation and engaged in an independent economic system 
in which they made marketing decisions without the impediments that plan-
tation regulations could dictate. 
The trade between sugar plantation slaves and white river 
traders comprised an inter-racial marketing nexus at odds with the rules 
and values of the planters. The interests of the river traders lay in 
encouraging and protecting actions, performed by enslaved Afro-Americans, 
that their fellow-Caucasian slave-holders outlawed. Further, the river 
traders supplied slaves with goods that planters had, by law, prohibited. 
(Throughout the period under study, there were laws banning the sale of 
alcohol to slaves, unless approved by the slaveowner, under penalty of 
x 49 
fine and imprisonment). 
A letter written by sugar planter Maunsell White of Deer Range 
Estate in Plaquemines Parish clearly shows the disparity of interests 
between planter and river trader, and the identity of interests between 
4 9 U. B. Phillips, compiler, The Revised Statutes of Louisiana 
(New Orleans, 1856), 48-65. 
152 
slave and river trader. Writing to fellow-planter George Lanaux, owner 
of the nearby Bellevue Estate, White related how some of his slaves: 
were caught stealing molasses to sell to a Boat or "Capota" & were 
watched until they were found on Board the Boat, where they had hid 
themselves & were secreted by the owner; a man who called himself 
"Block," a German & another who called himself "Bill." On searching 
the Boat, an other negro was also found, who said he belonged to the 
Boat as did also the Men who owned it; but we soon found on arresting 
the whole of them, that the Boy confessed or said he belonged to you 
[Lanaux], & when I questioned him again this morning said He had been 
gone away from you for 4 months;* the whole of which time he said he 
spent in the City [presumably New Orleans] at work. Thirty five 
Dollars and 50/100 were found on his Person, & a Silver Watch. . . . 
50 *he afterwards said it was only 2\ months. 
In this case, the river trader harbored a runaway, and concealed 
from the planter slaves who had stolen goods from the plantation on which 
they lived. Although there is no record of what happened to Block and 
Bill, they probably met with stern justice at the hands of the planters. 
White merely refers to conferring with Lanaux "in regards to the prose-
51 
cution of the offending parties." 
Transactions in stolen goods between slaves and peddlers were, 
according to Frederick Law Olmsted, prevalent throughout the South. 
There was a higher incidence of such trading in the Louisiana sugar 
region because the sugar estates had navigable waterways. This meant 
that the peddlers could more easily transport and conceal themselves. 
This necessarily clandestine activity was invariably carried on under 
5 0 Letter from Maunsell White, Deer Range to G. Lanneau, 15 April 
1859, Box 3, Folder 1, Lanaux Papers. 
153 
the cover of darkness. Olmsted observed that "the traders . . . moor at 
night on the shore, adjoining the negro-quarters. and float away whenever 
they have obtained any booty, with very small chance of detection." 
Unless caught in the act, traders could readily dispose of any "evidence," 
in the form of stolen property, by dumping it over the side of the boat.52 
River peddlers probably had few criteria regarding what they were 
willing to purchase. The character of the trade militated against bulky 
consignments, the loading of which would require time and therefore 
increase the likelihood of detection. Except for such logistical prob-
lems, however, the peddlers would have had little to consider other than 
whether they could make a profit in disposing of the goods. In sum, 
river peddlers were willing to purchase a wide variety of goods from the 
slaves; few of the planters' possessions or the plantations1 moveables 
would have been safe from the depredations of those involved in the 
trade. 
A large part of this trade probably involved the plantations1 
produce, molasses and sugar, and, perhaps, some of the minor crops like 
corn; slaves would also have found a market for small livestock. The 
trade, however, encompassed a wider variety of commodities. The image 
of the plantations' "moveables" gives an idea of the variety of articles 
that slaves and river peddlers dealt in. It appears that anything that 
was moveable and could be moved expeditiously could find its way to the 
river peddler. Olmsted provides a couple of examples. One planter had 
5 2 Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States 
(New York, 1856), 674. 
154 
"a large brass cock and some pipe . . . stolen from his sugar-works." 
The planter "had ascertained that one of his negroes had taken it and 
sold it on board one of these boats for seventy-five cents, and had 
immediately spent the money, chiefly for whisky, on the same boat." It 
cost the planter $30.00 to replace the machinery. Another sugar planter 
informed Olmsted "that he had lately caught one of his own negroes going 
towards one of the 'chicken thieves,' (so the traders' boats are called) 
with a piece of machinery, that he had unscrewed from his sugar works, 
which was worth eighty dollars, and which very likely might have been 
sold for a drink."53 
Of course, not all the goods traded or sold to the river traders 
by slaves were stolen. Slaves found a market on the river for their own 
produce, livestock and manufactures, preferring to trade them on the 
river because they had the opportunity to deal for commodities, such as 
alcohol, which the planter had proscribed. Further, it could be 
posited that slaves preferred to deal with river traders because it took 
a greater portion of their economic activities outside the realm and 
influence of planter and plantation. 
The internal economies of sugar plantation slaves in Jamaica and 
Louisiana shared the vitally important characteristic of a trading nexus 
outside the confines of the plantation. Whereas Jamaican slaves had 
recourse to the higglers who criss-crossed the island and weekly markets, 
Louisiana slaves had access to market towns, or, if too distant from 
5 3 Ibid., 675. 
155 
markets, the opportunity, in the words of ex-slave Catherine Cornelius, 
QA 
nto git down tuh de ped'lers on de riber at nite tuh buy stuff." 
Another shared characteristic of the internal economies of sugar 
plantation slaves in Jamaica and Louisiana was the integral role that 
theft played. Theft was as prevalent in Louisiana as it was in Jamaica. 
Every available index (slave narratives, plantation records, newspapers 
and journals, travellers1 accounts and government documents) indicates 
the widespread incidence of theft on Louisiana plantations. As was true 
in Jamaica, many sugar plantation slaves in Louisiana were not bound by 
any value-system that proscribed their appropriating property of the 
planter or plantation. Indeed, anything belonging to the planter that 
was either consumable or marketable and was readily transported was 
potentially prey to the depredations of members of the slave community. 
Plantation records reveal the prevalence of slave theft, and 
give a profile of the most popular targets. It is nigh impossible to 
find such records of any detail in which there is no mention of thefts 
perpetrated on the estate. Most thefts involved the plantations' pro-
duce and livestock. As mentioned above, slaves on Maunsell White's 
Deer Range sugar plantation stole molasses to sell to river traders, and 
William Weeks reported from the Weeks family's Grande Cote Island estate 
on "Simon that prince of runaways & troublesome negroes . . . [whose] 
last offence was to go into the sugar house & steal a portion of the 55 little sugar I [William Weeks] had kept for home use." 
5 4 Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. cit. 
5 5 Letter from William F. Weeks to Mary C. Moore, 20 June 1850, 
Box 36, Folder 180, Weeks Papers. 
156 
Whereas depredations on the estates' produce may have been some-
what curtailed by its being kept in locked buildings, livestock ranged 
free and was easy prey to slaves. Time and again reports of such thefts 
occur in plantation records. The diary of Joseph Mather, superintendent 
of Judge Morgan's Aurora Plantation, recorded the "theft of chickens," 
and Ellen McCollam, in a diary entry dated 15 August 1347, noted that 
she had "had 8 hens stow!en out of the yard since the first of March." 
The threat of having his livestock stolen prompted Maunsell White to 
urge his overseer to make a picket pen "in order to save our hogs, pigs 
& sheep from all sorts of 'Varmints1 two-legged as well as four." 
Similarly, planter J. E. Craighead complained that "the negroes steal 
our sheep as we have no safe place to keep them." One can judge the 
extent to which stealing livestock was viewed as a characteristic of 
slaves by a claim incorporated in the lines of a Louisiana song: 
Negue pas capab marche san mais dans poche, 
Ce pou vole poule — 
Negro cannot walk without corn in his pocket, 
It is to steal chickens -- 56 
Slaves, however, did not confine themselves to stealing produce 
and livestock; other plantation moveables fell victim to theft. On at 
least two occasions planter Andrew McCollam and his wife Ellen lost items 
from their laundry. One time they had "8 shirts stolen out of the wash," 
5 6 Joseph Mather Diary 1852-1859, Archives, LSU; Diary and Plan-
tation Record of Ellen E. McCollam, McCollam Papers; Letter from Maunsell 
White to James P. Bracewell, 10 August 1859, Maunsell White Letterbook, 
Archives, LSU; Letter from J. E. Craighead, Plaquemine to John B. Craig-
head, Nashville, 11 September 1847, Box 14, Folder 102, Gay Papers; Lyle 
Saxon, compiler, Gumbo Ya-Ya (Boston, 1945), 430. 
157 
and a year later "had a pair of sheets table cloth stollen out of the 
garden." Elu Landry had to send "to M. Broussand's [obscured] 
shop to get a skiff traded off to him by the Boy Samuel without any leave 
of me," and a visitor to Colonel Andrew Hynes' sugar plantation had a 
trunk, which was full of clothing, stolen when his luggage was being 
57 loaded onto the steamer. 
It is impossible to compile an exhaustive list of thefts and 
articles stolen; a large part of plantation theft must have gone unre-
corded and undetected. Nevertheless, the activity can be profiled. 
Slaves apparently stole frequently from a wide range of targets. For 
the most part, the articles stolen were either readily disposed of or 
hard to track down. Livestock could be quickly slaughtered, butchered 
and cooked; stolen poultry could be added to the flock already kept by 
slaves and would have been indistinguishable from the rest; stolen cloth 
and clothing could easily be made up or altered, and the river traders 
provided a discreet and relatively safe outlet for goods that were 
readily transportable. 
Slaves could not carry out these thefts with impunity; not all 
their depredations went undetected. The somewhat patchy evidence left in 
plantation records exhibits a consistent pattern as regards those whom 
planters deemed guilty of stealing--they were predominantly men. This 
5 7 Diary and Plantation Record of Ellen McCollam, McCollam Papers; 
Plantation Diary and Ledger, Landry Papers; Letter from Nicholas Phipps, 
Donaldsonville, to Colonel Andrew Hynes, February 1847, Box 13, Folder 
97, Gay Papers. 
158 
pattern holds for both Jamaica and Louisiana; only very rarely are 
women mentioned as having been caught or punished for stealing from the 
plantation. It does not necessarily follow, of course, that the fre-
quency with which male slaves were caught and punished for theft indi-
cates the extent of their involvement. Women may have been craftier or 
involved themselves in lower-risk thefts, or men may have assumed cul-
pability if detection became likely. It is also possible that slaves 
divided their responsibilities when appropriating the plantations' 
property. Men may have assumed the role of actually making off with 
the goods while women had the responsibility for rendering the stolen 
property difficult to detect—siaughtering and cooking livestock, 
sewing-up or altering clothing, and so forth. Men were therefore involved 
in the aspects that held a greater likelihood of detection, the actual 
appropriating of the goods, and the marketing of them to a third party 
either on the river or at market. Consequently they ran a higher risk 
58 of being caught. 
c o J O The following plantation records cite instances in which spe-
cific slaves were deemed guilty of theft: in each case the culprit was 
male. In none of the plantation records consulted for this study are 
women cited as felons. Plantation Diary and Ledger, Landry Papers; Ash-
land Plantation Record Book; Diary and Plantation Record Book of Ellen 
E. McCollam, McCollam Papers; Letter from William F. Weeks to Mary C. 
Moore, 20 June 1860, Box 36, Folder 180, Weeks Papers; Letter from John 
Palfrey, Plantation, Attakapas, to William T. Palfrey, Franklin, Louisi-
ana, 16 July 1833, Box 2, Folder 9, W. T. & G. D. Palfrey Papers; Letter 
from Maunsell White to George Lanneau, 15 April 1859, Lanaux Papers; 
Letter from A. J. Robinson, Chaseland Plantation, to Charles L. Mathews, 
Bayou Sara, 21 September 1856, Box 2, Folder 16, Mathews (Charles L. and 
Family) Papers, Archives, LSU; Letter from Captain John De Hart, Orange 
Grove Plantation, Indian Bend, St. Mary, to Sarah Evans, Pinckneyville, 
Mississippi, 6 October 1832, Box 4, Folder 27, Evans (Nathaniel and 
Family) Papers, Archives, LSU. 
159 
Joseph Mather, a Louisiana plantation supervisor, confronted the 
problem of having his chickens stolen by holding all the slaves on the 
estate responsible. He made all the slaves labor on a Sunday, the tra-
ditional day off, as punishment for poor work and the "theft of chickens." 
Either Mather thought that punishing all the slaves would encourage them, 
as a community, to control those who were wont to steal, or, indeed, he 
viewed as culpable an integrated network within the slave community that 
involved in the theft more than the person who actually made off with 
59 
the chickens. 
There are many problems with trying to assess the impact of theft 
on the internal economy of the slave community. It is nigh impossible 
to calculate the volume of the activity or its profitability. Similar-
ly, the paucity of data prevents an assessment of what proportion of the 
slave community involved themselves in stealing from the plantation. 
Presumably not all slaves were equally willing to assume the risks 
attendant to these acts, nor did they all have the necessary physical 
abilities. 
As in Jamaica, much of the stolen property went to supplementing 
inadequate diets. F. D. Richardson, a sugar planter in Jeanerette, 
Louisiana, alluded to this in a letter written to a fellow-planter. He 
mentioned slaves "committing depredations in the way of roberies," and 
claimed that "the whole matter is no doubt attributable to the high price 
of pork--for many planters will not buy at the present rates & depend 
upon a little beef and other things as a substitute." Martha Stuart, 
5 9 Joseph Mather Diary 1852-1859. 
160 
formerly a plantation slave in the Louisiana sugar region, recalled that 
"ma Marster had a brother, they called him Charles Haynes, and he was 
mean and he didn't feed his people . . . he didn't give 'em nuthin; 
'twas the funniest thing tho; his niggers was all fat and fine cause 
dey'd go out and kill hogs;—dey'd steal dem from de boss."60 
In some cases, slaves could have eaten the food and livestock 
they raised, rather than steal from the plantation, and, as a conse-
quence, the thefts contributed to their internal economy in that they 
freed their own goods for sale. Undoubtedly, however, this was not the 
case with all thefts of food. Just as in Jamaica, the diet of Louisiana 
slaves was prey to the caprices of planters, seasons and markets. 
Stealing food to fill their bellies and the bellies of their families was 
often the only alternative to undernourishment and starvation. Thefts, 
by slaves, of clothing and other necessities of life stemmed from 
motives similar to those that led slaves to steal food—stolen cloth, 
for example, could supplement an inadequate clothing ration. 
Runaways often subsisted on food stolen from plantations. When 
a slave named Anderson ran away from John Palfrey's sugar plantation 
he ate green corn and "a quantity of peaches which he purloin'd from 
Mr. Seraphim Indius' plantation." Ex-sugar plantation slave Albert Pat-
terson recalled that "if a nigger hide in de woods, he'd come in at night, 
5 0 Letter from F. D. Richardson, Jeanerette, Iberia, to Moses 
Liddell, 18 July 1852, Safe 12, Folder 3, Liddell (Moses, St. John R., 
and Family) Papers, Archives, LSU; Interview with Martha Stuart, loc. 
cit. 
161 
an' to get a meal. They bore a little hole in the floor an' they break 
CI 
into da meat house, too."ul 
Not all goods stolen from the plantation by slaves were consumed 
directly by the perpetrator. In addition to improving slaves' diet, 
clothing and lodgings directly, goods stolen by slaves were traded for 
other commodities or for cash, and as such comprised an important part 
of the slaves' internal economy. Slaves had external outlets for stolen 
goods either at market or with itinerant traders. Supplemental to these 
markets, slaves also probably dealt in stolen goods with slaves on their 
own and nearby plantations, and also, perhaps, with free blacks and poor 
whites in the neighborhood. 
In dealing with plantation theft, the historian is, of course, 
confronted with the problems inherent in analyzing phenomena of the past 
that went virtually undocumented. Just as it is difficult to assess 
the extent of this clandestine activity, precisely which portion of the 
slave population took part in it, and whose property was targeted, whose 
immune, so it is virtually impossible to determine its impact on the 
larger structure of the slaves' internal economy. 
What evidence does exist indicates, however, that plantation 
theft did play a role in the solvency of the internal economy and 
should be viewed as part of an integrated economic system. Theft often 
involved a separate marketing system; stolen goods required a special 
trade outlet, and this outlet was able, in turn, to supply commodities 
unobtainable through other channels. 
61 Letter from John Palfrey, Plantation, Attakapas, to William 
T. Palfrey, Franklin, 16 July 1833, Box 2, Folder 9, W. T. & G. D. Pal-
frey Papers; Interviewee—Albert Patterson: Interviewer—Maud Wallace: 
Date—1940: F. W. P. Interviews, Louisiana State Library. 
162 
The patterns of theft replicated those of Jamaican sugar slav-
ery. Slaves on Louisiana sugar plantations apparently subscribed, as 
did Jamaican slaves, to a bifurcated order vis-a-vis theft. A typology 
of this order involved the slave community sanctioning thefts perpe-
trated on an outside agency by one of its members, and condemning thefts 
perpetrated on their own community by any of its constituents (or, 
indeed, anyone else). Again as in Jamaica, Louisiana slaves may not have 
considered the property of slaves in communities other than their own 
exempt as a target of thefts by them. The presence of locks and lock-
fast places in the slaves' houses, explained in detail in Chapter 3, 
indicates that slaves sought to secure the possessions they kept in 
CO 
their houses. 
Obviously, a number of motives impelled slaves to steal: hun-
ger, despair, disgruntlement, hatred, a sense of injustice, revenge and 
avarice. Kenneth Stampp's explanation of why slaves stole ascribes, as 
a major cause, slaves' discontent with their standard of living. Theft, 
he contended, provided them an opportunity not only to enrich their 
diets, but also, by trading for other wares, to accumulate "coveted com-63 
modi ties" and "worldly goods." 
The data used in this study do not permit an accurate assessment 
of the relative importance of various motives in explaining plantation 
CO u c For patterns of theft on Jamaican sugar plantations, see 
Chapter 1. The presence of locks in the houses of Louisiana sugar plan-
tation slaves is analyzed in Chapter 3. 
6 3 Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the 
Antebellum South (New York, 195T67, 127. 
163 
theft. Many slaves, for example, received inadequate food and clothing 
and sought to alleviate their suffering through taking what they needed. 
Other slaves used theft as a vehicle of resistance, a means of attack-
ing slavery and its profitability. The incidence of thefts and the man-
ner in which slaves perpetrated them, however, suggests that slaves also 
viewed theft, at least in part, as a rational and legitimate dimension 
of their internal economy, a means by which they could augment their 
resources. 
The internal economy of Louisiana sugar plantation slaves was 
extremely diffuse and diversified. On and off the plantation, with and 
without the sanction of the planter, slaves had numerous opportunities 
to pursue activities which could net them financial or material gains. 
Recalling the cash economy of the slave community on Dr. William Lyle's 
sugar plantation, ex-slave Catherine Cornelius maintained "we got 
money several ways."64 
The amount of money within the internal economy fluctuated. The 
potential for earning money varied from season to season and year to 
year, while individual slaves on a given plantation and slave communi-
ties on different plantations did not have equal earning capacities. 
A large proportion of the capital entered the Louisiana slaves1 
economy in fall or early winter. Slaves gathered and usually sold their 
cash crops prior to the beginning of the sugar harvest (late September 
to early October), and wood-collecting continued up to the commencement 
of the harvest. In both cases, slaves usually received payment either 
6 4 Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. cit. 
164 
just before or just after the sugar harvest, or else at Christmas. Other 
opportunities occurred for slaves to earn money during the harvest and 
processing of the sugar crop—attending the sugar kettles and serving 
as firemen, sugar-makers and engineers. Stealing from the sugar house 
also was seasonal as it had to be carried out between the time the crop 
was processed and its shipment off the estate. Furthermore, any gifts 
that slaves received from planters were usually distributed at Christmas-
time or at the end of harvest. A contemporary commentator, T. B. Thorpe, 
portrayed Christmastime as: 
the season when the planter . . . makes presents of calico of flaming 
colors to the women and children, and a coat of extra fineness to 
patriarchal "boys" of sixty-five and seventy. It is the time when 
negroes square their accounts with each other, and get "master" and 
"mistress" to pay up for innumerable eggs and chickens which they 
have frome [sic] time to time, since the last settling day, furnished 
the "big house." In short, it is a kind of jubilee, when the "poor 
African" as he is termed in poetry, has a pocket full of silver, [and] 
a body covered with gay toggery. 
This seasonal bias sometimes resulted in the sudden injection of 
large sums of money into the internal economy of a given slave community. 
Valcour Aime, a St. James Parish sugar planter, for example, paid 
$1300.00 to slaves on his plantation for their 1848 corn crop, and on 
25 October 1859, slaves on the Uncle Sam sugar estate received $1083.25 
for cutting wood and making barrels and bricks. The following year, 
slaves on Uncle Sam earned $506.00 for wood, bricks and barrels, and the 
year after, the total paid was $843.00. In these years, as in 1859, 
6 5 T. B. Thorpe, "Christmas in the South," Frank Leslie's Illus-
trated Newspaper, 26 December 1857, 62. 
165 
slaves were all paid at the same time. Similar payment schedules, 
involving sums from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars, occur regularly 
in plantation records.66 
Not all of the inflow of cash occurred in late fall and early 
winter. Poultry provided year-round earnings, as did theft from the 
plantation, day labor, moss-collecting and other money-making ventures 
not affected by seasonal changes. 
The uninterrupted labor schedule during the sugar harvest in 
Louisiana, when slaves worked seven days a week spending the daylight 
hours cutting the cane and nights working in the sugar mill processing 
the crop, meant that slaves had little, if any, free time to devote to 
their own economic interests. Similarly in Jamaica, the sugar harvest 
labor schedule had slaves working Monday through Saturday for upwards 
of fifteen to eighteen hours a day, at night in the mill, in daytime 
cutting cane in the fields. Jamaican slaves had only Sundays off dur-
ing harvest, and in this brief respite from the gruelling work regime, 
had not only to try to recoup their strength, but also get out to their 
provision grounds and gather food to see them through another week. 
Louisiana planters assumed greater responsibility than their Jamaican 
counterparts for feeding slaves. Consequently, it was less important, 
from purely dietary considerations, that slaves have time off each week 
to gather foodstuffs. Additionally, the sugar harvest in Louisiana was 
invariably a race against the weather, since cane suffers severe damage 
if exposed to frost. In order to maximize the sugar yield, planters 
6 6 Plantation Diary of Valcour Aime 1847-1852; Boxes 1 and 2, 
Uncle Sam Papers. 
166 
sought to complete the sugar harvest before the first frost, but did not 
wish to start cutting until the last possible moment in order to permit 
the cane to grow and increase in sugar content. The decision to begin 
harvesting involved delicate judgment, part of the equation being how 
quickly the crop could be taken off—the quicker, of course, the better. 
This resulted in a labor schedule in which slaves worked seven days a 
week. 
During harvest, therefore, slaves in both Louisiana and Jamaica 
worked tremendously hard. The long hours that night work in the sugar 
mill involved exacerbated the severity of their labor. The demands placed 
on them by this harvest work schedule sharply curtailed any free time 
they had to work for themselves. Slaves devoted most of the time they 
had off during harvest to the basic necessities of survival--food and 
rest. Apart from the slaves who got paid for their services during har-
vest (such as kettle-men, firemen, sugar-makers and engineers) and those 
able to "appropriate" some of the sugar and molasses they made, slaves 
had little opportunity to do much to advance their economic position. 
Additionally, slaves would have had few opportunities at this time to 
spend any money they already had. 
The internal economy of slaves on Louisiana sugar plantations, 
therefore, had a curious profile. Potential and realized earnings 
fluctuated considerably since the onerous demands of the labor regime 
of sugar slavery, particularly at harvest, overlaid the seasonal fluc-
tuations traditional to rural populations whose source of income derived 
from growing and marketing crops. Earnings potential also fluctuated 
167 
from year to year since the cash crops that comprised an important dimen-
sion of the slaves1 economy were subject to the vagaries of the weather. 
Poor growing years diminished the profitability of the slaves' crops. 
The opportunity, capability and proclivity of slaves to engage 
in money-making ventures varied from individual to individual on a single 
sugar estate, and from plantation to plantation throughout the Louisi-
ana sugar region. Variations in the amount of free time enjoyed by 
slaves on different estates obviously affected the extent to which they 
could work for themselves, while the types and quantities of products 
planters were willing to purchase affected profitability, as did the 
availability of alternate markets. 
Much of the work done for the plantation, for example, coopering 
and smithing, favored skilled slaves, while only slaves with strong physi-
cal constitutions could expect to make much money cutting wood and 
digging ditches. Neither the smal1-holding agriculture slaves engaged 
in, nor the few other paying chores they could do on the plantation, 
required trade skills or such strength and stamina. Nevertheless, even 
these activities favored certain slaves. 
The system whereby goods and cash entered the slaves' internal 
economy consistently discriminated against certain members of the com-
munity, since all the money-making ventures it incorporated required 
physical effort on the part of slaves. Hence, slaves either too old, 
too young, too sick, or incapacitated in some other way, were excluded 
from most, if not all, of the activities that contributed to the pro-
fitability of the economy. Although the structure of family in the 
168 
slave community compensated in part for these inequities, nevertheless, 
some slaves patently did less well within the internal economy. 
Work slaves did for themselves had to be integrated into the 
punishing labor schedule of sugar plantation slavery. Not all slaves 
could endure, or were willing to assume, the attendant physical and 
psychological strains. Further, the oppression of bondage was respon-
sible for the indifference or unwillingness of slaves to spend the lit-
tle time they had off from plantation work in the exacting labor 
schedule required of working on their own. The despondency, hopeless-
ness and, in John Blassingame's words, "sense of despair among many of 
the slaves that was all consuming," militated against their committing 
themselves extensively, or even nominally, to working for themselves.67 
For a number of reasons, therefore, considerable disparities 
existed in the earnings of slaves even within the same plantation. The 
money accumulated by individual slaves on Benjamin Tureaud's estate 
for 1858-59 ranged from $170.00 to $1.00. Some slaves, including 22 
of the 30 women listed in the ledger, earned no money, although, since 
a few of these received goods on credit, presumably there was the 
expectation that they would earn some in the future. Similarly, cash 
earned by slaves on the Gay family's plantation in 1844 ranged from 
$82.00 to $1.00 with, again, some slaves getting credit: slaves earned 
a total of $900.12 (including $32.00 in credit) in this year. Moss 
accounts for the Gay Plantation in 1849-61 show that individual slaves 
gathered totals of from one to forty-eight bales in the period. The 
67Blassingame, The Slave Community, 197. 
169 
twenty-three slaves paid for cutting wood on the Stirling family's sugar 
estate in 1849 received sums of from $10.50 to $1.12 as their share of 
the total of $103.48 paid, while a "Memorandum of Money Paid or Given 
to the Negroes in 1854," taken from the same records, lists payments 
of from $15.25 to 10 cents in the total of $314.55 paid the fifty women 
68 
and forty-five men named. 
Plantation records, however, contain only a partial reckoning of 
slaves' earnings. The records are incomplete, often only containing 
the payments for certain commodities or work performed. Additionally, 
they do not incorporate profits derived from transactions in markets 
other than on the plantation. Undoubtedly, any other earnings would 
also have been unevenly distributed, but not necessarily to the bene-
fit of the same groups of slaves. Slaves who derived the greatest 
profit from dealings with river traders or through stealing from the 
plantation, for example, may not have been the slaves who made the most 
money in transactions with the planter. 
The incompleteness of data on the internal economy, especially 
those dealing with dimensions external to the plantation, prevents a 
full assessment of the economy's volume and distribution. Not all 
slaves participated in the internal economy equally, and some may not 
have had any direct participation. As with Jamaica, however, one can 
reasonably posit that an internal economy was integral to the community 
life of slaves on every sugar plantation in Louisiana. 
6 8 Ledger 1858-1372, Tureaud Papers; Daybook 1843-1847 (Volume 
5); Moss Record Book 1849-1861 (Volume 35), Gay Papers; "List of Wood 
Cut by Slaves and Payment Made," Box 7, Folder 39; Box 8, Folder 49, 
Stirling Papers. 
170 
Participation in an internal economy offered slaves a number of 
benefits, some material, others less tangible. Slaves who worked for 
themselves and accumulated money and property were not only in a posi-
tion to purchase such goods as would make up for what was deficient or 
omitted in the supplies given by planters, but also could derive satis-
faction from the manner in which they organized the economic system. 
Slaves were responsible for the structure of the internal 
economy. They chose the manner and extent of their involvement, making 
the attendant decisions about marketing, agronomy, working and so forth. 
Slaves thus decided which crops to grow and how to raise them; how they 
distributed their time between their small-holding agricultural pursuits 
and work for which the planters paid them; when to sell, what to buy: 
the types of decisions not normally associated with the lives of a 
people, enslaved in perpetuity, whose very being was defined by law in 
terms of an "owner11 or "master." 
One must, of course, recognize the important proviso that the 
slaves1 internal economy operated within the constraints of the structure 
of the "peculiar institution," and primarily within the confines of the 
plantation on which the participants lived. Planters imposed various 
limitations on the economic activities of slaves, such as claiming sole 
purchasing rights over certain commodities, proscribing the purchase 
by slaves of some goods, and restricting movement on and off the plan-
tation. Further, the internal economy had to accommodate the sugar 
plantation's onerous labor regime, again dictated by planters. Slaves' 
economic activities, therefore, comprised one, often very limited, facet 
of plantation life. 
171 
The importance of the internal economy to slaves and to an 
understanding of slave life lies, however, not only in its volume and 
extent, but also in the variance between the dynamics of the internal 
economy and the dynamics of servitude. Slaves qua slaves, at least in 
their working role as field hands in the omnipresent gang system, 
operated within a structure of social and labor relations that deprived 
them of personal rights, autonomous actions, decision-making roles con-
cerning planting, harvesting and marketing, and self-motivated work 
regimes. Slaves as operatives within the internal economy, however, 
necessarily assumed the responsibilities of determining the manner in 
which they would structure their efforts. For example, they controlled 
"their" land and the manner of its cultivation, and decided on how to 
market produce and dispose of the accumulated profits. 
The plantation journal of Mavis Grove Estate in Plaquemines 
Parish provides a further telling example of the disparity between 
slaves1 lives as slaves, and their activities within the internal 
economy. The journal records that on Sunday, 13 September 1857, "Boys 
not cutting wood today, resting from the fatigues of last night's frol-
ic." Normally, slaves on Mavis Grove spent Sundays cutting wood for 
sale to the planter, but forbore doing so on the day following a dance. 
These slaves, evidently, adhered to a work ethic, in relation to their 
internal economy, in which labor patterns interrelated with various 
social considerations. This fusion of work and social habits clearly 
is not the labor system of slaves as members of a field gang, nor does 
it reflect an external labor system in which slaves had to work to 
avoid starving. It demonstrates that slaves working within their 
172 
internal economy held the responsibility for determining how to order 
their time and labor, and shows the amalgam of priorities they consid-
ered.69 
A comparison of the labor system of slaves in their internal 
economy with ideal types of slave labor and free small-holding agrarian 
labor further demonstrates the disparity between slaves' lives as slaves, 
and their personal economic activities. Slave field hands in the gang 
system invariably used in cultivating sugar had virtually no say in 
how their efforts were to be organized. Planters decided what and where 
work was to be done (planting, hoeing, cleaning, laying-by, cutting); 
what to plant and when and where to plant it; when to harvest; and how 
to process and market. Field hands acted within this system as func-
tionaries, charged to work at a specific pace on a preassigned task 
that they themselves had no part in determining. On the other hand, 
free smal1-hoiding agrarian labor, perhaps best represented as a landed 
peasantry, had the responsibility of deciding how to organize their 
work, such as planting, harvesting and marketing. Clearly the structure 
of the slaves1 internal economy resembled more closely the latter ideal 
type, that of a landed peasantry; it differs significantly from the 
ideal typical slave labor system which their efforts for the planter, 
sunup to sundown, six days a week, more closely approximated. 
This process of the internal economy may have proved cathartic 
to slaves. The dimensions of independence, responsibility and decision-
making inherent in the system could have been, in themselves, rewarding. 
6 9 Journal of Mavis Grove Plantation 1856, Louisiana State 
Museum. 
173 
Involvement in the internal economy undoubtedly had potentially dele-
terious effects such as physical stress, and the diminution of time 
one could spend in other pursuits such as resting or being with one's 
family. Nevertheless, slaves could derive satisfactions from working 
for themselves, pacing their own work, taking responsibility for the 
organization of their efforts, controlling the disposal of, and profit-
ing directly from, the fruits of their labor. 
As well as deriving satisfaction from the process of the inter-
nal economy, slaves, of course, accrued material benefits in the form 
of goods they bought with their accumulated earnings. An anlysis of 
what slaves bought permits an explanation of why slaves worked and 
operated an internal economy. Given that working for themselves 
afforded slaves some gratification, their motivation for involvement 
in the internal economy undoubtedly rested largely with its end-product, 
the purchasing power that permitted the acquisition of goods. 
An examination of purchasing patterns permits an assessment of 
how slaves viewed their earnings and the function of their economic 
system. Slaves bought some goods to compensate for inadequate supplies 
from the plantation, their purchases serving to avert real distress. 
In other cases, however, slaves bought items that they considered 
reflected an improvement in their status. 
Within the plantation system, slaves had few opportunities for 
any form of social mobility. Scope for advancement in the planter-
structured hierarchy of drivers, tradesmen and head people was limited 
and not necessarily sought by all slaves. Manumission was unlikely for 
174 
ordinary field hands since they could seldom accumulate the hundreds, 
perhaps thousands, of dollars necessary to buy their freedom, and it 
was as unlikely that the planters would gratuitously manumit them. 
The coercive nature of sugar slavery, however, did not deprive those 
in servitude of purpose. 
Recent scholarship on slavery in the Americas has made salutary 
progress in documenting the vitality of slave community life in such 
dimensions as family, culture and religion. The structure of the 
internal economy provides further evidence. Both the extensive involve-
ment in the internal economy and the purpose reflected in their pur-
chases testify to the vigor of the slave community. Purchasing patterns 
disclose how slaves defined themselves, what priorities they placed in 
terms of the acquisition of "coveted commodities," and how these pri-
orities translate into slaves1 aspirations and their perceptions of 
"betterment." Given what slaves purchased, there can be little doubt 
as to their desire to use their earnings for self-improvement--to eat 
and dress better, to live in more comfortable homes, to care, in these 
and other ways, both for themselves and for members of their families. 
Although their earnings were often small and their purchases equally 
modest, they do reflect the independent actions of slaves as consumers, 
and as such offer a unique insight into the way they dealt with their 
lives in bondage.70 
7 0 Blassingame, The Slave Community; Leslie Howard Owens, This 
Species of Property (New York, 1976); Mechal Sobel, Trabelin' On: The 
Slave Journey to an Afro-Baptist Faith (Westport, Conn., 1979); Albert 
J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Ante-
bellum South (New York, 1978);~0Tli Alho, The Religion of STaves 
175 
Louisiana slaves' purchases fell principally into six categories: 
food and drink; pipes and tobacco; clothing and other personal items; 
housewares; implements; and livestock. Although the categories are few, 
each contains a wide variety of items. Plantation records provide the 
most complete classification of slaves' purchases; they do not, however, 
incorporate all that slaves bought. Prior to analyzing slaves' buying 
habits, as manifested in plantation manuscripts, it is important to 
assess to what extent these records distort the overall spending pat-
terns of slaves. 
One indication that slaves did not buy solely through the 
planter comes from the very accounts which itemize what they did pur-
chase through this agency. As well as the goods slaves bought through 
the "slave accounts" kept by the planters, they usually withdrew some 
of their earnings in cash. Once slaves withdrew money, it played no 
further role in the dealings between them and the planters, save for 
occasionally when slaves would deposit, into their account, cash they 
may have withdrawn earlier. Slaves, however, normally spent this cash 
elsewhere. 
When slaves sold their produce off the plantation—to river and 
highway traders, at town markets, or in the neighborhood of the estate— 
they availed themselves of the opportunity to spend some of their 
(Helsinki, 1976); Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Conscious-
ness (New York, 1977); Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The 
World the Slaves Made (New York, 1974); Herbert G. Gutman, The Black 
Family in Slavery and Freedom (New York, 1976); Peter Wood,TTacF 
Majority (New YorkTT974); Gerald W. Mullin, Flight and Rebellion (Lon-
don, 1972); Edward Brathwaite, The Development of Creole Society in 
Jamaica 1770-1820 (London, 197lTT~0rlando Patterson, The Sociology of 
Slavery TEondon, 1967); Michael Craton, Searching for the Invisible Man 
(Cambridge, Mass., 1978). 
176 
earnings where they had transacted their sales. These agencies also 
offered slaves the opportunity to spend cash they had withdrawn from 
their accounts on the plantation. 
What si aves bought at alternative markets, however, probably 
was very similar to what they bought through the planter, with one nota-
ble exception—alcohol. Markets outside the plantation were usually 
the only source from which slaves could obtain this commodity: planters 
only infrequently supplied slaves with liquor (they occasionally dis-
tributed it on holidays, like Christmas) and rarely would allow slaves 
to buy it through the plantation accounts (although Martha Stuart 
recalled that, on the plantation where she was a slave, "you had 
whiskey. . . . Our boss didn't care how much you want--send to town to 
git it--and git it cheap den, 20 cents a gallon, and twas whiskey.").7^ 
Except for alcohol, and perhaps some money spent on gambling, 
such as was referred to by the Mayor of Plaquemine township in his 
complaint about slaves being "drunk and gambling" in that town on Sun-
days, slaves1 expenditures off the plantation went to buy commodities 
similar to those purchased through the planter. The river traders 
William Kingsford saw sold "ribbons, tobacco, [and] gaudy calicoes" as 
well as whiskey, while V. Alton Moody claimed that these traders sold 
both whiskey and "cheap finery." Ex-slave Catherine Cornelius recalled 
71 Slaves on the Gay Family's Estate, for example, were occa-
sionally given whiskey. On 28 December 1846 "whiskey for Negroes din-
ner" cost $1.50, and on 25 December 1850 "Whiskey for Negroes" cost 
$2.50. The planter paid for these items. Estate Record Book 1842-1847 
(Volume 12); Estate Record Book 1848-1855 (Volume 34), Gay Papers; 
Interview with Martha Stuart, loc. cit. 
177 
that, on the plantation where she lived, the planter, Dr. William Lyle, 
"wouldn't gib us combs en brushes, but we got some from pedlin." 
Slaves could also obtain these goods, except for the whiskey, along 
17 
with many others, through their plantation accounts." 
Within the six general categories mentioned above, slaves could 
choose from a wide range of goods, as a tabulation of items shows. 
Slaves bought such foodstuffs as flour, molasses, meat, coffee, herring, 
mackerel, ham, beans, pork, rice, biscuits, potatoes, apples and bottles 
of cordial. Louisiana slaves made widespread use of tobacco, chewing 
it and smoking it in pipes they bought for that purpose. They also 
bought a tremendous variety of cloth and clothing, all of which went 
to provide them with the "best clothing" they wore when not at work on 
the plantation. Among more elaborate purchases were "Elegant Bonnets," 
a "fine Summer Coat," a "Fine Russian Hat," "Chambray," white and 
colored shirts, roundabouts [short jackets] and waistcoats, black shoes, i 
a fur hat, white "cambrice" and silk dresses, gloves, an oiled-cloth 
winter coat, oiled-cloth and "log cabin" pantaloons. More usually, 
however, slaves purchased plainer wares: lengths of calico, check, 
plain and striped cotton, linen, cottonade, "domestic," blue drilling 
and thread, as well as simpler made-up clothing like dresses, hose, 
shirts, pants, hats, shoes and boots, kerchiefs, suspenders and shawls. 
(For a much more detailed analysis of slaves' clothing purchases, see 
7 2 Letter from P. E. Jennings, Mayor of Plaquemine to Edward 
J. Gay, 25 August 1858, Box 25, Folder 221, Gay Papers; Kingsford, 
Impressions, 47-8; V. Alton Moody, Slavery on Louisiana Sugar Planta-
tions (New Orleans, 1924), 68; Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. 
ci t. 
178 
Chapter 4.) As well as clothes, slaves bought such personal items as 
pocket knives, combs, fiddles and umbrellas. Patrick, a slave "Engineer 
and Overseer" on the Gay family's plantation, paid $15.00 for a watch, 
while on W. W. Pugh's Woodlawn Estate, one slave spent $3.00 to get his 
watch mended. Slaves bought just as diverse a range of housewares. 
Their purchases included blankets, baskets, tin cups and buckets, cut-
lery, soap, sheets of tin, locks, mosquito bars, bed spreads, "furni-
ture," coffee pots, tallow and spermacetti candles, portable ovens, 
copper kettles, chairs, bowls and pots. (Chapter 3 contains a fuller 
73 
description of the housewares slaves bought.) 
Some of the purchases made by slaves represented a capital 
investment in their economic activities. Slaves bought various imple-
ments and gear: shovels, saddles, bridles and bits, wire, twine, fish-
ing hooks and line, "mud boots" and mitts. They also invested in such 
livestock as pigs and shoats, and poultry, but the records do not 
reveal whether these purchases were for home consumption or if the 
slaves intended raising and breeding the animals for sale at a later 
time. None of the plantation records consulted for this study list 
purchases of seed. It is possible either that those slaves who had 
had a crop the previous year sold part of what they kept back for the 
next year's seed to those who had not raised anything the year before, . . 74 or, perhaps, slaves got seed from the planters' stock as a perquisite. 
7 3 Appendices 2-d to 2-k contain itemizations of slaves' expen-
ditures . 
7 4 See Appendices 2-d to 2-k. 
179 
Obviously, not every slave, nor, indeed, every slave community 
bought such a wide range of goods as are listed above. The foregoing 
tabulation derives from the records of purchases made by hundreds of 
slaves on some twenty Louisiana sugar plantations in the years from 
1834 up 10 the beginning of the Civil War. This extensive listing, 
however, better serves to distinguish slave purchasing trends through-
out the Louisiana sugar region during the period of the sugar boom: 
these trends are not as readily discernible in an analysis of one plan-
tation in a given year. 
The pattern that emerges suggests that over time slaves' buy-
ing practices underwent little change. Throughout the period covered 
slaves placed high priority on a rather limited number of commodities, 
specifically flour, cloth and tobacco. Other goods given primacy 
included shoes and various items of made-up clothing. 
This general pattern held not only through time but also from 
plantation to plantation throughout the sugar region. When slaves had 
only limited purchasing power, they tended to invest principally in 
these few staple commodities, whereas slaves with larger earnings 
invariably only purchased other goods in addition to the staples rather 
than in place of them. 
Rations distributed by planters could, in specific cases, alter 
slaves' buying habits; slaves obviously did not have to buy goods if 
they were given them at the expense of the planter. On the Gay family's 
plantation, for example, slaves got tobacco as a regular part of their 
180 
rations. Hence, an extensive itemization of purchases on that estate 
reveals that no slave spent any money on that commodity.75 
The buying habits of slaves show that, in the first instance, 
they wanted to improve their diet, furnish themselves with better cloth-
ing, to be worn when not at work on the sugar crop, and enjoy tobacco. 
To these commodities, one should also probably add alcohol, which, 
although it could not be purchased through the plantation accounts and 
therefore went undocumented, many slaves seem to have esteemed. Doubt-
less, some of the cash slaves withdrew from their accounts went to pur-
chase liquor from river traders, illicit "shebeens" and grog-shops, or, 
perhaps, "moonshiners" either on or off the plantation. Slaves con-
sidered the purchase of the more elaborate personal wares, housewares 
and other items, of secondary import, since they financed investment 
in such goods with money left over after they had bought the staple 
commodities. 
Various plantation accounts provide evidence of this pattern. 
A ledger (reproduced as Appendix 2-d) listing slave earnings and expen-
ditures on one of Benjamin Tureaud's sugar plantations, for example, 
shows, that of the 93 men who bought goods through the plantation, 76 
(82%) spent part of their earnings on tobacco, 77 (83%) bought shoes, 
and 70 (75%) bought either meat or flour. In addition, the majority 
of the slaves (51 out of the 93—55%) bought some cloth or clothing 
other than shoes. Conversely, a minority of slaves bought such items 
7 5 See Appendices 2-e and 2-g; Letter P. 0. Daigre (Overseer) 
to Edward J. Gay, 15 August 1858, Box 25, Folder 221, Gay Papers. 
181 
as mosquito bars, locks, buckets and sheet-tin. The records of the 
Weeks family's Grande Cote Island sugar plantation provide substantiat-
ing evidence of slaves' buying practices. The principal commodities 
slaves bought with money earned from the sale of eggs and chickens were 
striped cotton, handkerchiefs, tobacco, flour and coffee. Records of 
other Louisiana sugar plantations evince a similar purchasing pattern. 
Clearly, most slaves used their plantation accounts primarily to buy 
these staples: food, clothing and tobacco.76 
The 1844 slave accounts of the Gay family's plantation (repro-
duced as Appendix 2-e) show no purchases of tobacco, since slaves 
received a tobacco ration from the planter. They do, however, show 
that slaves placed similar emphasis on buying cloth and foodstuffs. 
The records of the Gay and Tureaud Estates (Appendices 2-d and 2-e) 
also show the extent to which slaves withdrew cash from their accounts. 
Virtually all slaves on both plantations withdrew at least part of their 
earnings in cash; a sizable number of slaves on the Gay Plantation 
bought nothing at all through the planter, since they withdrew, in cash, 
every penny they earned. How slaves spent this money, of course, can-
not be assessed accurately, but perhaps some slaves, while they used 
their plantation accounts to buy staple goods, were more inclined to 
buy "luxury" goods, such as housewares and personal items, off the 
plantation where they could exercise greater personal control over 
selecting from a range of goods, rather than abdicating this to an 
intermediary, the planter. 
7 6 Notebook 1853-1857 (Volume 9), Weeks Collection. 
182 
Both the Tureaud and Gay records show slaves putting cash into 
their plantation accounts. They do not, however, document where this 
money came from. Some of the cash may have been the unspent balance 
of sums previously withdrawn from accounts. It is also possible that 
slaves used their plantation accounts as depositories for earnings 
made other than through the planter. Thus, slaves who made money sell-
ing goods on the river or elsewhere off the plantation banked their 
earnings in their plantation accounts. Similarly, any money accrued 
from intracommunity transactions, such as T. B. Thorpe alluded to 
(". . . the time when negroes square their accounts with each other 
. . ."), could be deposited with the planter. Given the extent to which 
slaves withdrew and deposited cash, the plantation slave communities 
were obviously familiar with the medium of hard currency, albeit in 
small denominations, and thus acquainted with the structure, not only 
of a barter or trade system, but also of a cash economy.77 
Some slaves also were conversant with the operation of a credit 
economy. The 1844 plantation accounts for the Gay Plantation (Appendix 
2-e), for example, show that nine slaves received a total of $32.00 in 
credit. Six of the slaves used their credit to obtain flour and cof-
fee, two withdrew theirs in cash, while one slave, Elias, spent part 
of his $4.00 of credit on a "Fine Russian Hat bt. in N. Orleans" that 
cost him $3.00. The other dollar went to pay off a previous balance 
he owed on clothes. Similarly, on the Tureaud Estate, slaves named 
Nash and David Big got flour, meat, handkerchiefs, check cloth, shoes 
7 7 T. B. Thorpe, "Christmas," 62. 
183 
and tobacco on credit, while another slave, Charles Yellow, who had 
earned only $2.00 cutting wood, bought tobacco, flour, shoes, hose, meat, 
handkerchiefs, cotton cloth and a hat. Since the bill for these goods 
came to $15.50, the planter apparently extended credit to Charles Yellow 
for the balance of $13.50. (See Appendix 2-d.) 
Few slave women accumulated earnings and transacted business in 
accounts registered under their own names. On the Tureaud Estate 
(Appendix 2-d), for example, 98 men had accounts and all transacted 
business in 1858-59, whereas of the 30 women listed in the ledger, only 
8 accumulated any earnings for which they received goods and cash; the 
other 22 had neither debits nor credits. Similarly the Gay Plantation 
records (Appendix 2-e) show very few women had accounts, either in com-
parison to the number of men (6 women and 70 men), or in comparison to 
the total number of women living on the estate (some 70 adults). 
Other records evince a similar pattern. The 1851 accounts of 
slaves on John Randolph's Nottoway Plantation (reproduced as Appendix 
2-f), for example, show that only eight women (as compared to 47 men) 
received such items as boots, shoes and flour. Of these eight, only 
two had their own accounts. Three of the other six apparently were not 
charged for their shoes, since the journal entry reads "Gave Dicey, 
L Anny, Silla, a pair of shoes," and no cost was entered. The three 
other women each had the purchase amounts deducted from the accounts 
of a male slave. Two of these women, Mahala and Susan, each received 
a pair of shoes at the cost of $1.00, for which the accounts of George 
and Gus, respectively, were debited $1.00, while in the other case, 
184 
the journal records "Long William got 1 pr. Shoes (for Leana) -- $1.00." 
An 1864 "List of Negroes" shows that George and Mahala were husband and 
wife, and one may assume that Gus and Susan, and Long William and Leana 
were also married, or perhaps closely related, although it is also pos-
sible that they had some sort of non-kin working or contractual rela-
. . 7 8 tionship. 
That few women held accounts on plantations, of course, does 
not reflect their lack of involvement in the system, nor suggest that 
they accrued fewer benefits from it. As in the case of George and 
Mahala on the Randolph estate, wives made purchases through accounts 
that were in the name of their husbands. The accounts of slaves on the 
Gay Plantation provide further examples of this. In 1840-41, William 
Sanders had his account debited to pay for a "White Cambrice dress for 
wife." In 1839 Little Moses' account paid for shoes for his wife, 
Charity, while five years later, Ned Davis was charged for "Coffee by 
your wife." The accounts of slaves on the Gay Plantation for the late 
1850s (reproduced as Appendix 2-g) record not only account-holders with-
drawing cash from their accounts, but also wives and daughters making 
withdrawals. A slave named Willis bought children's shoes from his 
account on the Tureaud estate, while Kenawa Moses, a slave on the Gay 
Estate, paid for "meat for [his] children" from the money he earned. 
Other slaves on the Gay Estate charged for goods and cash to family 
members included Harry Cooper, who bought shoes for his wife and his 
daughter Tulip, and Alfred Cooper, who paid for calico for his 
7 8 Ledger 1862-1865 (Volume 3), Randolph Papers. 
185 
daughter Louisiana, and two "Elegant Bonnets" costing $2.00 each, pre-
sumably for his wife Dedo and his daughter.79 
The systems of debiting and the purchasing patterns revealed in 
the various ledgers indicate that the slave accounts served the family 
of the account-holder. This family orientation is clearly shown where 
purchases were made for wives and children. Even where the records 
make no mention of kin-relationship, however, as in the debit of $12.50 
from the account of Woodson, a slave on W. W. Pughrs estate, for a 
"Silk Dress for Rachel," and in the "cash [paid] to Aunt Julia" from 
Patrick's account on the Gay Plantation, it seems most likely that the 
men and women were kin.8(^ 
Records of the Gay family's Iberville Parish sugar estate pro-
vide evidence of the family structure of account-holding. A comparison 
of the 1844 slave accounts on the plantation with other slave lists 
compiled at around the same time, for the purpose of recording rations 
distributions and work schedules, shows the familial relationships of the 
account-holders. Seventy-six people earned money and held accounts, 70 
of whom were men. Of these 70 male account-holders, 37 were heads of 
households, 6 were sons in male-headed households, and 3 were sons in 
female-headed households, while 18 were single males without family 
affiliation. The status of the remaining 6 males is less clear: 1 of 
them may have been a male head of household and 1 a son in a male-headed 
7 9 See Appendices 2-d to 2-g; Memorandum Book 1840-1841 (Volume 
28); Estate Record Book 1831-1845 (Volume 8), Gay Papers. 
8 0 See Appendices 2-e and 2-j. 
186 
household, while two appear to have been single males, and the other 
two cannot be traced elsewhere in the records. Of the six women hold-
ing accounts, two were heads of households, one was a daughter in a 
female-headed household, and one a single female. The two other women 
held joint accounts; Clarissa with her husband Toney (Toney also held 
an account with another slave, Ned Teagle, who was a son in a female-
headed household), and Anna with William, neither of whom can be traced 
elsewhere in the plantation records. (This analysis is reproduced 
schematically in Table 2-3, with notations on specific individuals in 
81 
Appendix 2-e.) 
Many of the slaves recorded as single and without family affilia-
tion had families who drew on their accounts. A slave named Kenawa 
Moses, for example, who was recorded as single, paid from his account 
for "meat for [his] children." Slaves on the Gay Plantation worked 
either on the Front or Back Place, and rations and labor were allocated 
according to whether they were on one place or the other. Slaves from 
both these parts of the plantation lived together, however, so it may 
be that a number of those recorded as single males in the various slave 
lists, in fact lived with their family, but worked on a different part 
of the estate and thus were listed separately. Alternatively, some of 
the single male slaves may have had families in nearby plantations, or, 
as was possible in the case of Kenawa Moses, lived apart from their 
families, the members of which continued to contribute to and draw 
from the accounts. 
81 Estate Record Book 1831-1845 (Volume 8); Cashbook/Daybook 
1837-1843 (Volume 18), Gay Papers. 
187 
Table 2-3 
Family Relationships of Slaves holding Accounts 
on the Gay Estate, 1844 
Male Account-Holders 
Head of Household 37 
Son in a Male-Headed Household 6 
Son in a Female-Headed Household 3 
Single Male 18 
Head of Household (?) 1 
Son in Male-Headed Household (?) 1 
Single Male (?) 2 
Unknown 2 
Female Account-Holders 
Head of Household 
Daughter in a Female-Headed 
Single Female 
2 
Household 1 
Joint Male/Female Account-Holders 
Husband and Wife 1 couple 
Unknown 1 couple 
Source: Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Volume 5, Daybook 1843-1847; 
Volume 8, Estate Record Book 1831-1845; Volume 13, Cashbook/Daybook 
1837-1843, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State Uni-
versity, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
188 
The accounts held by sons in either male- or female-headed house-
holds suggests a "coming of age" pattern. Young adults may have been 
listed individually, for example, when they assumed sole responsibility 
for a specific money-making endeavor. 
Records of other plantations, though less complete, suggest a 
similar structure of account-holding, male heads of households compris-
ing the largest group under whom accounts were listed. An itemization 
of goods purchased indicates that the whole family of the account-
holder had recourse to the account. Some of the goods purchased went 
to named persons, other than the account-holders, who were usually mem-
bers of account-holders' families. Other purchases, although debited 
to the account-holders, obviously were not solely for their benefit. 
The staple foodstuffs slaves bought—meat and barrels of flour-
benefited the whole family, while the lengths of cloth bought through 
the accounts were probably sewn up by the women of the family to provide 
garments for the whole family. Similarly, the housewares purchased 
obviously benefited the household: such goods as candles, furniture, 
cutlery and other tableware, coffee pots, blankets, locks, mosquito bars, 
82 
soap and cooking utensils. 
The system whereby slaves accumulated earnings developed around 
the family, the various members of which employed themselves in an inte-
grated work structure. The pattern of expenditures further reflects 
the family orientation of the internal economy since plantation accounts, 
although recorded under the names of the heads of households, clearly 
8 2 See Appendices 2-d to 2-k. 
189 
served the family as a whole. Appendices 2-h, 2-i , 2-j and 2-k provide 
supportive documentation. The purchases listed in these appendices, 
which slaves on Wilton Plantation, George Lanaux' Bellevue Plantation, 
W. W. Pugh's Woodlawn Plantation and Alexis Ferry's estate made, 
encompass a range of commodities, both household and personal wares, 
that undoubtedly went to improve the lives and comfort not only of the 
slaves who were debited for the goods, but also of members of their 
families. 
Expenditures indicate what commodities slaves gave priority, and, 
therefore, permit an assessment both of the shortcomings of planters' 
supplies, and the slaves' perception of betterment. These purchases 
show the choices slaves made as consumers, the "bundle of preferences" 
they selected to spend their often limited cash earnings on. What 
Louisiana slaves bought indicates that they directed much of their con-
cern with improvement to home and family, a principle around which many 
of the economic activities of Jamaican slaves also revolved. 
Although the internal economy was often conducted at a very modest 
level, it not only developed throughout the two plantation societies, 
but also, indeed, within every sugar estate. Many sugar plantation 
slaves sacrificed a portion of what little free time they had to work-
ing for themselves, earning money for their own and their families' 
benefit. 
190 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Bales of Moss sent by Slaves on the Gay Estate 
for Sale in St. Louis--!349-61 
• 49 '50 •51 '52 '53 '54 '55 •56 '57 •58 '59 •60 
Wm. Sanders 3 3 2 
Sci pio 3 3 1 2 4 1 3 5 1 2 3 5 
Jerry 2 1 5 2 1 2 
Nathan 3 1 2 1 
Levi 3 2 1 3 2 5 1 3 2 
John & 
Charlotte 2 
Little Moses 4 1 4 2 1 
Henry Hynes 1 1 2 1 1 1 2 3 1 1 3 2 
Gus 3 1 1 1 1 1 
Austin 3 2 1 1 4 4 1 4 3 
Isaac 1 2 
Joe Bell 3 1 1 2 2 3 
Ned 4 2 
App 1 2 5 2 4 3 9 3 3 
Daniel 3 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 3 
Little Jacob 2 2 2 1 1 1 5 1 
Bill Garner 2 1 3 
Bill Moss 2 1 3 2 2 3 5 1 6 2 
Perry 3 1 3 1 2 3 4 10 1 4 4 4 
John 4 1 1 1 
Little Ben 5 1 2 
191 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
•49 '50 '51 '52 '53 '54 '55 '56 '57 '58 '59 '60 
Ben Fuller 2 
Toney 2 2 2 1 4 2 2 1 
John Gipson 1 1 1 1 2 1 6 1 
Louis Bell 1 
Henry Hoi brook 2 
Israil 2 3 1 6 1 1 2 
Yellow Augustus 1 2 2 3 2 
Black Augustus 1 1 1 3 2 
Jessie 1 
Tom Bell 3 3 2 2 3 4 4 2 1 3 
Little John 
White 1 
John White 1 
Ceazer 1 2 2 2 3 4 1 1 5 
Viney & 
Penelope 1 1 1 2 1 2 
Augustus 1 1 2 
Mack 1 1 1 1 2 1 
El ias 2 1 4 2 7 5 1 3 
Harriet 1 
Ben 1 5 5 2 3 1 5 10 3 2 10 1 
Henry 1 
Absolom 1 
David 1 
192 
Appendix 2-a (continued) 
•49 '50 '51 '52 '53 '54 '55 '56 '57 '58 '59 '61 
Jacob 1 1 1 1 
Isaac 3 2 1 1 
Ned Davis 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 
Simpson 1 1 1 1 4 5 6 1 5 5 
Ferdinand 1 1 1 1 2 3 1 10 
Jim Banks 1 1 2 1 2 3 2 3 
John Hynes 1 2 1 1 3 1 1 
Sam Todd & 
Augustus 1 1 
Sam 3 1 
Geo. Green 2 2 3 1 2 5 1 1 3 
Rachael 1 1 
Charles 2 1 1 2 
Peyton 2 1 1 3 3 1 2 2 
Drummer John 1 2 3 2 1 
Geo. & 
Austin 1 
Sophia 1 2 
Anica 1 
Ritta 1 
Sam Brown 1 
George 1 
Nancy & 
Henry 1 
193 
Appendix 2-a (continued) 
'49 '50 '51 '52 '53 '54 '55 '56 '57 '58 '59 '60 '61 
Patrick 1 5 3 8 6 15 1 
Alfred 1 1 1 4 3 1 3 2 
Tom 1 1 1 
Bill Chase 1 1 1 5 1 1 2 1 
Lucy 1 1 1 
Josiah 1 1 
Peter Purnell 1 
Emily 1 1 
Charity Moses 1 
Little Austin 3 
Jim Tunley 1 2 
Jim Thornton 3 3 1 
Davy Thornton 1 2 
Penelope & 
Ritter 1 1 
Horace 1 2 4 5 1 1 
Ned Dickerson 1 1 2 1 4 4 1 4 
Henderson 1 2 2 1 3 
Jul ia 1 
Bill Dock 1 1 1 2 4 2 2 1 
Geo. Tunley 1 
Levin 1 1 1 
Sugar Charles 1 
194 
Appendix 2-a (continued) 
'49 '50 '51 '52 '53 '54 '55 '56 '57 '58 '59 "60 '61 
Tom Yellow 1 1 
Henna 1 1 
Clarissa 1 2 1 
Woodson 1 2 2 4 1 2 
Toby 1 1 1 2 2 
Sam Satin 1 1 2 1 2 
Bill Thornton 2 1 
John Garner 1 2 1 2 2 2 
Moses 6 4 5 1 1 7 5 
Jacob Lenox 2 2 1 1 
Sophy 1 
Dick & 
Andrew 2 
Jim Shallowhorn 2 1 2 1 
Margaret 2 
Rainey 2 
Ann 1 
Harry Tunley 2 2 1 1 1 
London 2 2 1 
Little Austin 1 3 2 1 1 1 
Abram 1 
Caroline 1 
Ambrose 1 1 
195 
Appendix 2-a (continued) 
'49 '50 '51 '52 '53 '54 '55 '56 '57 '58 '59 '50 '61 
Joe Penny 
Becky 
Polly Ann & 
Anna Green 
Melissa 
Little Perry 
Adeline 
Gracy 
Jacob King 
Geo. Black 
Julian 
Rachel Shallowhorn 
Dick 
Jinny Lenox 
Hacket 
Hami1 ton 
Joe Archy 
Brooks 
Little App 
Martin 
Jenny 
Little Alfred 
Chas. Tunley 
Perry Moses 
1 
2 
1 
1 
1 
2 
1 
1 
1 10 
3 
1 
2 
1 
1 
1 
196 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
'49 '50 '51 '52 '53 '54 '55 '56 '57 '53 '59 '60 '61 
Providence 3 5 1 
Elizabeth W 1 1 
Ben Tate 3 
Overton 1 
Perry's George 1 
Tamar & 
Louisa 1 
Eliza Moses 3 
Harry 2 
Sally Ann 1 
Silas 1 
Mary Jackson 1 
George Archy 1 1 
Mary Naylor 1 
Lewis 3 
Nancy 1 
Enoch 1 
Sidney 1 
New Jerry 1 
Henry Scipio 1 
H Fanny 1 
Source: Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Volume 35, Moss Record Book 
1849-1861, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State Uni-
versity, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
197 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
"Memorandum of Money Paid or Given to the Negroes in 
1854." Lewis Stirling and Family Estate 
Wesley $ 6. 35 Clarinda $4 .00 Lewis $2 .00 Catri ne $4 .75 
Allen 11. 00 Ellen 4 .00 Baptiste 2 .00 Maretta 2 .50 
Jack White & 
Wash. 15. 25 Liddy 4 .75 Robert 1 .50 Sarah 2 .00 
Adam & 
Jack D. 11. 35 Nanny 4 .00 Wiley 2 .00 Lucy 1 .50 
Sam Brown 5. 10 Cecil e 4 .00 Luke .50 Liddy 1 .00 
Long George 5. 65 Marinda 3 .00 Edmund .40 Affy 2 .50 
Ervin 5. 60 L.Charlotte 4 .00 Primus .30 Fanny 2 .00 
A1fred 15. 00 Frozene 4 .00 L. Joe .30 O.Charlotte 2 .00 
Wil1iam 8. 85 Maria 3, .75 Sampson .30 Margaret 2 .50 
Isaac 4. 00 Rose 4 .00 Stephen .10 Amy .30 
George Austin Eliza 4, .00 Henry .10 Ann .30 
Sam Jackson 5. 00 Eve!i ne 4, .00 Old Joe 1 .50 L. Margaret .30 
Levin 3. 00 Jane 4 .00 Tompo 2 .00 Judy .30 
Jul ius 3. 00 Celi a 4 .00 Wilson 5 .00 Harriet .30 
Primus 3. 00 Francoise 4 .00 Spencer 3 .00 Caty 1 .50 
Sambo 3. 00 Nelly 4 .00 Anderson 3 .00 Sophia 2 .50 
Joseph 4. 75 Clara 4 .00 Joe J. 4 .00 H. Louisa 2 .00 
Little George 4. 35 Isabel! 4 .00 Suckey 2 .00 
Old Barrica 4. .00 Delila 4 .00 Hannah 2 .00 
Harry 4. .00 Serella 4 .00 Nannette 2 .00 
Bartlett 2. .50 Esther 3 .00 Josaphene .50 
Nelson 5. .70 Phoebe 3 .50 Kitty .50 
Lige 4. .00 Rosabel 1 3 .00 O.Lindu 1 .50 
198 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Monday 4 .00 Harriet 4 .00 
Joe Clay 2 .00 Louisa 2 .50 
L. Barrica 2 .35 Henrietta 2 .50 
L. Leven 2 .00 Lindu 4 .00 
$147.80 $102.00 $28.00 $36.75 
Source: Stirling (Lewis & Family) Papers, Folder 49, Department of 
Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisi-
ana . 
199 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Reproduction of a manuscript recording "Money paid the Negroes" on Lewis 
Stirling and family's estate 1S55[?]. A total of $258.50 was paid. 
Source: Stirling (Lewis and Family) Papers, Box 8, Folder 51, Department 
of Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, 
Louisiana. 
200 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
' ' ft . 
* ' l u l S f i - — 
' A ,'v.jflA 
— J S 
DC 4 ? . 
< ¥ . . . <6.— _ A ' 
g . 
j f T Z t - * • J L . y f * 
tm:: 
X T 
± i t i-.^ 
e/. 
201 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Earnings and Expenditures of Slaves 
on Benjamin Tureaud's Sugar Estate--!858-59 
Name of Slave 
Aaron Butcher 
Abraham 
Adam 
A1 ex 
Aleck Evans 
Albert 
A1fred 
Ben Russel 
Bill Busley 
Bazil 
Bill Pol ley 
Bill Siddon 
Amount Earned How Earned 
(about) 
$170.00 Wood & Corn 
16.00 Wood & Corn 
64.00 Wood & Corn 
12.00 "paid by him" 
26.00 Wood & Corn 
13.00 Wood & Corn 
105.00 Wood & Corn 
24.00 Wood & Corn 
45.00 Wood & Corn 
44.00 Corn 
14.00 Wood 
160.00 Wood & Corn 
How Spent 
Tobacco, Flour, Cot-
ton Cloth, Shoes, got 
cash 
Flour, Tobacco, 
Shoes, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, Cot-
ton Cloth, Handker-
chiefs, Meat, got 
cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, Cot-
ton Cloth, Sheet-
Tin, Meat, a Lock 
Tobacco, Shoes, Meat, 
a Lock, Hogsheads, 
got cash 
Tobacco, got cash 
Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, Meat, Hose, 
Cotton & Check Cloth, 
got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, got cash 
Tobacco, Handker-
chiefs, Meat, Cotton 
Cloth, got cash 
Tobacco, Flour, got 
cash 
got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, Hose, got 
cash 
Name of Slave 
Billy Buck 
Bob Stuart 
Brower 
Charles Anderson 
Charles Johnson 
Charles Pennington 
Charles Yellow 
Carlos 
Chasteen Smith 
Cooper 
202 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Amount Earned How Earned How Spent 
(about) 
$ 3.00 Wood Tobacco, Shoes, Hat, 
got cash 
54.00 Wood & Corn Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, Meat, got 
cash 
14.00 Wood Tobacco, Shoes, 
Meat, Hose, Handker-
chiefs, Thread, 
Calico Cloth, Shirt, 
Pants, got cash 
36.00 Corn & Hogsheads Tobacco, Handker-
chiefs, Meat, got 
cash 
15.00 Wood Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, got cash 
19.00 "Cash reed, from Tobacco, Handker-
him" chiefs, Cotton 
Cloth, got cash 
2.00 Wood Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, Hose, Meat, 
Handkerchiefs, Cot-
ton Cloth, Hat 
[Total Cost-$15.50] 
19.00 Wood Handkerchiefs, Shoes, 
Cotton Cloth, Pants, 
got cash 
24.00 Wood & Corn Shoes, Meat, got 
cash 
28.00 Wood Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, Cotton Cloth, 
Thread, Check Cloth, 
got cash 
Curry 23.00 Wood & Corn Tobacco, Shoes, 
Meat, Handkerchiefs, 
got cash 
Name of Slave 
Daniel 
David Big 
David Ingram 
David little 
David Rock 
David Smith 
Dick Sawyer 
Ely 
Frank 
Fel ix 
George Johnson 
George Little 
Grimage 
203 
Appendix 2-e (continued) 
Amount Earned How Earned 
(about) 
$ 7.00 "Cash reed.41 
26.00 Wood & Corn 
32.00 Hogsheads 
75.00 Wood & Corn 
56.00 Wood & Corn 
14.00 Wood & Corn 
13.00 Wood 
18.00 Wood, Corn, & 
Bricks 
1.00 Wood 
17.00 Wood & Corn 
38.00 Corn 
35.00 Wood & Hogsheads 
How Spent 
Shoes, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Meat [on credit] 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, Meat, got 
cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, Cot-
ton Cloth, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, Meat, got 
cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, Meat, Cotton 
Cloth, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, got cash 
Pants, Handker-
chiefs, got cash 
Shoes, Flour, got 
cash 
got cash 
Shoes, Meat, a 
Lock, got cash 
Tobacco, Flour, got 
cash 
Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, Handkerchiefs, 
Meat, Cotton & 
Calico Cloth, got 
cash 
204 
Name of Slave 
Gustus 
Hampton Turner 
Harrison 
Henry Camphor 
Henry Hite 
Henry Davis 
Henson 
Horace 
Isaac Big 
Isaac Fabre 
James Anderson 
James Siddon 
James Thomas 
Appendix 2-d (continued) 
Amount Earned How Earned 
(about) 
$ 49.00 Wood & Corn 
49.00 Wood & Corn 
22.00 Wood 
28.00 Wood & Corn 
12.00 Wood & Corn 
85.00 Wood & Corn 
14.00 Wood 
9.00 "Cash reed, 
from him" 
4.00 "Cash reed, 
from him" 
12.00 Wood & Corn 
47.00 Wood & Corn 
17.00 Wood 
36.00 Wood & Corn 
How Spent 
Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, Handkerchiefs, 
Meat, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, Handkerchiefs, 
Meat, got cash 
Shoes, Handkerchiefs, 
got cash 
Meat, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Handkerchiefs, got 
cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Meat, Flour, got 
cash 
Tobacco, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, got 
cash 
Tobacco, Meat, 
Shoes, Bucket 
got cash 
Shoes, got cash 
Tobacco, Cotton 
Cloth, Shoes, Hat, 
got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, Cot-
ton Cloth, Flour, 
Hose, Mosquito Bar, 
got cash 
205 
Name of Slave 
Jack Locket 
Jesse Big 
Jesse Little 
John Brannum 
John Johnson 
Jonas 
Lewis Benjo 
Lewis McCargo 
Li edge 
Lunkey 
Madison 
Appendix 2-d (continued) 
Amount Earned How Earned 
(about) 
$ 25.00 Wood 
110.00 Wood & Corn 
53.00 Wood & Corn 
How Spent 
Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, Handkerchiefs, 
Meat, Cotton, Check, 
& Calico Cloth, got 
cash 
Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, Cotton Cloth, 
Meat, Shirt, Mosquito 
Bar, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, Handkerchiefs, 
Wire, Twine, a Lock, 
Hose, got cash 
7.00 Wood Flour, Shoes, Hand-
kerchiefs, got cash 
28.00 Wood & "Cash Tobacco, Flour, 
reed, from him" Shoes, Meat, got 
cash 
36.00 Wood & Hogsheads Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, Meat, got 
cash 
22.00 Wood Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, Meat, got 
cash 
43.00 Wood & Corn Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, got cash 
10.00 Corn Flour, got cash 
21.00 Wood & Corn Shoes, Tobacco, 
Cotton Cloth, got 
cash 
26.00 Wood & Corn Flour, Shoes, Meat, 
Handkerchiefs, 
Tobacco, got cash 
206 
Name of Slave 
Martin 
Mitchell 
Appendix 2-e (continued) 
Amount Earned How Earned 
(about) 
$ 12.00 Wood 
146.00 Wood, Com, & 
"Cash reed." 
Moses 10.00 "Cash reed, 
from him" 
Moses Jones 23.00 Corn 
Nash 
Nat Johnson 
Nat Russel 
13.00 Wood 
28.00 Wood & Corn 
Nathan Black 
"Defunct 1859" 
Nathan Morris 
Nathan Yellow 
"Defunct 1859" 
Ned 
15.00 Wood & Corn 
44.00 Wood & Corn 
33.00 Corn 
94.00 Wood & Corn 
How Spent 
Cotton Cloth, Shoes, 
got cash 
Tobacco, Meat, 
Shoes, Handkerchiefs, 
Hose, Shirt, got 
cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Handkerchiefs, got 
cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, Meat, 
Handkerchiefs, got 
cash 
Flour, Meat, Check 
Cloth, Handker-
chiefs [on credit] 
Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, got cash 
Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, Handkerchiefs, 
Meat, Mosquito Bar, 
got cash 
Tobacco, Flour, got 
cash 
Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, Meat, Hose, 
got cash 
Tobacco, Flour, 
Meat, Handkerchiefs, 
Shoes, Hose, Check 
Cloth, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Meat, Rice, got 
cash 
207 
Appendix 2-d (continued) 
Name of Slave Amount Earned How Earned How Spent 
(about) 
Nick $ 68.00 Wood & Corn Tobacco, Shoes, 
Meat, Handkerchiefs, 
Cotton Cloth, Hose, 
Calico Cloth, got 
cash 
Oliver 35.00 Corn got cash 
Peter Little 15.00 Wood & Corn Flour, got cash 
Peter Bladen 7.00 Wood got cash 
Peter Preston 22.00 Wood & Corn Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, Meat, a Lock, 
got cash 
Perry Reed 36.00 Wood & Corn Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, Meat, Dress, 
Thread, got cash 
Perry Walley 62.00 Wood & Corn Tobacco, Shoes, 
Cotton Cloth, 
Mosquito Bar, got 
cash 
Philip 3.00 Wood & "Cash 
Reed." 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Hat 
Richard 1.00 "Cash Reed." Tobacco 
Rodolphe 15.00 Wood & "Cash 
Reed." 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Meat, Flour, got 
cash 
Ruffin 3.00 Baskets Shoes, got cash 
Sam Cook 81 .00 Wood & Corn Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, Meat, Hand-
kerchiefs, Cottonade 
Linen, & Check 
Cloth, got cash 
Sampson 20.00 Wood & "Cash 
Reed." 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Meat, Dress, got 
cash 
208 
Name of Slave 
Simon 
Snowden 
Appendix 2-c (continued) 
Amount Earned How Earned 
(about) 
$ 13.00 
34.00 
Wood & Corn 
Wood, Corn, & 
Shuck Collars 
Spencer 
Stephen 
63.00 Wood & Corn 
14.00 Wood & Hogsheads 
Tom Big 25.00 Wood & Corn 
Tom Brown 
Tom Chizem 
Tom Scott 
32.00 Wood & Corn 
10.00 Wood 
98.00 Wood & Corn 
Thomas 
Washington Bright 
8.00 Hogsheads 
12.00 Corn 
Washington McGuinis 27.00 Wood 
Willis 68.00 Wood & Corn 
How Spent 
got cash 
Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, 
Handerchiefs, Hose, 
Cotton & Check 
Cloth, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Meat, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Meat, Handkerchiefs, 
Hose, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, Meat, got 
cash 
Tobacco, Flour, 
got cash 
Shoes, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Cotton Cloth, Meat, 
got cash 
Shoes, got cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Calico & Check 
Cloth, Thread, 
Mosquito Bar, got 
cash 
Tobacco, Shoes, 
Flour, Cotton, 
Cottonade, Calico 
& Check Cloth, a 
Lock, Hose, Dress, 
got cash 
Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, Child's 
Shoes, Meat, Shirt, 
got cash 
209 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Name of Slave Amount Earned How Earned How Spent 
(about) 
William Bill $ 10.00 Wood & Corn Tobacco, Meat, 
Handkerchiefs, got 
cash 
Yolle 69.00 Wood S Corn Tobacco, Flour, 
Shoes, got cash 
Of the 30 women listed in the ledger, 22 had nothing recorded in their 
accounts--neither debits nor credits. Listed below are the statements 
of the remaining 8 women. 
Anna Old 
Catherine Old 
Elsy 
Harriet 
Mathilda Big 
Phoeby 
Sarah Dom 
Winny Big 
$ 28.00 
1 .00 
18.00 
5.00 
10.00 
19.00 
22.00 
24.00 
56 days work 
for the planta-
tion 
Wood 
35 days work 
for the plan-
tation 
"Cash paid by 
her" 
700 Pumpkins 
Corn 
44 days work 
for the plan-
tation 
48 days work 
for the plan-
tation 
got cash 
Hat 
Shoes, Flour, Meat, 
Cotton, Calico, & 
Check Cloth, Dress, 
got cash 
Tobacco, Flour, 
Meat, Shoes, Calico 
& Check Cloth 
got cash 
got cash 
got cash 
got cash 
210 
Appendix 2-d (continued) 
Prices Slaves Paid for the Commodities They Purchased 
Tobacco .30 per pound 
Flour $4 .60 per barrel 
Shoes 1 
1 
1 
.45 
.30 
.10 
.55 
per pair 
per pair 
per pair 
per pair (children's) 
Sheets of Tin .30 per sheet 
Locks .60 each 
Meat 1 .05 per 16 pounds 
Hose .15 per pair 
Check Cloth 1 .05 per 7 yards 
Cotton Cloth 1 .00 per 7 yards 
Handkerchiefs .20 each 
Pants 2 .00 per pair 
Calico Cloth .50 per 5 yards 
Mosquito Bar .80 each 
Thread .10 
Blue Buckets .30 each 
Wi re .25 per pound 
Twine .37*$ per pound 
Cottonade .30 per yard 
Source: Tureaud (Banjamin) Papers, Ledger 1858-1872, Department of 
Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, 
Louisiana. 
211 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Earnings and Expenditures of Slaves on the 
Gay Family's Sugar Estate with Notations 
on Their Family Relationships--1844. 
FRONT PLACE 
Name of Slave Amount Earned How Earned How Spent 
z Jacob Lenox $ 38 .80 Pumpkins, Fod-
der, Corn, Ser-
vices as Sugar 
Maker 
Flour, Herring, got 
cash 
z Armstead 8 .00 Fodder, Corn Flour, got cash 
z Moses, Driver 2 .00 Corn got cash 
z Jim Pipkin 3 .50 Fodder, Corn got cash 
z Wm. Sanders 23 .25 Corn, Services 
as 2nd Sugar 
Maker 
Flour, Umbrella, 
Man's Saddle, got 
cash 
z Henry Hoi brook 9 .00 Fodder, Corn got cash 
y Big Washington 21 .00 Corn got cash 
y Sam'l Brown 11 .50 Pumpkins, Fod-der, Corn Bedspread, got cash 
x Scipio 12 .25 Fodder, Corn FJour, got cash 
z Tom Bell 19 .50 Pumpkins, Corn Flour, Herring, 
Goose, Coffee, got 
cash 
y Little Ben 1 .00 Moss got cash 
z 
z 
Joe Sims & 
Henderson 20 .50 Corn got cash 
z Harry Tunley 20 .00 Molasses Bar-
rels, Corn 
Flour, Bucket, 
Mackerel, Domestic 
Cloth, got cash 
Appendix 2-e (continued) 
Name of Slave Amount Earned How Earned How Spent 
x(?) Yellow Daniel $ 13.621, Corn Coffee, got cash 
y Ram George 7.50 Corn got cash 
y(?) Toney 1 .00 Fodder, Corn got cash 
y Bob Ross 12.00 Fodder Corn Flour, got cash 
z Jim Banks 4.00 Corn Domestic Cloth, got 
cash 
z Lawrence 11.00 Corn Flour, got cash 
z Pollard 5.00 Corn Flour, got cash 
y Charles Carroll 1.87V, Fodder got cash 
z Bill Garner 7.00 Corn, Fodder, 
Services as 
Engineer 
Flour, Calico Cloth, 
got cash 
z Jim Tunley 4.25 Molasses Bar-
rels, half-
day's work for 
the plantation, 
iron hoops 
Brown Linen & 
Cottonade Cloth, 
got cash 
z Little Moses 9.00 Corn, Moss, 
Fodder 
Flour, got cash 
y Isaac Bell 2.50 Corn got cash 
x A!cade 2.75 Corn got cash 
x Jerry 2.80 Corn Flour, Calico Cloth, 
got cash 
v Aunt Mil ly 4.00 Cash paid 
by her 
Flour 
z(?) Augustus Josiah 6.00 Credit Flour 
w Lee 4.00 Credit "Fine Summer Coat,u ant rash 
213 
Appendix 2-e (continued) 
Name of Slave 
z Alfred Cooper 
Amount Earned How Earned 
z London 
y Eli as 
x Little London 
z Nathan 
at r -
x Alex 
x Yellow Davy 
z Josiah 
q Little David 
$ 53.401 
4.50 
4.00 
4.00 
4.00 
4.00 
4.00 
4.00 
2.00 
Molasses Bar-
rels 
Corn 
Credit 
Credit 
Credi t 
Credit 
Credit 
Credit 
Corn 
How Spent 
Calico Cloth for 
Louisiana [daugnter], 
Furniture, Calico & 
Cotton Cloth, Flour, 
Buckets ( 3 ) , Coffee 
Pots ( 2 ) , "Elegant 
Bonnets" (2 3 $2.00 
each), Sets of Knives 
& Forks ( 2 (a $ 1 . 2 5 
each), got cash 
Coffee, got cash 
"Fine Russian Hat 
bt. in N. Orleans," ($3.00), Money Due 
on Clothes 
Flour 
Flour 
Flour 
Flour 
Flour, Coffee 
got cash 
BACK PLACE 
z Patrick 
z Hercules 
z Absolem 
82.00 Pumpkins, Fod-
der, Corn 
10.30 Corn, Fodder, 
5 Months Watch-
ing 
15.50 Corn, Fodder 
Bedspread, Mackerel, 
Cash to Aunt Julia, 
got cash 
Flour, got cash 
Bedspread, Mackerel, 
got cash 
214 
Appendix 2-e (continued) 
Name of Slave 
z Davy Stump 
z Martin 
z Edmund & 
z Sam Henderson 
v Polly Sanders 
z Big Austin & 
y Jacob 
z John White 
z Perry & 
y(?) Washington 
z A1 fred 
y Little Austin & 
z A1fred 
u Clarissa & 
u Toney 
w Ned Teagle & 
z Toney 
z Henry Bias 
Amount Earned How Earned 
$ 25.80 
29.87 
27.65 
23.90 
31.15 
5.50 
25.50 
1.00 
18.50 
3.80 
24.25 
5.50 
Corn, Fodder, 
Molasses sold 
for Meat 
Corn, Fodder, 
Molasses sold 
for Meat 
Corn, Fodder, 
Molasses sold 
for Meat 
Pumpkins, Fod-
der, Corn 
Pumpkins, Fod-
der, Corn, Hay 
Fodder, Corn, 
Hay 
Fodder, Corn 
Credit 
Corn, Fodder 
Hay 
Corn, Molasses 
sold for Meat 
Fodder, Hay, 
Molasses sold 
for Meat 
How Spent 
Flour, Coffee, Ham, 
got cash 
Flour, got cash 
Flour, Herring, got 
cash 
Flour, Coffee, got 
cash 
Flour, Bedspread, got 
cash 
Coffee, got cash 
got cash 
got cash 
Flour, got cash 
White Cotton Cloth, 
got cash, "to 
Clarissa - $ lent 
for Emily wedding" 
Flour, Coffee, got 
cash 
got cash 
y Clem 2 0 . 0 0 Moss, Services 
setting Kettles 
Coffee, got cash 
215 
Appendix 2-e (continued) 
Name of Slave Amount Earned How Earned How Spent 
y Bill Chase S 9.50 Fodder, Corn got cash 
z Ned Davis 14.00 Corn, Fodder Flour, Coffee, got 
cash 
z Joe Engineer 15.00 Services as Flour, got cash 
Engineer 
y Cook Dick 5.00 Services Coffee, Flour 
y Simpson 26.50 Fodder, Pump- Calico Cloth, got kins, Corn cash 
y Kenawa Moses 8.10 Molasses sold Domestic Cloth, 
for Meat Meat, got cash, 
"meat for your 
chiIdren" 
z Bill Moss 5.00 Corn, Hay, got cash 
Fodder 
y Little Washington 12.00 Hay, Molasses got cash 
sold for Meat 
y Big Ben 11.80 Corn, Fodder, got cash 
Eggs 
t Adeline 2.00 Hay got cash 
w Mack 2.00 Hay got cash 
q William & 
q Anna 2.00 Hay got cash 
r keng-SfcisaR 3t99 6epn gefe-eash [sic] 
y Yellow Toney 1.00 Credit got cash 
y John White 18.50 unrecorded unrecorded 
"Additional to 
z Hercules, 
z J Lenox 
& others say" 45.00 unrecorded unrecorded 
Total Paid $900.12 
216 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Prices Paid Slaves for Goods and Services 
Listed Under "How Earned" 
Pumpki ns 
Fodder 
Corn 
Services as Sugar Maker 
Services as 2nd Sugar Maker 
Molasses Barrels 
Services Setting Kettles 
Half-day's (e.g. Sunday work 
counting hoop-poles) 
Moss 
5 months Watching 
Hay 
Molasses (sold for meat) 
Services as Fireman 
Services as Engineer 
Eggs 
Iron Hoops 
.02 each 
.01 per bundle 
.50 per barrel 
$30.00 
$15.00 
$ 1.00 each 
$10.00 
.25 
$ 3.00-6.00 per bale 
5.00 
2.00 per load 
$ 8.00-11.50 per barrel 
$ 5.00 
$10.00 & 5.00 
.12*2 per dozen 
1.25 
217 
Appendix 2-e (continued) 
Prices Slaves Paid for Goods Listed Under "How Spent" 
Flour $ 5 .00 per barrel Coffee Pots .75 each 
Herring 1 .00 per box Domestic Cloth .10 per yard 
Umbrel1 a 1 .00 each Calico .10 per yard 
Man's Saddle 10 .00 each Brown Linen Cloth .25 per yard 
Bedspread 1 .50 each Cottonade Cloth .25 per yard 
Goose .50 each White Cotton .10 per yard 
Bucket .25 each "Fine Summer Coat" 3 .00 each 
Mackerel 7 .00 per *i-barrel "Elegant Bonnets" 2 .00 each 
Meat .04 per pound Knives & Forks 1 .25 per set 
Ham .05 per pound "Fine Russian Hat 
bt. in N. Orleans" 3 .00 
Key to Notations on Family Relationships of Account-Holders 
2 ' Male Head of Household 
y Single Male 
x Son in a Male-Headed Household 
w Son in a Female-Headed Household 
v Female Head of Household 
u Husband and Wife -- Joint Account 
t Daughter in a Female-Headed Household 
r Single Female 
q Unknown 
Note: If the symbol (?) follows a notation, it denotes that the family 
relationship of the person is somewhat uncertain because of the incom-
pleteness of data. 
218 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Source: Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Volume 5, Daybook 1843-1347, 
Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton 
Rouge, Louisiana. 
219 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Slave Accounts ("Accountwith the Negroes for 1851") 
on John Randolph's Nottoway Estate--1851 
1851 
January L. Alfred 1 pair Boots $2.00 
Moses -do- 2.00 
Coley -do- 2.00 
Caeser -do- 2.00 
Long William -do 2.00 
Bob -do- 2.00 
Bill Billaps -do- 2.00 
L. George -do- 2.00 
Stephen -do- 2.00 
Cooper William -do- 2.00 
Anthony -do- 2.00 
Ben -do- 2.00 
Peter M -do- 2.00 
Lee -do- 2.00 
Minny -do- 2.00 
Jacko -do- 2.00 
Washington -do- 2.00 
February Frank -do- 2.00 
Henry Green -do- 2.00 
L Rosetta 1 pair Shoes 1.00 
March 2nd Frank 1 pound Tobacco .25 
March 2nd 
(cont.) 
May 3 
220 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Long William 1 Molasses Barrel SI .25 
Nick 2 Molasses Barrels 2.50 
H. Green 1 Barrel Flour 4.00 
Moses -do- 4.00 
L. William -do- 4.00 
Lennon -do- 4.00 
Lee -do- 4.00 
Bob -do- 4.00 
Billy R -do- 4.00 
Gus -do- 4.00 
L. Alfred -do- 4.00 
Minny -do- 4.00 
B. Alfred -do- 4.00 
Frank -do- 4.00 
Sampson -do- 4.00 
Henry Cris -do- 4.00 
Reuben -do- 4.00 
L. George -do- 4.00 
B. Peter -do- 4.00 
John -do- 4.00 
Taswell -do- 4.00 
Coley -do- 4.00 
Henry Cooper -do- 4.00 
Wi11iam Cooper -do- 4.00 
221 
Appendix 2-f (continued) 
May 3 (cont.) Old Bill 
Anthony 
Bill Billaps 
Jack 
Harry 
George Carptr 
Ceaser 
Green 
Tom 
Toby 
Big Peter 
Frank 
Moses 
Caeser 
Bob 
Mahala 
May 18 
June 1 
August 2 
August 10 
August 17 
Susan 
Green 
Big Peter 
Frank 
Bill Bi1 laps 
1 Barrel Flour 
-do-
-do-
-do-
-do-
-do-
-do-
-do-
1 pair Russets 
-do-
1 plug Tobacco 
-do-
1 pair Shoes 
1 plug Tobacco 
-do-
1 pair Shoes 
-do-
-do-
1 plug Tobacco 
-do-
1 pair Boots 
$4.00 
paid $3.00 
4.00 
4.00 
4.00 
4.00 
4.00 
4.00 
4.00 
1.00 
1.00 
.25 
.25 
1.00 
.25 
.25 
1.00 
chd. to George 
1.00 
chd. to Gus 
1.00 
.25 
.25 
2 . 0 0 
222 
Appendix 2-f (continued) 
August 7 Washington 1 plug Tobacco $ .25 
W4414affl-6eepe!° de Paid t25 [sic] 
Alfred BlkSmith -do- .25 
Little Alfred -do- .25 
Gorgo (little) 1 plug Tobacco .25 
Reuben -do- .25 
Big Alfred 1 pair Shoes 1.00 
Anthony -do- 1.00 
Sampson -do- 1.00 
Lee -do- 1.00 
Nick -do- 1.00 
Lennon -do- 1.00 
Taswell -do- 1.00 
Dice -do- 1.00 
Yellow Jack -do- 1.00 
Toby -do- 1.00 
Noel -do- 1.00 
Little Henry -do- 1.00 
Henry Green -do- 1.00 
Jacko -do- 1.00 
September 20 Coley -do- 1.00 
Tom Woodruff -do- 1.00 
October 5 Long William 1 pair Boots 2.00 
Long William 1 pair Shoes (for Leana) 1.00 
223 
Appendix 2-f (continued) 
Washington 1 pair Boots $2.00 
Bob 1 plug Tobacco .25 
Henry Green -do- .25 
Long William 1 Tin Bucket .18 
Little George 1 pair Shoes 1.00 
October 26 Frank 1 plug Tobacco .25 
Washington -do- .25 
L. Alfred -do- .25 
Lee -do- .25 
Fort 1 Tin Bucket .18 3/4 
November 18 William (Cooper) 1 plug Tobacco .25 
December 17 "Gave Dicey, L Anny, Si 11a, a pair of shoes." 
Source: John H. Randolph Papers, Volume 5, Journal--Plantation Book 
1847-1852, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State Uni-
versity, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
224 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Earnings and Expenditures of Slaves on the 
Gay Family's Estate in the late 1853s 
Payments Made to Slaves for: 
Ironing Carts 
Firing Kettles 
Fi reman 
Sugar Potting on Holiday 
Moss 
Hay 
Woodcutting (50 cents per cord) 
Expenditures by Slaves: 
Coffee 
Shoes 
Mackerel 
Linen Cloth 
Cottonade Cloth 
Knives 
Holiday Work (75 cents to $1.00 per day) 
Ditching (50 cents to $1.00 per acre) 
Slabs of Wood (25 cents per cord) 
Making a Cart (Thornton paid $20.00) 
Fixing Kettles 
Making Hogsheads 
Flour 
Mi tts 
Calico Cloth 
Pork 
Flannel Cloth 
Shawls 
Fish 
Boots 
Cotton Cloth 
Check Cloth 
Pants 
Domestic Cloth 
Shovels 
Socks 
Beans 
Dresses 
Saddle 
Gloves 
& Cash to Selves, Wives, Daughters 
Source: Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Volume 36, Plantation Record 
Book 1849-1860, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State 
University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
225 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Commodities Bought by Slaves on Bruce, Seddon and 
Wil kins' Wilton Estate with Money Made Cutting Wood — 1348 
Shoes 
Combs 
Pipes 
Line 
Tobacco 
Hats 
Suspenders 
Cotton Cloth 
Soap 
Blankets 
Tin Cups 
Calico Cloth 
Kni ves 
Baskets 
Hooks 
Checked Cloth 
& Cash Withdrawn 
Source: Bruce, Seddon, and Wilkins Plantation Records, Wilton Plantation 
Daily Journal 1853, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana 
State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
226 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Earnings and Expenditures of Slaves on George Lanaux' 
Bellevue Estate—1851-54 
Payments Made to Slaves for: 
Corn 75 cents per barrel Chickens 25 cents each 
Wood 60 cents per cord Sunday Work 30-60 cents per day 
Eggs 15 cents per dozen Holiday Work 60 cents per day 
Expenditures by Slaves. In addition to withdrawing cash, slaves bought: 
Flour $5.00 per barrel 
Knives .25 each 
Sheet-Tin .35 
Boots 3.50 per pair 
Fiddles 2.00 each 
Biscuits 3.15 per barrel 
Potatoes 2.10 per barrel 
"Mouchoirs de tfite" (Kerchiefs) 
Oiled Cloth Winter Coats 
Oiled Pantaloons 
"1 paire Brodequins" (Laced Boots) 
Denim Pantaloons 
"Log Cabin11 Pantaloons 
Rice $7.00 per barrel 
Spoons .50 per dozen 
Tobacco 
Locks .75 each 
Portable Oven .85 each 
Flannel Dresses 1.25 each 
Copper Kettles .40 each 
.15 each 
2.50 each 
1.10 per pair 
1.15 per pair 
1.10 per pair 
1.25 per pair 
227 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
"1 piece collette 30 yds.11 $ per yard 
"1 serrure francais de 6 p c e s" (6-piece French 
Lock) 1.00 each 
Source: George Lanaux and Family Papers, Volume 14, Journal 1851-1860, 
Volume 18, Ledger, 1851-1856, Department of Archives and iManuscripts, 
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
228 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Earnings and Expenditures of Slaves on 
W. W. Pugh's Wood!awn Estate —1848-55 
Payments Made to Slaves for: 
Wood 
Pickets 
.50 per cord 
$1.25 per 100 
Sunday/Holiday $1.00 to 
Work $1.25 per day 
Shingles 
Staves 
Shuck Collars 
$4.50 per 1,500 
$4.50 per 900 
.37^ each 
Hauling Wood 
Muscovy Ducks 
Chickens 
.75 per day 
.37^ each 
.20-.25 each 
Cross-ditching $5.50 per 344 yards 
Boards .02^ per 4 foot board 
Burning Kiln 
Making Hogsheads 
during Holidays .75 each 
Bricks 
Ditching 
$12.00 
Expenditures by Slaves. In addition to account-holders and others (pre-
sumably family members) withdrawing cash, slaves bought: 
Flour 
Shoes 
Tobacco 
Apples $2.25 per barrel 
"Silk Dress for Rachel" 
"Mending Watch" 
Bottles of Cordial 
Boots 
Blankets $4.00 per pair 
Small Shoats .75 each 
$12.50 (debited to a slave named Woodson) 
$ 3.00 
Source: Colonel W. W. Pugh Papers, Volume 6, Cashbook for Negroes 1848-55, 
Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton 
Rouge, Louisiana. 
229 
Appendix 2-b (continued) 
Commodities Bought by Slaves on Alexis Ferry's Sugar Estate 
with Money Made Cutting Wood--1843 
Tobacco Flour 
Cottonade Pantaloons Handkerchiefs 
Shoes Plates 
Dresses Meats 
Hats Cottonade Cloth 
Chairs 
"Bolle Lustre" (glazed bowl) 
"Bolle Dor§" (gilt bowl) 
"Bolle Jaune" (yellow bowl) 
"Gobelets" (cups) 
"Secousse de Tasse" (saucers ?) 
"Contenit" (containers ?) 
"Robe Bontenit" (fine dress ?) 
"Tignons" (head scarf, turban) 
"Pot Jaune" (yellow pot) 
"Aunes Coutes" (expensive lengths of cloth ?) 
"Aunes Jingus" (lengths of thin [ginguet] cloth ?) 
"Aunes Con Teint" (lengths of dyed cloth ?) 
"BleuecroisSe" (blue twill ?) 
"Fublonis" ( ? ) 
"Colletes" ( ? ) 
Source: Alexis Ferry Journals, Volume 1, 1842-1865, 1877, Department of 
Archives, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana. 
Part II 
Goods of Chattels 
Chapter 3 
The Housing of Slaves on Sugar Plantations 
in Jamaica and Louisiana 
232 
The status of bondage severely limited the actions of sugar 
plantation slaves in Jamaica and Louisiana. Planters exercised exten-
sive control over the lives of the men, women and children enslaved 
on their estates, while slaves who traveled off the plantation were 
subject to a body of law that strictly regulated their actions. 
Sugar plantation slaves often journeyed off the estate. In 
both Jamaica and Louisiana, slaves attended town markets where they 
bought and sold various commodities. They also, on occasion, left 
the estate when engaged in plantation work and when making social 
visits to other estates. When slaves left the plantation, the control 
of their movements and actions became the responsibility of the larger 
society. Official and semi-official groups like patrollers and mili-
tia, with the unofficial assistance of members of the free white 
community, exercised, often rigorously, the pass laws, curfews and 
other regulatory slave codes. 
The control of slaves on the plantation, however, was less 
closely related to the formal structure of law. Planters, for exam-
ple, could contravene, with virtual impunity, laws that limited punish-
ments and mandated conditions of work and diet. In the less formal 
system of slave/planter relations that prevailed within the confines 
of the sugar estates, slaves also secured concessions from the planters, 
and recognition of customary rights which, of course, had no formal 
legal standing. The establishment and operation of the internal 
economy was central to the rights secured by slaves. 
The stability and security of the internal economy derived 
from the modus vivendi established between slaves and planters on 
233 
the plantation. Notwithstanding that slaves conducted some dimensions 
of the internal economy off the plantation, they based the operation of 
their economic activities on the plantation. In the slave houses, gar-
dens and grounds, which were the focus of family and community life, 
slaves had the opportunity to establish and develop their internal 
economies. 
i 
Throughout the island of Jamaica, sugar plantation slaves lived 
in houses of similar construction. Typically, Jamaican slave houses 
were made of wattles or wattle-and-daub. To build and repair their 
houses, slaves used materials that were readily available in the sur-
rounding countryside. At times, planters purchased lumber and other 
necessaries, particularly for finishings and repairs or when the plan-
tation was located too far from woodlands, mountains or other sources 
of supply. The construction techniques slaves used were of African 
derivation. 
After clearing the land, houses were lined out and framed. 
Forked posts provided the middle and end supports, while shorter posts 
framed the house and served as floor joists. Frequently, slaves burned 
the part of the post that was to be sunk below ground-level, giving 
the wood a protective coat to retard rot. A ridge-pole placed along 
the notches of the main supports and wall plates either notched or 
nailed into place on the shorter posts of the external frame completed 
the skeleton of the house. Rafters, connected in pairs by wooden pins, 
234 
straddled the ridge-pole, and withes (heliotropium fruticosum) bound 
laths to the rafters. 
The walls, which at this point comprised only the horizontal 
members of wall plates and cross beams, were then wattled. Vertical 
sticks between every two horizontal wall plates, and others attached 
to each side of every post, provided a lattice into which wattles 
(either small round sticks or sturdy slivers stripped from larger tim-
bers) were then woven by being bent around the perpendiculars, each 
wattle bending either in or out opposite to its neighbors. 
Slaves often daubed the wattles with clay or mud combined with 
vegetable fiber, such as plantain leaves, which acted as a binding 
agent. Daubing filled the cracks between the wattles, and when 
smoothed onto both inner and outer walls, provided a plaster-like 
finish which hardened when dry. 
Slaves usually thatched their houses with any of a variety of 
available plants, the best of which were the mountain cabbage palm 
(roystonea oleracea) and other thatch palms. These thatches were so 
durable they reputedly lasted for more than thirty years. The leaves 
of the thatch palms, which are long, narrow and monocotyledonous were 
plaited together. To render the roof watertight, slaves put several 
layers of these plaits on the roof laths and tied them there with withes. 
When they could not get thatch palm, slaves used inferior substitutes 
such as sugar cane leaves, grass and other species of palm. 
They constructed the door of the house by joining a few plain 
boards together and hinged it with leather straps or wooden pivots. 
235 
Windows were similarly shuttered. In nearly every case, slaves left 
the floors of their houses uncovered, and the earth, in the course of 
time, dried and hardened. (See Appendix 3-a.)1 
The size of the houses, though partly dependent on the number 
of occupants, was fairly uniform, as was the internal layout. The 
"shell" commonly measured between fifteen and twenty-four feet in 
length, ten and fifteen in width and, according to Jamaican planter-
historian Bryan Edwards, was "barely sufficient to admit the owner to 
walk in upright." The house usually contained two rooms or two rooms 
and a central hall. The hall, or if there was none, one of the rooms, 
contained an unvented fire around which slaves could sit and talk, smoke 
2 
and perhaps cook. The other room or rooms were used for sleeping. 
Construction of the cabins varied. William Beckford observed 
that occasionally one of the rooms in the cabin had wooden flooring. 
He also said that sometimes one room had a louvred window which oper-
ated on the principle of a Venetian blind. It is likely, however, that 
few slave houses displayed these features. Roofs were sometimes 
shingled, and on rare occasions may have been slated. Lord Penrhyn, 
for example, sent slates from his quarry in North Wales to be used for 
roofing the boiling house on one of his Jamaican sugar plantations, 
1 Description of construction techniques based on Anon., "Char-
acteristic Traits of the Creolian and African Negroes in Jamaica," The 
Columbian Magazine; or Monthly Miscellany (Kingston), 3 (September, 
1797), 249-252. 
2 Bryan Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, of the 
British Colonies in the West Indies (1793, rpt. New York, 1972), II, 
126: 
236 
as a precaution against fire, and perhaps the slaves on the estate used 
3 
some for roofing their houses. 
Slave houses sometimes differed in size and construction 
according to the number and status of the occupants. Slave houses in 
Jamaica were primarily family dwellings and varied in size according 
to the size of the family. Housing for head slaves, including drivers 
and tradesmen, was often better than that of field hands, if not in 
size, then in finishing and appointments. 
Primary responsibility for building the slave houses rested 
with the future occupants, the slaves themselves, who relied on con-
struction materials gathered locally. This affected significantly the 
quality of housing, architectural design, division of labor, residen-
tial patterns and slave autonomy. 
From time to time, planters participated in various phases of 
house building. At the most limited level, they supplied certain 
building materials, most importantly nails and less commonly lumber 
and shingles. For example, on James Chisholme's Trouthall Estate, 
after each field slave had lined out a house and erected the basic 
frame, the overseer gave him one hundred nails and promised him $3 
for finishing the house. At the next level, planters made the estate's 
slaves and free tradesmen available to assist with construction. The 
3 William Beckford, A Descriptive Account of the Island of 
Jamaica (London, 1790), I, 229; Letter from Rowland Fearon, Clarendon, 
Jamaica to Lord Penrhyn, 26 January 1805, Penrhyn Castle Papers, 1361, 
West India Reference Library, University of the West Indies, Mona, 
Kingston, Jamaica. 
237 
maximum involvement, of course, was when the planter supplied housing 4 
for the slaves. 
Planters assisted with house building, particularly if building 
materials were not available in the surrounding countryside. Some 
planters also rendered assistance out of concern for the health and 
welfare of the slave labor force, a concern stimulated both by humani-
tarian feelings and a desire to protect a significant capital invest-
ment. 
Some planters responded to the high mortality rate of newly-
imported African slaves during the "seasoning period" by assuring the 
slaves of the basic necessities of life from the outset of their resi-
dence in Jamaica. To this end, they provided provision grounds ready-
planted for the newcomers and arranged for shelter in any of three 
ways. The newcomers could be boarded out with members of the existing 
slave community until they could build for themselves, or have built 
for them, their own houses. This boarding-out procedure, referred to 
by Bryan Edwards, was the one used on Nathaniel Phillips1 sugar planta-
tions in St. Thomas in the East. Otherwise, temporary housing could 
provide an interim solution, as happened on Lord Penrhyn's plantations, 
where the newly-purchased slaves were given "tight temporary Huts, 
until a leisure opportunity offer[ed] of erecting Houses for them." 
Incidentally, while living in these huts, the newcomers performed 
the assigned task of "preparing wood for their houses." A third 
4 Letter from William Anderson, Trouthall Estate to James 
Chisholme, 9 March 1811, Chisholme Papers, National Library of Scotland, 
Edinburgh, Scotland. 
238 
alternative was for the planter to have housing built before purchas-
i 5 ing any more slaves. 
Planters also concerned themselves with the housing of the 
resident slave population on their estates, a practice which intensi-
fied in the last decades of slavery in Jamaica, particularly after the 
closure of the slave trade. With the external source of slaves closed, 
planters tried to improve the treatment of those on the island with a 
view to maintaining the labor force by natural increase. Thus they 
instituted various practices, loosely grouped under the heading of 
"amelioration." Planters believed improved housing would lead to an 
increase in the number of live births and a decrease in the infant 
mortality rate. Better housing, they felt, would promote better health. 
Planters tried to improve the quality of slave quarters by making the 
houses more weatherproof and building them in safer and healthier loca-
tions. They offered assistance primarily by supplying materials and 
the skilled help of the estate's tradesmen. Sometimes they also pro-
vided assistance when the slave houses suffered weather damage. 
In many ways, however, the involvement of the planter in house 
construction was peripheral. The slave community exercised some 
autonomy, especially concerning where and how the houses were to be 
built. The decisions of slaves on these matters offer important 
insights into the structure and values of their community. 
5 Edwards, The History, Civil and Commercial, II, 119; Letter 
from Thomas Barritt, Pleasant Hill, St. Thomas in the East Parish, 
Jamaica, to Nathaniel Phillips, 4 July 1793, Nathaniel Phillips Papers, 
8419, West India Reference Library, UWI; Fearon to Penrhyn, 6 February 
1806, Penrhyn Castle Papers, 1415. 
239 
Family structure principally determined residence patterns. 
Husbands, wives and their children, if residing on the same plantation, 
lived together in the same house as a family unit. Unmarried slaves 
either lived with their families or, if of a marriageable age, alone 
or with other single persons of the same sex. The latter arrangement 
operated when African slaves, whose marriage and family relationships 
had been broken, were purchased to supplement a plantation's labor 
force. After just such a purchase, the attorney in charge of Nathan-
iel Phillips' plantations informed Phillips that he would "get a house 
or two made for the Men." Another arrangement, one used for the female 
slaves purchased for Phillips1 estates, was to board the new slaves 
out with established residents. This process seems to have been, on 
occasion, less of a boarding-out arrangement than an adoptive one. 
African slaves were adopted as family members, particularly if there 
was some common heritage with slaves already living on the plantation; 
for example, if they were from the same part of Africa, were from the 
same African nation, or were transported across the Atlantic on the 
same vessel. Phillips' attorney said of the slaves he had purchased, 
that "most of the old people here such as Winsor, Ben, Frank etc., are 
of the same country. . . . The old people are glad to see them, and 
have taken them in their houses."6 
Housing patterns reflected both nuclear and extended family 
structures. While houses were essentially one-family units, their 
6 Barritt to Phillips, 4 July 1793, Phillips Papers, 8419. 
240 
spatial location could reflect an extended family network. For example, 
a number of slave houses on the Hope Estate just outside of Kingston, 
all belonging to members of the same family, were built close to each 
other and surrounded by a fence. All the slaves living in this family 
compound used a common gateway. Such family enclaves resulted from 
the slaves1 prerogative to build their houses where they saw fit since 
the planter designated only the general areas of slave housing and left 
the precise location to the discretion of the slaves.7 
There was generally little regularity in the spatial layout 
of houses in the slave villages on Jamaican plantations, unlike in 
Louisiana, where the typical settlement consisted of orderly rov/s of 
houses, with streets running down the middle. Where this formal order 
existed in Jamaica, as, for example, on Roehampton Estate in St. James 
Parish, the planter had assumed greater responsibility for the construc-
tion of houses. The usual Jamaican pattern was for houses to cluster 
throughout a general area along with the slaves' fruit trees, vegetable 
gardens and stock pens for chickens, hogs and goats. Irregular spacing 
of houses impeded surveillance and domination. In Louisiana, where 
planters determined the settlement pattern of slave housing, the chief 
consideration for spacing houses regularly and having the overseer's 
g 
house overlook the slave village was to allow surveillance. 
7 The Jamaica Journal (Kingston), I (November 1818), 15-25. 
Q 
Appendix 3-b, a contemporary print of Roehampton Estate, St. 
James Parish, Jamaica, shows slave houses regularly spaced in rows. 
Appendix 3-c shows the irregular clustering of slave houses on Old 
Montpelier Estate, St. James Parish, Jamaica. 
241 
t 
Although slaves used local materials to build their houses, 
construction techniques derived from African practices. An anonymous 
contributor to a Kingston journal noted that "the groundwork of all 
Negro habitations in Jamaica was as in Sierra Leone, the Negro huts 
of Africa." The illustration of Jamaican slave housing that comprises 
Appendix 3-a clearly shows the African influence in the shape and struc-
ture of the walls and roofs, and the techniques of wattling, daubing 
9 
and thatching. 
Another contemporary commentator, J. B. Moreton, observed that 
when the future occupants were a family, a division of labor emerged 
in the construction process in which the husband assumed responsibility 
for providing shelter; "those who live in pairs together, as man and 
wife, are mutual helpmates to each other, the men build the huts, and 
assist to work in their grounds." Another example of this occurred 
on James Chisholme's Trouthall Estate. A letter to Chisholme from the 
attorney in charge of his estate mentioned one of the slave tradesmen 
and his wife, and "a fine House the Carpenter had made her."10 
There was considerable inquiry, and much disagreement, about 
the quality of slave housing. During the movements for abolition and 
emancipation, legislative debates on the condition of slaves in the 
West Indian colonies revealed starkly contrasting views about housing. 
William Fitzmaurice, formerly a bookkeeper and overseer in Jamaica, 
9 The Jamaica Journal, I (1818) in Orlando Patterson, The 
Sociology of Slavery (London, 1967), 54. 
1 0 J. B. Moreton, Manners and Customs in the West India Islands 
(London, 1790), 150; Letter, Anderson to ChishoTme, 6 September 1800, 
Chisholme Papers. 
242 
gave evidence on slave housing to a House of Commons Select Committee 
on the Slave Trade and testified that "the greater part of them are 
open, and exposed to the weather—their houses are made of wattle, with-
out being piaistered--they lie at night on a board on the ground close 
to the fire, and after the fire goes out they suffer by cold and damp." 
Robert Renny supported this testimony in his History of Jamaica. He 
described slaves as living in wretched habitations which were barely 
sufficient to keep the weather out. Much the same picture was given 
by Dr. John Quier, the resident physician on the Worthy Park Estate. 
In his testimony to the Jamaica House of Assembly Committee on the 
Slave Trade, Quier blamed the inadequacy of lodgings, their smokiness, 
dampness and cold, for causing respiratory ailments among slaves.11 
Other contemporary sources offer a conflicting view of the 
quality of slave housing. Hector McNeill's defence of slavery and 
the slave trade included a description which showed the houses of 
slaves to be a comfortable and commodious arrangement of apartments, 
with ample furniture, utensils and apparel. A description of the slave 
village on Hope Estate compared the quality of its clean and neat houses 
to English cottages, while Dr. John Williamson's experiences during 
11 Testimony of William Fitzmaurice, Minutes of the Evidence 
taken before a Committee of the House of Commons being a Select Commit-
tee appointed to take the Examination of Witnesses respecting the Afri-
can Slave Trade, British Sessional Papers (1731-1800), House of Commons, 
Accounts and Papers, XXXIV:745 (1790-1), 206; Robert Renny, A History 
of Jamaica (London, 1807), 178; Testimony of John Quier, Two Reports 
Tone presented the 16th of October, the other on the 12th o7 November, 
1788) from the Committee of the Honourable House of Assembly of Jamaica 
. . . on the Subject of the Slave Trade7~and the Treatment of Negroes 
(London, 1789), 31. 
243 
his residence in Jamaica from 1798 to 1812, left him with the impres-
sion that slaves "in their own houses . . . have their snug warm fire-
side, and little air admitted to it." One must bear in mind that these 
conflicting descriptions were offered by parties on either side of the 
slavery debate. 
In as extensive a system as sugar slavery in Jamaica, it is 
likely that all of the foregoing testimony could be substantiated, if 
not in general, then at least in specific cases. The case of a slave 
carpenter building a fine house, cited by the attorney on Trouthall 
Estate, can be combined with Rev. Thomas Cooper's observation that some 
of the slave houses were built on a superior style, to show that the 
condition of slave housing was not uniformly bad. There is no doubt 
that a properly-constructed wattle-and-daub house could give perfectly 
adequate shelter and lodging in the tropical Jamaican climate, and some 
must have done so. The weight of testimony, however, indicates the 
13 
general inadequacy of slave housing on Jamaican sugar plantations. 
Although most slave quarters were poor, an elite group of slaves 
often had better housing. Bryan Edwards, for example, stated that 
"tradesmen and domestics are in general vastly better lodged and pro-
vided. Many of these have larger houses with boarded floors." 
12 
Hector McNei 11, Observations on the_ Treatment of_ Negroes in_ 
the Island of Jamaica (London, 1788?), 2-3; The Jamaica Journal, I 
(T818), 15-25; John Williamson, Medical and Miscellaneous Observations 
relative to the West India Islands (Edinburgh, 1817), 147. 
1 3 Anderson to Chisholme, 6 September 1800, Chisholme Papers; 
Thomas Cooper, Facts Illustrative of the Condition of the Negro Slaves 
In Jamaica (London, 1824), 22-3. 
244 
According to another Jamaican sugar planter, Gilbert Mathison, slaves 
in a position to accumulate earnings used their money to keep their 
houses in good repair; those less fortunate suffered. Where the 
planter assumed responsibility for constructing houses, slaves in 
positions of authority and privilege received lodgings superior in 
14 
either size or appointments. 
The vast body of the slave population was denied the advantages 
accorded the drivers, tradesmen and other elite slave groups. Field 
slaves had neither the construction skills necessary to build and 
repair houses nor were they able to accumulate wealth as readily. 
Similarly, their subordinate position in the labor hierarchy denied 
them the favors of the planter. Thus, a quite different picture of 
housing conditions of ordinary slaves emerges. 
One may assess the standard of housing by referring to apprais-
als of the buildings' value. John Blackburn, an estate manager, testi-
fying before the House of Commons Committee on the Commercial State 
of the West India Colonies in 1807, commented that "their houses are 
in great measure, of their own building, and may be worth twenty, 
twenty-five or thirty pounds each." Only the best slave housing would 
have been valued as highly. A more accurate assessment of the value 
of most slave housing can be derived from the inventory of Nathaniel 
Phillips' Pleasant Hill Estate taken in May 1784. The total valuation 
of "Negro Houses" for a slave population totalling 315 slaves was 
4 Edwards, History, Civil and Commercial , II, 127; Gilbert 
Mathison, Notices Respecting JamaicaTn 1808—1809—1810 (London, 1811), 
39-40. 
245 
£400. The inventory does not include the number of "Negro Houses." 
Slaves on this plantation, however, lived for the most part in single-
family dwellings that probably averaged four or five occupants each. 
By way of comparison, the inventory evaluated these 315 slaves at 
£22,160, the total valuation of the plantation was £73,693, and a 
framed "Hot House" (hospital) built on a stone wall and with a shingled 
15 
roof alone was valued at £200. 
In his description of West Indian sugar plantations, Dr. Col-
lins pointed out that for the great majority of slaves, those who 
labored in the fields, "the erection, or repair of their houses, 
becomes a very heavy task, when it is to be effected alone as is the 
case on most estates, and, of course, the business advances slowly, and 
is imperfectly done." He further attested to the inadequacy of "the 
generality of negro houses," although he conceded that "but a few 
[were] much more solidly and artificially constructed by the sensible 
negroes on most estates." Indeed, "house" may be too grand a word to 
describe the structures in which most slaves lived. The words "hut" 
and "shed," which the Rev. Thomas Cooper used, may be more suitable to 
describe the crude constructions.16 
Such rude housing was unable to protect its inhabitants from 
the vagaries of Jamaica's climate, which is both tropical and maritime. 
1 5 Testimony of John Blackburn, Report from the Committee on the 
Commercial State of the West India Colonies, ordered to be printed~T4 
July 1807 (London, 1807), 43; Inventory and Valuation of Pleasant Hill 
Estate, 24 May 1784, Phillips Papers, 11524. 
1 6 Dr. Collins, Practical Rules for the Management and Medical 
Treatment of Negro Slaves in the Sugar Colonies (1811, rpt. New York, 
1971), 117; Cooper, Facts Illustrative, 22-3. 
246 
Whereas Jamaica's latitude affords an absence of excessively cold 
weather, it is a rather small, mountainous island where both wind and 
rain occur to a greater extent than in a continental tropical climate. 
If there was no daub or plaster, both wind and rain penetrated the 
chinks between the wattles. Prolonged rains drenched inadequate 
thatching and caused damp to rise from bare floors. A tacit recogni-
tion of the shortcomings of slave housing, especially in wet weather, 
can be seen in the actions of Nathaniel Phillips' estate manager when 
dealing with an outbreak of measles on Pleasant Hill plantation. He 
reported that "the late wet weather is much against Measels Negroes, 
who are required to be kept warm, we have got the overseers house 
nearly filled with them." Although the manager took this measure, in 
part, because of quarantine considerations, he also recognized that 
the slaves' own housing was not suitable for keeping them dry and warm. 
In a letter to Phillips he explained that he had a policy of supply-
ing all measles victims with dry accommodation and warm clothing.17 
More severe weather often damaged slave housing. For example, 
a storm that hit Lord Penrhyn's sugar estates in 1815 caused widespread 
destruction of slave houses. The storm was not of sufficient force, 
however, to harm any of the other buildings on the estate, which had 
been more substantially constructed by expert workmen. Similarly, 
Nathaniel Phillips' Pleasant Hill and Phil 1ipsfield estates suffered 
storm damage on 2 November 1800. The storm injured crops, but, as the 
manager reported, "few Buildings were hurt Excepting the Negroe Houses." 
1 7 Barritt to Phillips, 25 April 1795 and 27 May 1795, Phillips 
Papers, 9203 and 9205. 
247 
Reports of weather damage to slave housing were so frequent in the 
records of planters and their agents in Jamaica that it seems to have 
been almost an annual phenomenon, occurring with the onset of the hur-
ricane season towards the end of the year. The damage, however, was 
often due more to the fragility of the houses than the severity of the 
weather. When really severe weather brought significant damage to 
the sturdier buildings on the plantation, for example, the sugar works 
18 
and the white people's housing, it devastated the slave quarters. 
Prolonged rains posed another threat to the slaves' housing. 
Slave quarters, often situated by water-courses, could be inundated 
if these streams burst their banks when swollen by heavy rains. This 
occurred on one of Lord Penrhyn's plantations when "a small Rivulet 
that is continguous to the Negroe Houses . . . rose also to a great 
highth which has done some injury to the Negroe Houses and swept away 19 
some of the Negroes Cloaths, Hogs and a little poultry." 
Fire posed a threat to which slave housing was particularly 
susceptible. Dr. Collins, in his Practical Rules, detailed preventive 
measures that indicated the prevalence of this destructive force. He 
went so far as to say that "fire . . . seldom fails to do more or less 
mischief on every plantation, once in two or three years, sometimes 
scarcely leaving the vestige of a house." The chief causes of 
1 8 Letter from J. Shand, Spanishtown to G. H. D. Pennant, 6 
November 1815, Penrhyn Castle Papers, 1542; Barritt to Phillips, 26 
November 1800, Phillips Papers, 11615. 
1 9 Fearon to Penrhyn, 6 June 1806, Penrhyn Castle Papers, 1424. 
248 
frequent fires were combustible building materials, the closeness of 
the slaves' houses to each other and the presence of naked flames.20 
Wattled, thatched houses, constructed on a skeleton of wood, 
were both easily ignited and quick to burn. Almost invariably the fire 
spread, consuming nearby houses. A May 1813 report in the Jamaica 
Magazine reported the destruction of 45 slave houses on the Holland 
Estate: field cooks apparently had failed to properly extinguish a fire 
in the cook-room after preparing the field hands' breakfast. In another 
instance, seven slave houses on Duckenfield Hall Estate burned during 
very dry weather in April 1797. James Chisholme was aware of this 
potential hazard and urged the manager on his Trouthall sugar planta-
tion to make sure, as a precaution against fire, that slaves did not 
build their houses too closely together. The threat of fire was ever 
present because, as William Beckford intimated, slaves kept fires burn-
ing constantly in their cabins. Crude torches fashioned by slaves to 
21 
provide light for their dwellings increased the menace. 
A further threat of fire came from slaves1 frequent recourse 
to arson as a means of resistance. One of the most prevalent forms of 
covert resistance by slaves was setting fire to the cane fields. In 
dry weather, flames could race through the tinder-like canes wreaking 
destruction. Intensive land use meant that the cane fields abutted 
?n ' Collins, Practical Rules, 121. 
21 The Jamaica Magazine (Kingston), III (May 1813), 349; Bar-
ritt to PhiTTTps, 6 April 1797, Phillips Papers, 11580; Chisholme to 
Anderson, 6 August 1810, Chisholme Papers; William Beckford, A Descrip-
tive Account, I, 229; The Columbian Magazine, 3 (September, 1797), 
252^3: 
249 
plantation buildings so that burning canes also threatened the sugar-
works and houses. Cane fires also threatened neighboring plantations 
downwind. For example, on Pleasant Hill Estate, in St. Thomas in the 
East Parish, during a dry spell in May 1796, the estate manager reported 
"cases of fire breaking out among Negroe Houses, do. Grounds or Cane 
Pieces.--last night this Estate was very near being burnt down, by some 
evil minded, or Runaway people, setting fire to Stoakes Hall Canes 
22 
[an adjoining plantation]." 
Although slave housing on Jamaican sugar plantations seemed 
particularly susceptible to damage and destruction, the responsibili-
ties for repair and reconstruction rested primarily on the shoulders 
of the occupants. This resulted in continual deterioration in housing 
quality in that buildings, poorly constructed initially, were repaired 
by men and women who probably lacked all three essentials for perform-23 
ing good and efficient work: time, skill and materials. 
Some plantations, however, had a policy where the planter 
assisted slaves when their houses were damaged or dilapidated. For 
example, as the attorney on Duckenfield Hall Estate, in St. Thomas in 
the East Parish, explained in a letter to the plantation's absentee 
owner Jacob Franks: 
. . . it is always generally usual after crop time, to give the 
assistance of the estates carpenters to do such jobs at the negroe 
houses & is much a matter of course, that I thought you were well 
aware of it, & therefore did not particularly specify it, in my 
22 
23 
Barritt to Phillips, 20 May 1796, 
Collins, Practical Rules, 116-7. 
Phillips Papers, 11573. 
250 
letters to you. Now as to expence, permit me to assure you, that 
absolutely no positive expence was the estate put to, but in the 
few nails, used in the repairs & construction of the houses, & the 
few feet of common white pine boards, used in repairing old doors 
& windows, & when necessary, making new ones, S not only was the 
expence of both very trifling indeed, in effect, but surely it seems 
not a moment to be put in competition, with the great satisfaction 
it was, and is, to the negroes, to have their cottages, (& they are 
nothing else), weathertight & comfortable, exclusive of the benefit, 
which their health may accrue from those circumstances.24 
When a storm devastated the slave village on his Pleasant Hill 
Estate in July 1784, Nathaniel Phillips instructed his overseers to 
encourage the slaves to repair the damages "by assisting them in 
rebuilding their houses." On the same plantation in May and June 1793, 
severe rains damaged slaves' houses and again the estate manager 
assisted in their repair. A storm that struck G. H. D. Pennant's 
Denbigh Estate in October 1815 wrecked slave houses, "but," the over-
seer reported, "the carpenters [were] assisting in repairing them." 
The same storm also hit Pennant's Kupius Estate, where the overseer 
reported that "a number of the negro houses are entirely blown down." 
25 
He therefore "allowed the negroes some time to repair their houses." 
When a stream burst its banks on one of Lord Penrhyn's sugar 
plantations inundating slave housing, the estate's manager wrote Penrhyn 
that "the Houses must be repaired for the present, but they must be 
Letter from John Kelly, Green Castle, Jamaica, to Jacob 
Franks, Islesworth, near London, 10 December 1309, Records relating to 
Duckenfield Hall Plantation, Jamaica, Acc. 775, 928/5, West India 
Reference Library, UWI. 
2 5 Phillips to Barritt and Robert Logan, 24 October 1784, 
Phillips Papers, Letter Book from June 1778, 11484; Barritt to Phillips, 
5 June 1793, Phillips Papers, 8419; Extracts from overseers' letters, 
25 and 26 October 1815, Penrhyn Castle Papers, 1541. 
251 
removed to prevent the like from happening again." On William Dickin-
son's Appleton Estate in St. Elizabeth Parish, sickness among the slaves 
prompted the manager to remove their houses to a healthier location. 
Planters probably gave slaves assistance, either in materials, labor, 
26 
or time-off, to shift their settlements. 
Most slave houses were sparsely furnished. Although Hector 
McNeill in 1 788 saw slave houses with what he called a "propriety" of 
furniture and utensils, published accounts by Bryan Edwards and John 
Stewart indicated that the furnishings of slave houses were lacking in 
both quality and quantity, mentioning only the presence of a table and 
chairs or stools and a few items of crockery, calabashes and containers. 
Nor did Edwards or Dr. Collins believe slaves needed much in the way 
of furniture. Edwards, Stewart and Collins agreed in their descrip-
tions of the one other important piece of furniture in slaves1 houses, 
the bed, a wooden frame or board on which were spread a mat and a 
blanket. While privileged slaves may have had beds and other furnish-
ings of better quality, Collins mentioned that some of the slave popu-
lation may not have had any of even the most simple furniture. The 
paucity of data prevents a precise assessment of how slave houses were 
furnished. Nevertheless, many sugar plantation slaves, especially 27 field-hands, probably fell within the "deprived" category. 
2 6 Fearon to Penrhyn, 6 June 1806, Penrhyn Castle Papers, 1424; 
Letter from William Dickinson, Upper Harley Street, London, to Thomas 
J. Salmon, Jamaica, 24 May 1788, Dickinson Family Papers, West India 
Reference Library, UWI. 
2 7 Hector McNeill, Observations, 4; Edwards, History, Civil 
and Commercial , II, 126; John Stewart, A View of the Past and Present 
State of thTTsland of Jamaica (1823, rpt. New~Torlc7 T359) 75'6-7; Col-
lins, Practical Rules, 120-1. 
252 
Slaves had to provide their own household furnishing, for little 
was supplied them at the plantation's expense. Slaves could, for 
example, furnish their houses by purchasing the necessary articles. 
Planter Gilbert Mathison, in his Notices Respecting Jamaica indicated 
that "well-conditioned Negroes" on sugar plantations raised small live-
stock and grew surplus produce in their provision grounds which they 
then sold at market. They used the accumulated remunerations to keep 
their houses in good repair and to buy various furnishings for them. 
Cash income would have been necessary to provide the books and prints 
which William Sells claimed adorned some of the slaves' houses he 
+ ^ 2 8 
entered. 
Slaves made most of their furnishings, however, from materials 
they gathered in the surrounding countryside. Thus, to outfit their 
homes, slaves needed skills, time and the inclination to spend it mak-
ing furniture. An article in a Kingston journal, The Columbian Maga-
zine, described chairs made by slaves that were "bottomed with flags 
and rushes." Making these required both basketry and carpentry skills. 
Slaves who made sleeping mats also had to be skilled in basket-weaving, 
for the mats were made of "plantain leaf ribs stripped of dry foliage 
placed close together and confin[ed] . . . so by strips of the bark of 
trees." Slaves needed woodworking skill not only to construct tables 
and benches, but also to make the beds described as "cabbins or 
2 3 Mathison, Notices, 39; William Sells, Remarks on the Condi -
tion of Slaves in the Island of Jamaica (London, 1823), 36. 
253 
platforms, (frequently made of cleft cabbage-stems), supported by rails 
placed on four short posts fixed in the earth." 
Slaves had one other piece of bedding, blanketing; this was 
one of the few household items planters sometimes provided. Even in 
this case, however, all slaves did not receive equal treatment. Testi-
mony presented to the House of Commons in 1789 mentioned blanketing 
as one item included in the annual clothing allowance to slaves--"All 
receive a piece of woollen cloth or blanketting." Three yards of such 
material was apparently the usual distribution, with drivers and head 
tradesmen getting a double ration. Rev. Thomas Cooper claimed, how-
ever, that many slaves did not receive even this meager covering. He 
noted that "they lie on boards, or on a door covered with a mat of their 
own making, and sometimes a blanket for covering, but they have not 
all blankets. A woman with children has a blanket, and also the aged 
men; but many men have none." Further House of Commons testimony 
offered an explanation for this difference. Whereas women got a blan-
ket at the expense of the plantation, men were given a "Welch blanket 
or Woollen Jacket." Thus the distribution of woollen cloth to male 
slaves was presumably expected to function both as an outer garment 
and bedclothes. This would cause the cloth to wear out more rapidly 
30 and may explain Cooper's observations. 
2 9 Anon., "Characteristic Traits," The Columbian Magazine, 3 
(September, 1797), 251. 
3 0 British Sessional Papers (1731-1800), House of Commons, Accounts 
and Papers, XXVI:646A, Pt. 3 (1789), p. 6; List of Slaves on Harmony Hall 
Estate, Trelawny, 10 June 1797 and 6 June 1799, Harmony Hall Estate Papers, 
7/7-1, 7/56-1, Jamaica Archives, Spanish Town, Jamaica; Cooper, Facts 
Illustrative, 23; British Sessional Papers (1731-1800), House of Commons, 
Accounts and Papers, XXVI:646A, Pt. 3 (1789), p. 5. 
254 
The more demanding projects of erecting and repairing houses 
required techniques which few other than tradesmen possessed. Slaves 
needed less sophisticated skills to make simpler pieces of furniture, 
and, therefore, more members of the slave population would have possessed 
them. Slaves, however, needed time and the motivation to devote it to 
these enterprises as well as skills. 
In his Practical Rules, Dr. Collins drew a stark picture of the 
lot of field slaves. He contended that "with negroes, half whose time 
is devoted to the service of others, the little which is not given to 
sleep, must necessarily be employed in obtaining or cooking their food, 
which exhausts almost the whole of their short remissions from labour." 
The punishing labor regime of sugar slavery greatly limited the free 
time available to those suffering under it, and enervated both their 
spirits and their strength. Any incentive or inclination towards the 
manufacture of furnishings and home improvement was tempered by the over-
whelming fatigue slaves suffered, by their need to provide themselves 
with sustenance, by the inadequacies of their shelter, and by the despon-
dency of bondage. How bare must have been the homes of generations and 
thousands of slaves who lived and died on the sugar plantations of 
Jamaica. The evidence of J — M — , formerly a bookkeeper on Bushy Park 
Estate in St. Dorothy Parish, evoked this bleak scene. He referred to the 
indifferent huts, frequently devoid of furniture, which were the slaves' 
31 living quarters. 
31 Collins, Practical Rules, 116; Anon., Negro Slavery; or a view 
of some of the more important features of that state of society as rt exists 
in the United States of America and in_ the Colonies oF'the West Indies, 
especially Jamaica (London), 1823], 67. 
255 
Individual slave houses were usually surrounded by a small plot 
of ground which could be used as a kitchen garden. This area may have 
been fenced off, and occasionally, as on Hope Estate, there were family 
compounds, comprising a number of houses and their gardens, which were 
fenced-off from the rest of the village. Gardens sometimes contained 
a partitioned section for small livestock, principally poultry and hogs. 
William Beckford noted that often a hut stood in back of the house and 
functioned as a buttery, storehouse, stockhouse and enclosed pigsty. 
Despite his use of the word "often" such outbuildings may have been less 
common than he implied. Similarly, as was true of other improvements 
in housing, privileged slaves were more likely to have these outbuild-
32 
ings on their plots than were ordinary field hands. 
Slaves, by conscientiously working their kitchen gardens and 
raising small livestock, could both supplement their diet, and, by sell-
ing the surplus at market, acquire some money. The fertile soil and 
tropical climate of Jamaica permitted even small patches of ground to 
yield an abundance of fruits and vegetables. Contemporary reports fre-
quently described slave villages with many fruit trees, coconut palms 
and vegetable plots. If slaves, for whatever reason, did not work 
these gardens, however, the fecundity of the soil quickly turned them 
into ruinate patches. References to "showplace" examples of slave 
housing and gardens, as in the Jamaica Journal of 1813, should not be 
permitted to conceal, if not their atypicality, then certainly that 
3 2 The Jamaica Journal, I (1818), 15-25; Beckford, A Descriptive 
Account, I, 229. 
256 
they were but one side of the coin. This exaggeratedly idyllic view, 
which described the slave houses nestled like English cottages among 
trees bearing coconuts, cashews, oranges, shaddocks, forbidden fruit, 
mangoes, avocados, akees, neesberries and other fruits, standing in 
fenced gardens that contained poultry and pigs, vegetables and pine-
apples, must be tempered with the dismal, and probably more widespread, 
picture of squalid hovels surrounded by overgrown weed-infested 
33 
patches of ground. 
Close to the cabin, either adjacent to it, or leaning against 
it, was the kitchen area. Despite the presence of a fire inside the 
dwelling itself, slaves usually did their cooking outside, either in 
the open air, or in a lean-to structure built abutting the house, which 
sheltered the fire and surrounding area. Slaves were responsible for 
this area; they built the shelter, provided the necessary utensils and 
constructed a suitable fireplace. 
Other than the implements necessary for the cultivation of the 
sugar crops, plantation owners gave the slaves few tools. They did, how-
ever, sometimes issue slaves cooking utensils. Slaves regularly received 
a cane knife that they used primarily as a work tool, but also in their 
kitchens. The fictional account of plantation life and society in 
Jamaica, Marly, refers to the supply of a clasp-knife to each slave as 
part of the annual allowance. James Stewart's account of slavery in 
Jamaica noted that planters provided slaves with an iron pot and a 
3 3 The Jamaica Journal, I (1818), 15-25, 312-8. 
257 
knife for cooking victuals. The knives planters supplied the slaves 
were work tools that slaves took home for their own use.34 
Other than knives, iron pots were the kitchen utensil most fre-
quently supplied at the planters' expense. A list of articles provided 
the slaves on Harmony Hall Estate in Trelawny Parish in February 1798, 
showed that a few received pots. Of the twenty-two men on the list, 
three received pots; of the twenty-one women, one received a pot; none 
of the sixteen boys or six girls got a pot; and the only other one issued 
at this time went to a cook. While clothing was issued the slaves annu-
ally on this plantation, pots were issued less frequently, perhaps only 
when the previous one broke. The Harmony Hall list does not indicate 
the reason for supplying the pots, so it could also conceivably have 
been some reward or incentive payment. The "Negro Accounts" on Hugh 
Hamilton's Pemberton Valley Estate itemized the purchase of ten iron 
pots at 3/9d each. The same set of accounts mentioned that "New 
Negroes" were supplied with "calabashes" at the expense of the planta-
tion. Other than the above examples, and a passing reference by Robert 
Renny in his History of Jamaica to the fact that newly-purchased slaves 
received a small wooden spoon immediately after they had been sold at 
dock-side, slaves received little else from the planter for culinary 
35 purposes. 
3 4 Anon., Marly; or a Planter's Life in Jamaica (Glasgow, 1828), 
54; James Stewart, A Brief Account of the Present State of the_ Negroes 
jn Jamaica (Bath, 1792), 10. 
3 5 Served with Cloath, etc., 22nd February 1798, Harmony Hall 
Estate Papers, 7/56-1; Negro Account, Accounts of Hugh Hamilton and 
Company, settled December 31st, 1784, Hamilton of Pinmore Papers, B1755, 
Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh, Scotland; Renny, History of Jamaica, 
176. 
258 
Except for what the slaves purchased using their own resources, 
they depended primarily on country materials to make their kitchenware. 
The principal raw materials they found were clay and gourds. They used 
clay to make earthenware pots, urns and bowls, and they cut gourds or 
calabashes to form containers, plates, dippers and spoons. John Stewart 
indicated that slaves carved wood to make mortars and pestels for grind-
36 ing corn, bowls and other such articles. 
Some slaves had skills to fashion clay into glazed, convex-
37 
bottomed pots called yabbas, which they sold or bartered at the weekly 
markets for provisions or other manufactures. Pots made by less-
skilled slaves for their own use were similar, though probably cruder in 
design and construction. Fashioning gourds or calabashes was much easier. 
Calabashes with one end cut off, and a stick pushed through the side, 
served as water cups, and slaves made spoons by cutting calabashes from one 
end to the other. The quality of such utensils no doubt ranged from the 
most crudely-fashioned gourd or coconut-shell dipper to pieces of earth-
enware of artistic construction and design. In this realm slaves had 
36 John Stewart, A View, 266-7. 
37 
Yabbas, whose name may derive from the West African Igbo word 
Ob a meaning calabash or pot, were made by slaves following traditional 
African principles. Slaves cast these vessels by montage, that is, by add-
ing successive rings of clay, and either fired them over an open fire or 
just left them to dry. Examples of yabbas made during slavery, and now 
housed in the Jamaica Archaeological Society, show a strong influence of 
Asante pottery design. (See illustration in Appendix 3-d.) Beatrice F. 
and William E. Welmers, Igbo: A Learner's Dictionary (Los Angeles, 1968); 
Michel Leris and Jacqueline Delange, African Art (London, 1968), 448. 
259 
considerable autonomy and could transcend, through their own talents, 
both the deprivation of supplies and a white-created infrastructure of 
privilege. For other slaves, the planters' failure to supply these goods 
*5 O 
exacerbated the sordidness and destitution of their lives in bondage.^0 
Sugar plantation slaves in Jamaica probably cooked their meals 
similar to the following 1797 Columbian Magazine description: 
The trivet for supporting the vessel in which he [the slave] pre-
pares his food, consists of three large stones: when he cannot get so 
many old gun or pistol barrels, broken augers or bill handles to drive 
into the earth, racks, spits and dripping pans when requisite are soon 
collected. Two forked sticks placed in the earth at a due distance 
from each other, are substitutes for the first; or a longer and slender 
one serves for the second. The last is compounded of half a cylinder 
taken from the stem of a plantain tree, and placed before the fire under 
the meat, with one end depressed to convey the gravy into a calabash 
placed to receive it. 
Because their diet contained little meat, slaves would have used the spit 
less frequently than the trivet. They occasionally constructed crude 
39 
ovens by scooping a hollow in a cutbank and placing hot coals in it. 
Slaves stored food and water in their houses in gourds and 
earthenware jars, some of which were suspended from the ceiling to pre-
vent rats from getting to the grain or fish. As an additional precaution 
against pests, they built a device from "an half cylinder of bark with 
the round side uppermost, the rope to which their food [was] appended 40 passing thro' this up to the ridge pole." 
3 8 Anon., "Characteristic Traits," The Columbian Magazine, 3 
(September, 1797), 251 -2. 
3 9 R ' J Ibid. 
40 IK'. Ibid. 
260 
Although planters and their delegates sometimes concerned them-
selves with slaves' housing, generally they neglected it. This neglect 
was a two-edged sword. It meant, for slaves, miserable conditions of 
life in which their inadequate housing caused discomfort and could even 
threaten their health and lives. 
Planter neglect, however, permitted slaves considerable liberty 
within their quarters. From this freedom developed the peculiar status 
of the slave's house as the focus and base for activities, inherently 
inimical to the institution of slavery, and largely independent of the 
plantation system and those who controlled it. A clear illustration of 
this was the consistent reaction by whites to any threat or rumor of slave 
rebellion: to search slave quarters. As Lord Balcarres reported to the 
Duke of Portland in August 1795, the outbreak of the Maroon Rebellion 
prompted the militia to search all the slave huts on the island for con-
cealed arms. Another report mentioned that in this search "for all and 
every kind of Arms, we do not hear of any other sort being found but Cut-
lasses, which Negroes have in common for trimming Plantain trees etc. in 
their Provision grounds." Rumors of a Christmas rebellion at the time of 
the abolition of the slave trade again led the island government to order 
a strict guard and a search of slave houses for arms. Since slaves' 
houses were beyond the ordinary purview of whites, the white population 
of the island moved against slave quarters during times of trouble. It 
was in their houses that slaves could hide weapons, secure from everyday 
discovery. After all, for a slave, the possession of arms was a capital 
offence. Yet except during emergencies or on government orders, searches 
261 
were cursory. While slaves had no legal rights to privacy in thei** homes, 
and some planters ordered their overseers and bookkeepers to visit the 
slave houses regularly, the sequestration of the quarters was generally 
maintained as a consequence both of the attitude of the slaves, and the 
_ . 41 
antipathy, acquiescence, laziness and unconcern of whites. 
Slaves developed a territorial and proprietary attitude to their 
houses and gardens. Testimony in the 1807 House of Commons Report from 
the Committee on the Commercial State oJ[ the. West India Colonies incl uded 
a Jamaican sugar estate manager's reference to the slaves' "houses, their 
provision grounds, their gardens and orchards, (which they consider as 
much their own property as their Master does his Estate)." To secure 
their property, slaves used home-made wooden locks, keys and bolts. While 
these protected slaves' property against theft, they also served to 
affirm their ownership and dominion. Similarly, in Louisiana, lists of 
purchases by slaves show they spent some of their financial resources on 
locks. Clearly, the possession and use of locks by slaves is antithetical 
to the whole notion of slave subjugation. Nevertheless, their widespread 
use indicates a degree of slave autonomy. Slaves were and viewed them-
selves as property-holders, with the ability to protect and defend their 
possessions and territory. Slaves invested their houses with the 
41 Lord Balcarres to the Duke of Portland, 3 August 1795, Hard-
wicke Papers, Volume DLXVIII, Add. 35916, British Library, London, 
England; Barritt to Phillips, 15 August 1795, Phillips Papers, 9207; 
Letter from David Ewart, Westmoreland, Jamaica to Lord Penrhyn, 8 and 
10 December 1808, Penrhyn Castle Papers, 1495. 
262 
hallmarks of ownership, and these were normally, though tacitly, recog-
42 
nized by the planters and their agents. 
The slaves' sense of territoriality was revealed in the way they 
used their own land. In the garden near the house, slaves buried their 
kin, sometimes erecting a grave-marker on the spot. J. B. Moreton, in 
his description of slavery, indicated that families sometimes even 
interred deceased relatives under their beds within the house itself. 
Testimony by John Blackburn, a Jamaica sugar plantation manager, to the 
Committee on the Commercial State of the West India Colonies in 1807, 
reflected the slaves' perception of their house and home being hallowed 
• 
and sacrosanct because of this custom. Blackburn testified that "every 
[slave] house has a garden round it, of a quarter or half an acre or more; 
they are attached to the spot, and they are attached to the graves of 
their forefathers.'.' Burial patterns similar to those adopted by slaves 43 
in Jamaica existed in various West African societies. 
The extremely powerful and pervasive religious practices of 
obeah provide another example of the effects of the property and owner-
ship status of the slave grounds and houses. In his history of Jamaica, 
planter John Stewart observed that obeah charms, when placed in the 
4 2 Testimony of John Blackburn, Report from the Committee, 40; 
Anon., "Characteristic Traits," The Columbian Magazine, 3 (September, 
1797), 251 ; Lanaux (George and Family) Papers, 1§30-(1850-1880)-1915, 
Volume 18, Ledger 1851-1856, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, 
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
4 3 Moreton, Manners, 162; Testimony of John Blackburn, Report 
from the Committee, 43; for West African burial customs see J. Olumide 
rucas, The Religion of the Yorubas (Lagos, 1948), 225; and for a more 
general treatment, Edward G. Parrinder, West African Religions (London, 
1949). 
263 
slaves' gardens or grounds, protected them from plunder and theft. A 
charm, he wrote, "loses its power, however, when put to protect the 
gardens and plantain walks of the Buckras." The system of obeah, 
therefore, made a distinction that affirmed a bifurcated structure of 
property and ownership: slave black and free white.44 
On less esoteric levels than the sepulchral and religious, the 
attitudes and actions of slaves illustrated the importance of the sanc-
tuary house and grounds embodied. Although in part a result of their 
dislike of the estate's hospital or "hot house," slaves preferred to 
remain, when sick, in their own houses, and, according to William Beck-
ford, the "better kind of negroes" were allowed to do so. As has been 
noted above, slaves invested time, effort and money in their houses. 
The house was the repository for slaves' possessions, no matter how 
meager: their "best clothes," and artifacts of utility and comfort. 
"The underparts of eaves [which] project to shelter walls from rain 
afford[ed slaves] places to bestow sticks, pipes, whips, hunting and 
45 
fishing spears, cutlasses etc." 
The slave quarters were the seat of various social activities. 
Family and friends gathered around the fires in the kitchen and inside 
the house, or, weather permitting, in the "yard" outside. Planters 
complained that runaways skulked around and were fed in the slave 
village. Superannuated slaves were left to their own devices there. 
44 John Stewart, A View, 278-9. 
4 5 Beckford, A Descriptive Account, II, 18; Anon., "Characteristic 
Traits," The Columbian Magazine, 3 (September, 1797), 251. 
264 
Slave houses and grounds were the most important source of self-
determined action and decision-making, and the nucleus of slave community 
and family development, where a form of independence was asserted by the 
slaves, and conceded by the whites, despite its fundamental dissonance 
with the basic premises of slavery. 
i i 
A comparison of slave housing on sugar plantations in Jamaica 
and Louisiana reveals significant differences. They differed in such 
physical aspects as construction materials and site placement as well as 
in the degree of control exercised by slaves and planters. 
Typically, slave houses in Louisiana were built of wood or brick. 
Wood houses were simple frame structures, clapboards nailed to a wooden 
skeleton. There were two principal types of wooden framed houses, 
double and single cabins. Double cabins accommodated two slave families 
or households. The cabin was partitioned down the middle, and each 
apartment had its own front entry. These cabins often had a built-in 
front roof overhang, and the gables faced sidewards. Each half of the 
house was again divided into two rooms, front and back. A chimney stood 
in the middle of the house, thus serving both households, their fireplaces 
being built into the central partition. Single cabins had a front-
facing door, side-facing gables, and were divided into a front and back 
room, with the fireplace and chimney in one of the side walls. (See 
illustrations in Appendices 3-e & 3-f.) 
265 
Brick houses, though generally constructed on the same design 
plan, occasionally varied dramatically from it. A notable example was 
the row of four two-story brick houses on the Woodland Plantation in 
Plaquemines Parish. This design, most unusual for Louisiana, permitted 
four separate households to be lodged in one building. A central chimney 
served the fireplace in each of the four sections. These structures 
(see illustration in Appendix 3-g) are still standing, and two of them 
46 
were still occupied in 1965. 
Some Louisiana planters built slave quarters that differed from 
the general pattern of wood or brick houses. On the McCollam Plantation 
in Assumption Parish, for example, brick pillars provided the skeleton 
to which the weatherboards were secured, and on the Weeks family's plan-
tation at Grande Cote Island, the overseer recorded that he had built 
log cabins, adding parentheti cal ly that they were the best that could 47 
be made under the circumstances. 
The roofs of the houses invariably were of shingle nailed to 
wooden rafters and battens. Raised wooden floors, wooden-shuttered 
windows and, occasionally, a porch, completed the single story dwellings, 
usually without any loft space. Sometimes double cabins were built 
with a fireplace at each end of the building. There were, therefore, 
two end chimneys rather than the more usual central chimney. 
4 5 William Darrell Overdyke, Louisiana Plantation Homes (New 
York, 1965), 204. 
4 7 Letter from John Merriman, Grande Cote, Louisiana, to Mrs. 
Mary Weeks, New Iberia, Louisiana, 5 July 1840, Weeks (David and Family) 
Papers, Box 8, Folder 28, Archives, LSU. 
266 
The decision of whether to build slave dwellings of wood or 
brick depended on several considerations: convenience, durability, 
cost and philosophical preference. Basically, materials at hand were 
used. Many of the plantations along the Mississippi, its tributaries 
and other southern Louisiana waterways had either a sawmill, a brickworks, 
or both. Failing that, there assuredly were such works near at hand and 
readily accessible by river. River driftwood and the abundant stocks 
waiting to be felled in the swamps at the rear of the riverfront planta-
tions assured a plentiful supply of lumber. Clay for brick-making needed 
only to be dug. The overseer on the Weeks family's plantation built log 
cabins because the estate lay in what was, at that time, a frontier area 
of southern Louisiana, Grande Cote Island. Logs were plentiful but he 
did not have ready access to.either of the improved materials, board or 
brick. 
Despite the greater durability of brick, a material which in all 
likelihood the planter had used to build his own house, he seemed to 
prefer wood for building slave houses. Wood, which was readily available, 
utilized construction skills more common among plantation tradesmen. 
Moreover, an 1845 address on the topic of construction materials indicated 
that planters believed that brick houses were damp and caused illness and 
debility among slaves. This circumstance reportedly led planters to use 
wood in building slave quarters although they used brick in their own 
48 more elaborate dwellings. 
4 8 P. A. Rost, Sugar, Its Culture and Manufacture, Discourse 
before the Agricultural and Mechanics Association of. Louisiana, May 12, 
1845 (Hahnvilie. La., 18761. 
267 
The size of the cabins was fairly uniform. On the Craighead 
Plantation in Iberville Parish, double cabins were constructed which 
measured thirty-two feet by sixteen feet, while in West Feliciana Parish, 
one of the Butler estates had cabins which measured thirty-two-and-a-
half feet by sixteen feet. Single cabins measured anywhere from sixteen 
to twenty feet by sixteen feet. Solon Robinson, a noted agriculturalist 
from Indiana, described a less usual construction design. While travell-
ing in the South in 1849, he visited Trufant and White's Myrtle Grove 
sugar plantation in Plaquemines Parish, and reported that "the negro 
houses [were] built of brick, with elevated floors, 32 feet square, 
divided into four rooms, with chimney in the centre." Other slave 
houses built of brick, such as those on the Evan Hall Plantation, con-
formed to the regular rectangular pattern. (See illustrations in 
49 
Appendix 3-h.) 
The cabins generally had front and back rooms of different sizes. 
The front room was usually the larger of the two, although in the slave 
houses on the Laurel Valley Estate near Thibodeaux, the back room was 
the larger. The fireplace was in the large room, which served a variety 
of needs as kitchen, parlor, sitting-room, dining-room and bedroom. 
Slaves reserved the smaller room primarily for sleeping. In double 
49 
Letter from J. E. Craighead, Plaquemine, to John B. Craighead, 
Nashville, 11 September 1847, Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Box 14, 
Folder 102, Archives, LSU; The Cottage, in National Register of Historic 
Places, Louisiana Preservation and Cultural Commission, Department of 
Culture, Recreation and Tourism, Baton Rouge; Herbert Anthony Kellar, 
ed., Solon Robinson, Pioneer and Agriculturalist: Selected Writings 
(Indianapolis, 1936), II, 181; Henry McCall, History of Evan Hall Planta-
tion, manuscript, 1899, Department of Archives, Tulane University, New 
Orleans, Louisiana; see photographs reproduced in Appendix 3-h. 
268 
cabins, of course, both partitioned sections were similarly divided, and 
50 
were thus a mirror-image of each other. 
The slave houses in Louisiana, which were set in a small plot of 
ground that could be cultivated as a kitchen garden by the occupants, 
differed from Jamaican slave quarters since they invariably stood regu-
larly spaced in straight lines on either side of a dirt road. On larger 
estates, such as the Uncle Sam Plantation in St. James Parish where there 
were more than two rows of houses, the houses retained their regularity 
of spacing and their access to a road running in front. (Spacing of 
slave houses on Madewood and Uncle Sam plantations is shown in plans of 51 
the estates included as Appendices 3-i and 3-j.) 
Although the quarters were often distant from the great house, 
the overseers always lived near them. The overseers' houses, usually of 
similar design to the slave houses though larger and more elaborate, 
stood so that they commanded a view of the slave village. Standing on a 
promontory, or else at right angles to the rows of slave houses, the 52 
overseers' houses looked down the dirt road between the cabins. 
The purely physical aspects of the wood or brick slave housing 
on Louisiana sugar plantations differed markedly from the wattle-and-
daub slave housing common on Jamaican sugar estates. Further evidence 
5 0 Laurel Valley Plantation, in National Register of Historic 
Places. 
51 Madewood Plantation, in National Register of Historic Places; 
Uncle Sam Plantation, Historic American Buildings Survey, LA. 74, 
Archives Department, LSU. 
5 2 Uncle Sam Plantation, Historic American Buildings Survey. 
269 
of these differences appears when one looks at the delegation or assump-
tion of responsibility for construction and repair. In Jamaica, of 
course, most of this responsibility devolved on the slaves; in Louisiana, 
it rested principally with the planter. 
The best evidence of this obligation is seen in contractual 
arrangements between planters. A contract between John Randolph of Not-
toway plantation in Iberville Parish and C. A. Thornton of Wilkinson 
County in Mississippi, for example, stipulated that Randolph supply 
land on his estate for sugar cultivation and a mill to process the sugar. 
Thornton promised, in exchange for one-third of the proceeds, to provide 
a slave-labor force of approximately twenty-five hands, to pay one-third 
of the plantation expenses, and to erect six slave cabins and a hospital. 
A similar contract between Mary C. Moore and her husband John Moore 
stated: 
John Moore furnishes, the use of his plantation situate in the 
Parish of St. Mary below Franklin also the labor of his Slaves named 
on the schedule herewith, estimated equivalent to twenty-two working 
hands, and puts in the moveables, described on the Schedule at the value 
there Stated 
Mrs. Mary C. Moore furnishes the labor of her Slaves named on the 
Schedule estimated equivalent to Fifteen working hands and puts in the 
moveables described on the Schedule at the value there Stated--She is 
to have Cabins made for the use of her Slaves at her individual cost, 
which will belong to her and may be removed at the expiration of the 
Partnershi p.53 
Contract between J. H. Randolph, Iberville Parish, Louisiana, 
and C. A. Thornton, Wilkinson County, Mississippi, 1 January 1846, John 
H. Randolph Papers, Box 1, Folder 6, Archives Department, LSU, Contract 
between Mary C. Moore and John Moore, 23 January 1847, Weeks Papers, Box 
14, Folder 40. 
270 
Either the estate's labor pool or an outside contractor, who may 
have been assisted by the estate's skilled and unskilled labor, did the 
actual construction. On the McCollam Plantation in Assumption Parish, 
two white tradesmen were hired to erect slave cabins, and likewise William 
Palfrey contracted Mr. Addison Pumphrey to build slave cabins on his plan-
tation in St. Mary Parish. J. E. Craighead recorded, in a letter to his 
father, the financial obligation he had assumed for the construction of 
slave houses, noting "I have paid $34 each for 5 double cabins framed 
32x16 $170 For 13 single cabins framed lumber & all put up at $20 each 
$260." Although not mentioned in the letter, undoubtedly he contracted 
the building of these cabins to an outside agent. By comparison, the 
contract between Palfrey and Pumphrey, undertaken in 1857, ten years 
after Craighead's transaction, required two cabins to be built at the 
54 
cost of $25 each. 
Responsibility and control over the construction of slave hous-
ing remained in the hands of the planters even when slaves performed the 
labor. When the estate's tradesmen and other slaves did the work, it 
was as part of the plantation's daily labor schedule under the direction 
and supervision of the planter and overseer. The residence journal of 
Robert Ruffin Barrow's sugar plantation in Lafourche Parish indicated that 
throughout the early months of the year, when the field hands planted 
5 4 McCollam (Andrew and Ellen E.) Papers, Diary and Plantation 
Record of Ellen E. McCollam, Vol. II, 1847-1851 , (entries for 10 and 25 
August 1847), Archives Department, LSU, entry for 9 March 1857, Planta-
tion Diary 1842-1859, 1867 (Volume 17), Palfrey (William T. and George 
D.) Account Books, Department of Archives, LSU, J. E. to John B. Craig-
head, 11 September 1847, Gay Papers, Box 14, Folder 102. 
271 
cane, the estate's carpenters mended old cabins and framed new ones. 
Elizabeth Ross Hite, formerly a slave on Pierre Landreaux' Trinity Plan-
tation in Assumption, provided substantiating testimony. She recalled 
that "de houses was like little doll houses made by de carpenters on de 
„55 
farm. 
While planters sometimes contracted out for construction of new 
houses, repairs to the existing ones were always left to the estate's 
tradesmen. Sugar planter Mary Weeks' overseer told her, "I have 
renewed all the cabbins since I have been here and put good shingle 
ruffs on them." Joseph Mather, superintendent of Judge Morgan1s 
Aurora Plantation in St. James Parish, employed some of the hands in 
shingling slave cabins in June 1855. As noted above, the carpenters 
on the Barrow plantation were employed for repair as well as for construc-
56 
tion. 
Because of their involvement with the construction of slave 
housing, Louisiana planters bore much more direct responsibility for the 
quality and condition of slave quarters than did Jamaican planters. The 
construction practices employed on Louisiana sugar plantations, if under-
taken with suitable care and consideration, could have provided adequate, cc 
Entry for 2 February 1857, Residence Journal of R. R. Barrow, 
1 January 1857 to 13 June 1858, (copied from original manuscript in 
Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina), Archives 
Department, Tulane; Interview conducted ca. 1940 under the auspices of 
the Slave Narrative Collection Project, Federal Writers' Project, Works 
Progress Administration—Interviewee—El izabeth Ross Hite: Interviewer-
Robert McKinney: Date—ca. 1940, Louisiana State Library, Baton Rouge. 
>6 Merriman to Mary Weeks, 5 July 1840, Box 8, Folder 28, Weeks 
Papers; entry for 16 June 1855, Joseph Mather Diary, 1852-1859, Archives 
Department, LSU; entry for 2 February 1857, Residence Journal of R. R. 
Barrow, Archives Department, Tulane. 
272 
though unostentatious, housing. On the other hand, the general pattern 
of construction produced houses built cheaply with materials which lacked 
durability, on a simple, somewhat flimsy design. In order for such rude 
and unsubstantial housing to shelter its occupants adequately, there had 
to be continuing repair and refurbishment, else the rapid deterioration 
which the houses were bound to suffer would accelerate. The widespread 
inadequacy of slave housing on Jamaican sugar plantations was a conse-
quence of the planters' virtual abdication of responsibility for their 
construction and maintenance, while the quality of Louisiana slave dwell-
ings varied according to the extent to which Louisiana planters acted on 
their much greater responsibility for the upkeep of the housing. 
On the whole, the houses on Louisiana sugar plantations were of 
better quality than those on Jamaican estates. Skilled tradesmen con-
structed and repaired them using finished materials in their work. The 
crude huts erected by Jamaican field slaves probably provided less ade-
quate shelter than the slave housing on Louisiana estates built by 
craftsmen skilled in construction, using the proper materials, in time 
allotted specifically for the task. In comparing slave housing in Jamaica 
and Louisiana, however, one must consider other factors. 
Louisiana and Jamaica differ, of course, in topography and cli-
mate, and these elements influenced the adequacy of shelter. Housing 
that provided shelter in the frost-free climate of Jamaica, where winter 
temperatures average in the low 70s (fahrenheit), would be inadequate in 
Louisiana, where snow and freezing temperatures occur occasionally through 
the winter months. 
273 
It is doubtful whether, in general, the wood or brick houses of 
Louisiana slaves functioned any better in their environment than did the 
wattle-and-daub houses in Jamaica. The testimony of an ex-slave offers 
some evidence. Catherine Cornelius, born a slave on Dr. William Lyle's 
sugar plantation in West Baton Rouge Parish, recalled that the house in 
which she lived as a slave was "ver cold in de winter." Further evidence 
of the inadequacy of slave houses can be seen in a letter from John 
Palfrey, of Forlorn Hope Plantation in the Attakapas District, to his 
son William T. Palfrey. Palfrey bemoaned the shortage of hands on his 
plantation during the 1836 harvest. Nevertheless, he outlined a plan to 
plant a large crop the following year. While he was projecting this 
extensive commitment of his labor force, which coincided with the 
severest weather of the year, he noted "my negro cabins are to be com-
pleted, the present ones affording scarcely a shelter." Palfrey recognized 
the need to build houses, but had permitted the task to be put off until 
the existing housing had deteriorated extensively, and at a time when 
slaves most needed shelter and protection from the elements—during winter, 
57 
and when slaves worked hardest—the grinding season. 
As was true also in Jamaica, the frailty of slave housing in 
Louisiana not only subjected the occupants to dampness, cold and draughts, 
57 
Interview conducted under the auspices of a Slave Narrative 
Collection Project organized by Dillard University using only black inter-
viewers. This project developed alongside the Federal Writers' Project 
program. Interviewee—Catherine Cornelius: Interviewer—Octave Lilly, 
Jr.: Date—ca. 1939, Archives and Manuscripts Department, Earl K. Long 
Library, University of New Orleans, New Orleans; Letter from J. Palfrey, 
Forlorn Hope Plantation, Attakapas District, to William T. Palfrey, Franklin, 
5 December 1836, Palfrey (William T.) Papers, 1834-1865, Archives Depart-
ment, LSU. 
274 
and consequently debilitated them, but also meant that the houses could 
not withstand rough weather. For example, in August 1831, on the Wake-
field Plantation in West Feliciana, strong winds blew the roofs off most 
of the slave cabins. Although other buildings were located near the 
quarters, only the slave houses suffered damage, probably as a result 
of their flimsiness in comparison with the rest of the plantation's build-
ings and works.® 
Some plantations did provide well-built housing. In such an 
extensive plantation system, the quality of housing undoubtedly ran the 
gamut from excellent through adequate to miserable. After visiting a 
Louisiana sugar plantation, Federick Law Olmsted wrote that the slave 
houses were "neat and well-made." Nevertheless, it seems likely that 
such superiority in Louisiana sugar plantations' slave houses in compari-
son with those in Jamaica did little more than compensate for the harsher 
59 
climate they had to face. 
"One family to a Cabin," was how Catherine Cornelius remembered 
the housing pattern on the Lyle Plantation. As in Jamaica, slaves on 
Louisiana estates normally lived in families. If slaves had no estab-
lished marriage or family connections, they lived alone or in house-
holds made up of members of the same sex.^ 
5 8 Entry for 28 August 1831, Plantation Diary, July 24, 1830 to 
October 1 , 1831 , 1833 (Box 12, No. 24), Stirling (Lewis and Family) Papers, 
Archives Department, LSU. 
5 9 Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey vn the_ Seaboard Slave States 
(New York, 1856), 659. 
Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. cit. 
275 
Plantation records provide evidence of the importance of family 
in determining the occupancy of slave housing. The household structure 
on the Gay Plantation in Iberville Parish in 1856 comprised 167 slaves 
living in 49 separate household groups occupying the apartments in 25 
double cabins, with one apartment vacant. Table 3-1 shows the composi-
tion of the 49 households, 44 of which were family units, the other 
five apartments being occupied only by men. 
The two single-occupant dwellings housed slaves named Bill Chase 
and Jim Banks. Four years previously, the harvest work schedule recorded 
that both Bill Chase and Jim Banks were field hands, so it seems unlikely 
that they were living alone because they held a privileged position in 
the labor force. More likely they were widowers whose families were no 
longer staying with them. This tentative thesis derives from two slave-
lists recorded in 1842. At that time Jim Banks was fifty years old and 
living with his wife Amy Gilchrist, who was the same age, and another 
person named Susan, for whom no age was recorded, but who may have been 
their daughter. In 1842, Bill Chase, who was then thirty-three years old, 
apparently lived on his own. In his case, it is also possible that he had 
a wife and family living on another plantation. (See Appendix 3-k for 
the complete 1856 Housing List with notes on family structure.)61 
The 49 slave dwellings on the Gay Plantation each measured 
approximately sixteen feet square, and thus provided the occupants limited 
living space. While Bill Chase and Jim Banks, living on their own, and 
61 Plantation Record Book, 1849-1860, Gay Papers, Archives 
Department, LSU. 
276 
Table 3-1 
Household Composition of the Slave Village 
on the Gay Plantation, Iberville Parish, 
Louisiana in 1856 
Household Composition Number of such units Number of Slaves 
in the slave village 
Husband, 
children 
wi fe and five 
1 7 
Husband, 
chi1dren 
wi fe and four 
2 12 
Husband, 
children 
wi fe and three 
4 20 
Husband, 
children 
wi fe and two 
14 56 
Husband, 
child 
wi fe and one 
6 18 
Husband and wife 10 20 
Father and two chi1dren 2 6 
Mother and two children 1 3 
Mother and one child 3 6 
Mother, child and grandchild 1 3 
Ten male siaves* 1 10 
Two male siaves 2 4 
One male si ave _2 
49 
_2 
167 
A notation next to this entry stated that the apartment was a "House for 
old men and young men without homes." 
Source: Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Volume 36, Plantation Record 
Book, 1849-1860, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State 
University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
277 
the fifteen households made up of two persons each, must nave nad 
relatively uncrowded quarters, the same cannot be said for the ten male 
slaves who lived in the same cabin, and who thus each had approxi^atel, 
twenty-five-and-a-hal f square feet of shelter (a little over six feet 
by four feet). Ceceil George, who had been a slave on a Louisiana sugar 
plantation attested to these crowded conditions. She commented that 
c p 
"all de houses [were] packed wid people." 
On some plantations planters promoted a hygienic regime in the 
quarters by instituting a policy that called for the slave houses to 
be regularly whitewashed, inside and out. Catherine Cornelius recalled 
that on the Lyle estate "de cabins was white." Painting often coincided 
with a general clean-up around and under the cabins. Cleaning the 
quarters, a spring or summertime chore, removed trash, refuse and also 
probably human excrement, which had accumulated in the vicinity of the 
63 
cabins. 
Some plantations provided the slaves with latrines. For example, 
on R. R. Barrow's estate the 1857 Residence Journal recorded that, on 
one day in November, "Jerry and 3 hands [were] building negro privies 
over ditch." Slaves, however, were not normally provided with privies. 
The usual practice in Louisiana, which also prevailed in Jamaica, was 
called, in the patois of the island, to "go a bush." Both systems were 
unsanitary and likely to harm the slaves' health: the use of primitive 
privies could spread disease through seepage contaminating drinking 
r p 
J~ Interviewee--Ceceil George: Interviewer--Maude Uallace: 
Date--1940, F. W. P. Interviews, Louisiana State Library. 
c o 
Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. cit. 
278 
water, and "going a bush" led to accumulation of excrement around the 
quarters. Annual clean-ups, even when carried out, were inadequate 
to deal with the potential health risk that such indiscriminate waste 
^ 64 
disposal systems posed. 
On estates where planters mandated clean-ups and whitewashing, 
slaves did the chores as part of the regular work schedule. The tasks 
may have been delegated to some of the weaker hands, or done as Sunday 
light work. On Charles Oxley's Roseland Plantation in St. Charles 
Parish, the latter alternative was adopted: the 1847 Plantation Diary 
recorded that slaves cleaned their quarters on Sunday, 8 August. 
There is no indication of how they disposed of the refuse, nor of 
whether they used collected excrement as night soil. It is unlikely, 
however, that infrequent clean-up operations were able to prevent 
dysentery, bowel complaints, worms and related maladies that afflicted 65 
the occupants of these insanitary quarters. 
Louisiana slaves themselves bore much of the burden for keep-
ing their quarters clean. A number of factors, however, hindered them 
from doing the task adequately. They had little time or resources to 
devote to this work because of the prodigious labor demands imposed on 
them, especially during planting and harvest. Nor did they have the 
medical knowledge of hygiene with which to structure their habits of 
toilet and housework. 
6 4 Entry for 17 November 1857, Residence Journal of R. R. Bar-
row, Archives Department, Tulane. 
6 5 Entry for 8 August 1847, 1847 Plantation Diary of Charles 
0x1ey, Roseland Plantation, St. Charles, Kenner Family Papers, Archives 
Department, LSU. 
279 
Such perfunctory precautions on plantations as annual clean-ups 
and whitewashing failed to compensate for the deficiencies in the 
slaves' efforts in maintaining a healthy residential environment. An 
1850 Medical Report illustrated the hazard; it blamed the "old and 
decayed houses" of a Catahoula Parish plantation for the outbreak of 
whooping cough which killed thirteen slave children. Although not 
itself a sugar estate, the plantation lay near the sugar region, and 
cc 
neighboring sugar estates probably experienced similar hazards. 
Often only a serious and immediate health threat moved planters 
to improve the hygiene of the slaves' houses. Yet, even then, they did 
little more than clean-up in and around the houses, and whitewash them 
inside and out. When cholera appeared on Elu Landry's estate, he evacu-
ated half of the slave village, sent the slaves to live in the sugar 
house, and set some of them to whitewashing the quarters with lime. 
Rachel O'Connor, whose plantation was in the Bayou Sara sugar region, 
wrote to her brother David Weeks at his sugar plantation in the Attaka-
pas District, that "almost everyone talks of white washing there [sic] 
Houses, negro cabins, and all, on account of the Cholera being near, 
as it is recommended among many other preventatives now in circulation." 
She intimated that she would do it to her buildings.57 
From the foregoing descriptions a picture of the bare struc-
ture of slaves' houses emerges: small wood or brick buildings, the 
5 5 Andrew R. Kilpatrick, "Report on the Medical Topography, 
Meteorology and Diseases of Trinity, Louisiana, and Its Vicinity during 
the Year 1850," in Erasmus Darwin Fenner, ed., Southern Medical Reports 
(New York, 1851)-, II, 178. 
5 7 Entries for 11 and 12 July 1849, Plantation Diary and Ledger, 
Landry (Elu) Estate, Archives Department, LSU, Letter from Rachel 
O'Connor to David Weeks (no date), Box 30, 1-2, Weeks Papers. 
280 
exterior facade unembellished, save perhaps for a coat of wnitewash. 
The interior, divested of occupants and their belongings, evinced a 
similar rudeness: plain board or brick walls; uncovered rafters, bat-
tens and shingles above, bare floorboards below; heating provided by a 
single fireplace, light and air by wooden-shuttered windows devoid of 
glass, and a simple wooden door. The occupants of these unpretentious 
dwellings furnished and decorated them, sometimes with the assistance 
of the planter. 
Each cabin contained only the bare furnishings, beds, table 
and chairs, which the plantation's carpenters built at the expense of 
the estate. Slaves slept on wooden box-type beds. Louisa Martin, 
formerly a slave on Richard Pugh's Madewood Plantation on the Bayou 
Lafourche in Assumption Parish, recalled that slaves "had nothin but 
old sawmill beds--wooden beds, chinch [bed-bug] harbors." Catherine 
Cornelius "'member[ed] de man what mak em [the beds] he wuz a slave 
carpenter--his name was Dave Parker--he wuz a good carpenter." Slaves 
usually slept on mattresses stuffed with straw or Spanish moss. 
These mattresses must have aggravated the chinch problem alluded to by 
Louisa Martin, although it was the recollection of Elizabeth Hite, who 
had been a slave on Pierre Landreaux' Trinity Plantation, that slaves 
"slept on wooden beds wid fresh moss mattress. Our bed was kep' clean. 
Much cleaner den de beds of today [ca. 1940]. Dey was scrubbed ev'ry 
68 Saturday. Dere wasn't a chince on one of 'em." 
6 8 Interviewee—Louisa Martin: Interviewer—Octave Lilly, Jr.: 
Date—1938: Dillard Project, Archives Department, UNO; Interview with 
Catherine Cornelius, loc. cit.; Interview with Elizabeth Ross Hite, loc. 
cit. 
281 
A variant of this style of bed was the rope bed, which had a 
wooden frame with lengths of rope strung across it, much in the fashion 
of modern spring-beds. A straw or moss pallet provided a simpler 
alternative. Although Catherine Cornelius maintained that "dere were 
enough beds alright," Louisa Martin claimed there were "sometimes four 
and five in one bed, chillun, you know," and Carlyle Stewart, formerly 
a slave on Octavo de la Houssaye's plantation on the Bayou Teche near 
Jeanerette, remembered that "he got in . . . bed with maw and her five 
chellin."69 
The other furnishings slaves had were simple and homemade. 
In Louisa Martin's cabin, they "didn't have nuthin but ole boxes, saw-
mill timber . . . dey had a table an about four chairs," while Catherine 
Cornelius remembered a "home made cupboard, chairs, benches, table-
slave carpenter made all ub em." Slaves received other furnishings 
and utensils at the expense of the plantation. Ellen McCollam of 
Ellendale Plantation, Terrebonne Parish, recorded in her diary that 
in February 1845, she "received by the Steamboat . . . a Doz Buckets 
for negros." In October of the following year, she had one of the 
women field hands, Cinthy, temporarily working at sewing-up mattresses 
that she distributed to the slaves.7^ 
6 9 Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. cit.; Interview 
with Louisa Martin, loc. cit; Interviewee—Carlyl e Stewart: Intervi ewer-
Flossie McElwee: Date—1940, F. W. P. Interviews, Louisiana State 
Li brary. 
7 0 Interview with Louisa Martin, loc. cit; Interview with Cath-
erine Cornelius, loc. cit; Entries for 4 February 1845 and 6 October 
1846, Diary of Ellen McCollam, McCollam Papers. 
282 
Tin buckets and other metalware were among the items most fre-
quently provided the slaves. Many plantation records and accounts 
illustrate this. On Samuel McCutcheon's Ormond Plantation in St. 
Charles Parish, for example, slaves got ovens, pots, spiders and tin 
kettles, while on Richard Pugh's Leighton Plantation in Lafourche 
Parish, slaves received tin buckets. The contract, mentioned previ-
ously, between J. H. Randolph and C. A. Thornton in which Thornton 
pledged to furnish supplies and homes to slaves in return for a share 
of the sugar crop grown on Randolph's estate, also stipulated that 
Thornton had to give these slaves meat, clothes, tools and utensils. 
The precise nature of the utensils was not set down, but they probably 
included buckets and other metal artifacts. Slaves on William Minor's 
Waterloo Plantation, on the Mississippi in Ascension Parish, received 
such a distribution in January 1859. In his Plantation Diary, Minor 
recorded that a number of items were issued the slaves, including 
gallon and gallon-and-a-half pots, skillets, spiders, bowls and 
71 
spoons. 
William Minor's list mentioned one item other than metalware 
which was distributed for household use: bed-ticking. Unlike Ellen 
McCollam's diary, there was no mention of whether the ticking was 
made upinto mattresses beforehand, but since slaves also received 
needles and thread at this time, they may have had to do the 
71 A list of shoes and utensils distributed slaves, McCutcheon 
(Samuel) Papers, 5 Vital Register, 1835-1852, U-158, #1087, Archives 
Department, LSU; Folder 4, Pugh (Richard L.) Papers, Archives Depart-
ment, LSU; Contract between J. H. Randolph and C. A. Thornton, 1 Janu-
ary 1845, Randolph Papers; entries, 13-15 January 1857, Diary, 1857 (7), 
Minor (William J. and Family) Papers, Archives Department, LSU. 
283 
stitching-up themselves on their own time. Slaves received drapery 
goods other than bed-ticking at the planter's expense. Blankets were 
regularly distributed, as mentioned in the Plantation Lecger of John 
Randolph of Nottoway, which also recorded attempts to cope with the 
prevalent insect problem by giving out mosquito netting. The clothing 
assessment for the Weeks family's sugar plantation at Grande Cote Isle 
included fifty mosquito bars comprising twelve yards of material each, 
while another clothing list for the same plantation recorded that there 
was an annual issue of both double and single mosquito bars in 1859, 
1860 and 1861. William Palfrey's Plantation Diary shows that in July 
1844 eight married couples and two single men received mosquito bars, 
one was also given to "Kizzy for her children." "To furnish . . . 
musquitoe bars for her slaves" was a contractual obligation of Mary 
Moore when she entered into the partnership with her husband John, 
establishing a sugar plantation. As mentioned previously, she also 
had the responsibility of building houses for the slaves she brought 
72 
to the partnership. 
Perhaps the most extensive documentation of utensils and fur-
nishings supplied to slaves can be found in the records of the Gay 
Family, who cultivated sugar in Iberville Parish. Much of the equip-
ment mentioned above was regularly supplied the slaves on this planta-
tion: buckets, skillets, pots and mosquito bars. The records also 
72 
' Entries for 13-15 January, 1857 Diary, Minor Papers, entry 
for 6 October 1846, Diary of Ellen McCollam, McCollam Papers, Volume 8, 
Ledger 1862-1865, Randolph Papers; Folder 260, Volume 10, Notebook, 
1859-1877, Weeks Papers; Volume 17, Plantation Diary 1842-1859, 1867, 
Palfrey Papers; Contract Between Mary C. Moore and John Moore, 23 
January 1847, Weeks Papers. 
284 
showed, however, a variety of other supplies. The Estate Record Book 
for 1825 to 1839 listed nineteen slaves, each of whom received one set 
of knives, forks, plates, cups and saucers, while another twenty-nine 
slaves received only plates. In 1843, "12 little boys received barlow 
knives," and lists of clothing and supplies given the slaves from 1349 
to 1859 showed that knives were a regular part of this distribution. 
Various other items distributed to the slaves at the expense of the 
plantation were cups, sifters, coffee pots, coffee mills, cotton cards 
73 
and "tin buckets . . . each containing one cup." 
Bedding was allocated the slaves by family on the Gay Estate. 
In January 1840, 52 bed-ticks were issued, mostly to women identified 
as "wives of" named male slaves. Single men also received bed-ticks, 74 
which were recorded under their name. 
Planters also distributed blankets, indispensable in keeping 
off the chill and damp of Louisiana winters. On the Gay Plantation, 
through the 1850s, slaves received blankets every three years at the 
end of the grinding season (December or January). The standard allo-
cation was one blanket per adult, with a smaller ratio for children. 
For example, Nathan and Maria, a childless couple, received two blan-
kets, while Jacob Lenox and his wife Little Jinny, who had four children 
living with them, received only four blankets. (See Appendix 3-1 for 
the blanket distribution on the Gay Plantation.) On John Randolph's 
7 3 Volume 7, Estate Record Book, 1825-1839; Volume 8, Estate 
Record Book, 1831-1845; Volume 36, Plantation Record Book, 1849-1860, 
Gay Papers. 
7 4 Volume 8, Estate Record Book, 1831-1845, Gay Papers. 
285 
Nottoway Plantation there was a similar ration. Each family, accord-
ing to its size, was issued from one to two-and-a-half pairs of blan-
kets, childless couples received one pair and single people each half 
a pair—a single blanket. Slaves on Lewis Stirling's Solitude and 
Wakefield Plantations in West Feliciana Parish had a comparable issue 
of blankets in January 1833. During a brief holiday before the com-
mencement of harvest in October 1849, Isaac Erwin, owner of Shady 
Grove Plantation on the Bayou Grosse Tete in Iberville Parish, "gave 
out negro cloths and 1 blanket a piece, gave two pare pantaloons a coat 
and 1 shirt to Men. 1 Frock and two slips to women and 1 blanket a 
piece." He did not mention providing blankets for children. Differ-
ent allocation systems, where each slave—man, woman and chi Id—received 
a blanket, prevailed on the Stirling family's Wakefield Estate in the 
1850s. (See Appendices 3-m and 3-n.) The lists differ slightly, in 
that the one for 1857 records separately the distribution to mothers 
75 
of blankets for their infant children. 
Such a niggardly blanket-issue, one per slave triennially, 
could only aggravate the hardships wrought by inferior housing and 
adverse weather. Blankets apparently could wear out in less than two 
years. In a letter of July 1840 from the Weeks Family's plantation 
on Grande Cote, the overseer, John Merriman, wrote that "there is some 
Blankets here Shall I give them to the most kneedy or is it your 
7 5 Volume 8, Estate Record Book, 1831-1845, Gay Papers; Volume 
8, Ledger, 1862-1865, Randolph Papers; Ration Book, 1828, 1830-38, 
(H-13), Stirling Papers; Entry for 29 September 1849, Isaac Erwin Diary, 
Erwin (Isaac) Diary, Archives Department, LSU; Folders 48 and 54, 
Stirling Papers. 
286 
intention to furnish Blankets to gow round, it has or will be two years 
this fall since there has been any given out." Planters expected the 
slaves' blankets to last three years, at least in this case, however, 
they wore out within two years. William Weeks, in a letter to his 
mother in December 1853, related his satisfaction concerning the lot 
of the slaves on the Grande Cote Island plantation: "I have given out 
the blankets," he wrote, "they have all plenty of covering & good warm 
clothes and are as comfortable as most negroes, and a great deal more 
so than man>." His chastening final comment indicates a recognized 
differential in treatment and quality of life throughout the slave 
populations on Louisiana sugar plantations. One wonders whether the 
slaves, of whose comfort William Weeks was so sure directly after they 
received blankets, suffered want before they received their next blan-
kets three years hence.75 
Families and households, not individuals, comprised the basis 
of the plantation distribution system. This affirmed and reinforced 
the slave family structure, and was apparent not only in housing and 
furnishings, but also in the distribution of food and clothing. 
Extant documents describing the supply of furnishings and 
utensils to slaves at the expense of the plantation are incomplete. 
It is neither possible to assess fully whether they were distributed 
frequently enough to prevent shortages, nor whether or why there were 
disproportionate allotments among the slave population. No reason 
7 6 Merriman to Mary Weeks, 12 July 1840, Weeks Papers, Box 8, 
Folder 28; William F. Weeks to Mary C. Moore, 29 December 1853, Weeks 
Papers, Box 22, Folder 92. 
287 
is given, for example, for issuing 29 slaves on the Gay Plantation 
a plate each, when at the same time 19 other slaves each received a 
knife, fork, plate, cup and saucer.77 
Some allocations rewarded slaves or served as an incentive pay-
ment; child-bearing women were so rewarded. As in Jamaica, planters 
attempted to promote a high birth rate among the slave population on 
their estates, and so adopted incentive policies. On William Minor's 
Southdown Plantation in January 1857, nine "Sucklers . . . g[o]t one 
cradle blanket" each, and three got two. Such elite groups as trades-
men and drivers not only benefited from additional food and clothing 
allowances, but also received preferential allocations of furnishings 
and utensils. Planters did not provide equally for all slaves on their 
estates, and from estate to estate the planters' conception or exer-
cise of his responsibility for equipping slaves, at his expense, varied. 
Slaves could compensate for deficiencies by buying needed items 
for themselves, if they were financially able. Some plantation owners 
kept the books of the slaves' accounts, recording their income and 
expenditures, and listing the items they purchased and sold. Moreover, 
the planters often acted as middlemen, supplying the slaves with items 
which they had ordered and deducting the cost from the accounts. 
These account books provide an index of items which slaves bought 
because of the failure of the plantation to supply them. 
7 7 Volume 7, Estate Record Book, 1825-1839, Gay Papers. 
7ft 
~ Letter from Rachel O'Connor to A. T. Conrad, 12 April 1835, 
Box 5, Folder 22, Weeks Papers; 1857 Diary (7), Minor Papers, entry for 
3 January 1857. 
288 
Often slaves had to purchase their own tableware. Catherine 
Cornelius recalled that the tin dishes, knives and forks were not sup-
plied on the Lyle Plantation, but were bought by the slaves themselves. 
Apparently slaves there were not issued any tableware, because, aside 
from having to buy the dishes and cutlery, they made their own wooden 
trays and gourd cups. On the Wilton Plantation, near Convent in St. 
James Parish, slaves spent money they earned cutting wood on such 
items as knives, blankets, baskets and tin cups. On John Randolph's 
plantation in October 1851, Long William was debited 18 cents from his 
account for a tin bucket, and three weeks later, a slave named Fort 
79 
purchased a tin bucket at the cost of 18 3/4 cents. 
The daybook of John Erwin's Iberville Parish sugar plantation 
itemized the income and expenditures of some 75 slaves, all but 6 of 
whom were men. Their purchases of utensils and furnishings included 
bedspreads at $1.50 each, buckets at 25 cents apiece, coffee pots at 
75 cents each and knives and forks at $1.25 per set. There is also a 
notation that "Alfred Cooper bought . . . furniture," although the 
kind and cost was unspecified. Among items purchased by slaves on the 
same plantation three years previously were tallow and spermacetti 
candles and knives. The same structure of earnings and expenditures 80 continued on this plantation until the Civil War. 
7 9 Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. cit, Daily Journal, 
1848, Bruce, Seddon and Wilkins Plantation Records, Archives Department, 
LSU, Volume 5, Journal—Plantation Book, 1847-1852, Randolph Papers. 
8 0 Volume 5, Daybook, 1843-1847, Gay Papers. 
289 
St. James Parish planter Alexis Ferry's journal itemized slave 
expenditures more elaborately. Twenty-nine male slaves received, in 
exchange for money earned cutting wood, a variety of items sucn as 
glazed, gilt and yellow bowls, cups and mugs, chairs and yellow pots. 
The list, compiled by a French-speaking overseer whose strong point 
apparently was not literacy, contained words of dubious etymology. 
Items to which they referred may be containers ("contenit") and saucers 
("secousse de tasse"). Slave purchases thus reflected the inadequacy 
of planter-supplied essentials of domestic life: cooking and eating 
utensils, furniture and bedding. 
Two other sets of accounts not only show the inadequacy of 
plantation supplies, but also permit assessment both of the structure 
of slave life on sugar plantations and of the dynamics of the internal 
economic system. George Lanaux' Plantation Journal for his Bellevue 
Estate in Plaquemines Parish showed that in 1851 slaves purchased, 
among other things, knives at 25 cents each, spoons at 50 cents per 
dozen, and tinware—probably sheets of tin ("ferblanc")--at 35 cents 
per item, with money accumulated by cutting wood and raising corn. 
In the next four years, they bought portable ovens ("four de 
campagne") at 85 cents each, kettles ("chaudiere") at 40 cents each, 
j i i 81 and locks. 
The purchase of locks, of course, is particularly interesting 
because, as in the Jamaican experience, the legal status of slaves as 
91 Volume 1, Journal, 1842-1865, Alexis Ferry Journals, Archives 
Department, Tulane; Volume 18, Ledger, 1851-1856 (Bellevue), Lanaux 
(George and Family) Papers, Archives Department, LSU. 
290 
chattels without property rights cannot be reconciled with the ownership 
and property rights asserted by locks. Slaves recognized their de facto 
status as owners and property-holders in their own right, and this was 
also recognized and normally not transgressed by whites on the estates, 
although it had no de jure basis. Frederick Law Olmsted, visiting a 
Georgia rice plantation, saw in many of the slave houses "closets with 
locks and keys," and noted that when the slaves were absent from their 
houses they "locked their outer doors, taking the keys with them." 
Louisiana slaves probably took similar precautions, for locks of various 
types were purchased on the Lanaux Plantation: ordinary locks at 75 
cents, and complex six-piece ones ("serrure francais de 5 pees") at 
$1.00 each. Slaves on Benjamin Tureaud's Brule, Houmas and Bagatelle 
plantations in the parishes of Ascension and St. James also purchased 
locks at 60 cents apiece, as well as such items as buckets at 35 cents 
each, wire at 25 cents, twine at 37 1/2 cents per pound, tin at 30 
82 
cents per sheet and mosquito bars for 80 cents each. 
In purchasing furniture and ujtensils, slaves principally bought 
the necessities of domestic life: the most functional of furnishings, 
kitchenware and tableware. As in the purchase of gilt and glazed bowls 
by slaves on Alexis Ferry's plantation, there were, however, instances 
where slaves equipped their homes more elaborately. As a rule, the 
acquisition of any "luxury" items by slaves was made through an economic 
8 2 Olmsted, A Journey, 422; Volume 18, Ledger, 1851-1856 (Belle-
vue), Lanaux Papers; Ledger, 1858-1872 (48), Tureaud (Benjamin) Papers, 
Archives Department, LSU. 
291 
subsystem essentially outside the province of the planter. The market-
ing systems outlined above, where orders were placed through the planter, 
were supplemented by transactions with travelling traders and at markets. 
Slaves could acquire many necessities and furnishings from ped-
dlers and merchants. Travelling salesmen plied the highways and water-
ways of the Louisiana sugar region, trading and selling various wares to 
plantation slaves. Martha Stuart, who had been a slave on a Black Creek 
plantation, recalled that in their houses slaves had "pictures on the 
wall," and would either "send off and buy 'em," or else acquire them 
from "picture men [who] come thru the country." The other source for 
83 
household goods was markets held in towns throughout the sugar region. 
It was, of course, possible for slaves to make most of the 
household goods they lacked. Ex-slave Catherine Cornelius recalled 
that the wooden trays and gourd cups they used were made by the slaves 
themselves. Both Martha Stuart and Catherine Cornelius remembered 
they had wooden tubs in which they bathed, and that they were made "by 84 
de men, em sawed off barrels." 
A good example of economic differences among slaves is found 
in the means by which they lit their homes. Slaves who could afford 
them bought candles because they were not normally part of the rations 
distributed by the planter. Consequently, in the words of Louisa 
83 
Interviewee—Martha Stuart; Interviewer—Octave Lilly, Jr.: 
Date—unknown (ca. 1938): Dillard Project, Archives Department, UNO, 
A description of slaves going to Sunday market in Plaquemine is contained 
in a letter from Rev. P. M. Goodwyn to Edward Gay, 27 August 1860, Box 
29, Folder 255, Gay Papers. The letter is printed in full on p. 145. 
84 
Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. cit.; Interview with 
Martha Stuart, loc. cit. 
292 
Martin, the only slaves who had "candles [were] jus dem what was able." 
She continued that "us po folks didn't know what candles was." Her 
cabin was lit by "a old tin pan wid piece of rag and grease." Similarly, 
Carlyle Stewart's family could not afford to buy candles, but his mother 
made their own from beef tallow, and Catherine Cornelius recalled "de 
women slave ma[d]e candles--ma[d]e de wicks on de spinnin wheels." 
Martha Stuart also recalled slave women made candles. When supplies 
of furniture and utensils by the planter proved deficient, slaves nad 
either to purchase the articles at their own expense, to fabricate a 
oc 
more or less effective substitute, or to do without. 
This system, of course, heavily favored those with skills, 
positions of privilege, superior physical abilities and mental aptitude. 
The houses of slaves thus no doubt ran the gamut from rather handsomely-
equipped homes to the sort of dwellings found by Frederick Law Olmsted 
in northern Louisiana. "Several of them," Olmsted reported, "were 
very destitute of furniture--nothing being perceptible but two very 
dirty beds, and a few rude stools." The tragedy of such squalor was 
exacerbated in that those most likely to suffer by it were those least 
able to endure it--the old and the young, the infirm and the disconso-
late.86 
Slave cooks prepared some meals, especially breakfast, in a 
communal kitchen. On some plantations, they prepared other meals for 
single slaves, the old, the indolent, orphans and others in want. 
o r 
Interview with Louisa Martin, loc. cit.; Interview with 
Carlyle Stewart, loc. cit.; Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. 
cit.; Interview with Martha Stuart, loc. cit. 
86 Olmsted, A Journey, 629-30. 
293 
Families, however, usually cooked at least the main meal of the day, 
the evening meal, in their own homes. Although Catherine Cornelius 
mentioned that some of the slave cabins had "mebbe a kitchen in de 
back," it was more usual for cooking to be done in the larger of the 
two rooms in the cabin, the one containing the fireplace. Both Louise 
Downs, formerly a slave on Dr. Louis Perkins' sugar plantation in East 
Baton Rouge Parish, and Louisa Martin, remembered the big oack logs 
burning in the fireplaces, in which the slave women prepared food for 
their families in pots, kettles, spiders (three-legged skillets suit-
able for placing over an open fire) and ovens. Slaves perhaps ate at 
87 
a table set with the cutlery and crockery they had acquired. 
Slaves supplemented their diet with food they grew in kitchen 
gardens close to their cabins: they rarely received more than a limited 
ration of pork and corn at the planters' expense. Within the confines 
of their small kitchen plot, which was often fenced, slaves also kept 
their livestock and poultry, and in their gardens, slaves grew a 88 
variety of crops for their table. 
The labors of superannuated slaves, along with the work 
of others during the evenings, lunch breaks and weekends could yield 
rich rewards from the fertile alluvial soil of the Mississippi flood-
plain. Certain factors, of course, militated against slaves pursuing 
8 7 Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. cit.; Interviewee-
Louise Emily Downs: Interviewer—Octave Lilly, Jr.: Date—1938: Dillard 
Project, Archives Department, UNO; Interview with Louisa Martin, loc. cit. 
See, for example, Volume 8, 1848-1865, Volume 9, 1853-1858, 
and Volume 10, 1856-1858, Memorandum Books, De Clouet (Alexandre E.) 
Papers, Archives Department, LSU. They include lists of rations distrib-
uted to slave families. 
294 
this activity zealously, in much the same way as they inhibited repair-
ing and refurbishing houses and furniture building. Tne onerous work 
schedule, especially during the sugar harvest when nignt work was 
demanded of slaves, meant that they had neither the time nor the physi-
cal or mental resources to labor stenuously in their gardens. Even the 
aged slaves were pressed into service during harvest time. Labor 
demands differed from plantation to plantation, and influenced whether 
slaves were conscientious in tending their gardens. Whereas the 
kitchen garden made it possible for slaves to supplement the frequently 
meager rations distributed by the plantation, labor demands restricted 
the time and energy available. 
Slaves' domestic animals, both the "quarter dogs" which trav-
eler Thomas Bangs Thorpe found in "extraordinary numbers," and cats, 
roamed the houses and gardens. Elizabeth Ross Hite recalled that "de 
89 
quarters had cat holes fo' cats to com in an' out." 
Small livestock and pet animals could be found in all slave 
villages and, apparently, in or around most slave houses. Many slaves, 
however, were not able to cultivate their kitchen gardens effectively. 
As in other aspects of slave domestic life, the quality of gardens 
varied, from well-tended plots to neglected ones, from productive to 
ruinate land. This disparity reflects the consistent discrimination 
against those slaves who bore the heaviest burden of bondage, those 
subjected to the most arduous labor, the weak, the aging and the sick. 
89 
Thomas Bangs Thorpe, "Sugar and the Sugar Region of Louisi-
ana," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 7 (November 1853), 745-67, Inter-
view with Elizabeth Ross Hite, loc. cit. 
295 
Even within one slave plantation society, even on a single 
plantation, the quality of slaves' housing differed greatly. Houses 
were well- or i 11 -constructed, furnished to a greater or lesser extent, 
and repaired with varying frequency and effectiveness. Throughout the 
Louisiana sugar region, however, slave housing displayed a basic simi-
larity. Planter control over certain areas created a general internal 
consistency throughout Louisiana, which differed in fundamental ways 
from the Jamaican experience: construction patterns and materials, 
spacing and responsibility for building and repair are, perhaps, the 
most important. Nonetheless, in both societies there emerged a similar 
pattern of consistency that derived from the relationship between the 
slaves and their homes. 
In both societies slaves assumed extensive control over their 
houses. Despite amorphous questions concerning property rights, for 
most practical purposes the slaves largely determined life and living 
patterns in the quarters and behaved as property owners. The privacy 
of slaves' homes was generally inviolate, and they affirmed this by 
securing them against intruders and incursions. Even though estates 
in both societies had house-search policies, they do not appear to have 
90 
been widely used save in emergencies. 
As in Jamaica, slaves in Louisiana acted in ways that showed 
they held their houses in special regard. Although slaves on Louisiana 
9 0 Balcarres to Portland, 3 August 1795, Hardwicke Papers, 
British Library; Ewart to Penrhyn, 8 and 10 December 1808, Penrhyn 
Castle Papers; some Louisiana planters would have had house-search 
policies similar to those mentioned in Kenneth Stampp, The Peculiar 
Institution (New York, 1968), 149. 
296 
sugar plantations did not endow their homes with the overt religious 
ana sepulchral importance Jamaican slaves did, on the secular level 
there was considerable similarity between the two societies. The houses 
were the locus of peculiarly slave-centered activities on both family 
and community levels. These activities lay outside the province of 
the planter and the plantation system. Elizabeth Ross Hite recalled 
that "de slaves had a gud time in dere quarters. Dey played guitar, 
danced fo de light went out. Dey put skin over a barrel fo a drum. 
Dey talked er bout de master's business in dere quarters too. . . . Dey 
married . . . an had big affairs in dere quarters." Catherine Cornelius 
related how the whites respected the privacy of slave community 
activities--"de people in de big house did n't come down to our cabins 
fo' our eelebrations--dey come down sometimes, but not on no special 
days." She also remembered that the slaves "dance[d], jigged . , . 
91 
[on] Satiday nite--in de slave cabins." 
Whites had little control over these activities, and even 
those they tried to proscribe were nevertheless carried on clandestinely 
within the confines of the quarters. For example, slaves who had run 
away from the plantation and were hiding out in nearby woods or swamps 
would return to the quarters at night to visit with relatives and be 
fed. Although their presence was rarely betrayed, planters frequently 
sought to discover such activities. Ellen McCollam, in a diary nota-
tion for April 1847, mentioned that "Ester [was] whipped for not telling 
91 Interview with Elizabeth Ross Hite, loc. cit.; Interview 
with Catherine Cornelius, loc. cit. 
297 
that she heard Kit (who had run away) talking in the yard." Their 
quarters, therefore, provided slaves with the security to engage not 
only in private slave-centered activities, but also in activities that 
Q? challenged the very fabric of the institution of slavery." 
ii i 
There are two levels on which the historian can compare slave 
housing on the sugar plantations of Jamaica and Louisiana. The first 
of these, the pi anter-centered variant, showed many differences: con-
struction patterns, materials, spacing and responsibility for building 
and repair, for example. Climate and geography were important differ-
entials dictating the type of shelter necessary and the availability 
of materials. Demographic considerations were also important, because 
after the closure of the slave trade to Jamaica in 1808, planters on 
the island assumed some of the responsibilities for housing that their 
Louisiana counterparts adopted in the later post-slave trade era of 
the sugar boom. The high rate of absentee ownership among Jamaican 
planters may have exacerbated the plight of Jamaican slaves. Their 
domestic comfort could have received shorter shrift from an attorney 
or overseer interested in short-term profits to placate a British-based 
estate owner, whereas in Louisiana slaves lived and worked on a planta-
tion that was an integral part of an independent nation-state, not a 
colony, under a planter whose life, heritage and interests were rooted, 
no 
Entry for 20 April 1847, Diary of Ellen McCollam, McCollam 
Papers. 
298 
not in a mother-country thousands of miles distant, but in the land 
worked for sugar. 
The second level of comparison, the slave-centered variant, 
is, however, marked by continuity. In both Louisiana and Jamaica, 
slaves assumed extensive responsibility for their houses, and there 
emerged a pattern of dominion, territoriality, independence and property 
rights. Houses and villages provided the focus for a wide range of 
activities, all of which conformed to a basic pattern of autonomous 
action, despite their fundamental antagonism to the nature of slavery, 
such as the assumption and protection of property rights, family and 
community development and subversive acts. Although these activities 
had no legal sanction, they were prevalent in slave societies on the 
sugar plantations of both Jamaica and Louisiana. They represented the 
creative and active development of people in bondage who were thus 
able, in part, to circumvent the institution of slavery, and structure 
it to their own designs. The development of the slave-centered variant 
in housing clearly shows the limits of power even in as coercive an 
institution as slavery. In "real" terms, as opposed to theoretical 
"ideal-type" structures, there can be no monopoly of power. The power 
of slaves in the politics of housing-control shows clearly what was a 
subtle thread running through the fabric of slavery. 
299 
Appendix 3-a 
Print 1: Thatched watt!e-and-daub housing in Jamaica ca. 1860. The 
house in the background on the left-hand side shows a partially 
daubed wattle house. The wattles are the dark horizontal lines, 
and the light-colored areas partially covering them are daub. 
Print 2: Detail showing thatching, wattling and daubing. 
Source: Adolphe Duperly, Picturesque Jamaica (Kingston, Jamaica, [189-]), 
3 DO 
Appendix 3-a (continued) 
Print 1 
301 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
Print 2 
302 
Appendix 3-b 
A contemporary print of Roehampton Estate showing slave houses (at the 
right-hand side of the picture) regularly spaced in orderly rows. 
Source: Frontispiece to Orlando Patterson, The Sociology of Slavery 
(Kingston, 1973). 
303 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
304 
Appendix 3-b 
A contemporary print of Old Montpelier Estate, St. James, Jamaica, show-
ing slave houses irregularly clustered in the woods behind the sugar 
mill (on right-hand side of print). 
Source: Michael Craton, Searching for the Invisible Man (Cambridge, 
Mass., 1978), 4-5. 
305 
Appendix 3-c (continued) 
306 
Appendix 3-b 
Jamaican yabbas, made during slavery, which show Asante influence in 
construction and design. Housed in the Archaeological Museum, Spanish 
Town, Jamaica. 
Source: Archaeological Museum, Spanish Town, Jamaica. 
307 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
308 
Appendix 3-b 
Photographs taken in 1978 of houses located on what were, during slavery, 
the Gay Plantation in Iberville Parish, Louisiana (print 1) and the 
Pugh family's Madewood Plantation in Assumption Parish, Louisiana (print 
2). The houses, which were reputedly built in the nineteenth century, 
both show the "creole" construction designs similar to those used in 
building slave houses. The house in print 1 is one of the last that 
remain standing of the rows of houses pictured in Appendix 3-f. 
Source: Photographs taken by, and in the possession of, R. A. McDonald. 
309 
Appendix 3-e (continued) 
Print I 
310 
Appendix 3-e (continued) 
Print 2 
311 
Appendix 3-b 
A photograph, taken ca. 1906, of rows of double cabins located on what 
was the Gay Plantation in Iberville Parish, Louisiana. The construction 
date is not known, but the building pattern and regular spacing are 
similar to those found in slave villages on Louisiana sugar plantations. 
A few of these buildings are still standing and occupied. 
Source: National Register of Historic Places, Louisiana Historical 
Preservation and Cultural Commission, Department of Culture, Recreation, 
and Tourism, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
312 
Appendix 3-f (continued) 
313 
Appendix 3-b 
Two-story brick slave houses (an unusual design for the Louisiana sugar 
region) located on the Woodland Plantation in Plaquemines Parish, Louisi-
ana. 
Source: William Darrell Overdyke, Louisiana Plantation Homes (New York, 
1965), 204. 
314 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
315 
Appendix 3-b 
Rectangular brick slave houses (double cabins) built ca. 1850 on the 
Evan Hall sugar plantation in Assumption Parish, Louisiana. 
Source: Photographs taken in 1978 by, and in the possession of, R. A. 
McDonald. 
316 
Appendix 3-h (continued) 
Print 1 
317 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
Print 2 
318 
Appendix 3-b 
Plan of the Pugh family's Madewood Plantation on the Bayou Lafourcne, 
in Assumption Parish, Louisiana, showing (in the top right-hand corner) 
regularly-spaced double slave cabins. 
Source: National Register of Historic Places, Louisiana Historical 
Preservation and Cultural Commission, Department of Culture, Recreation 
and Tourism, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
319 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
JcEMCTAftY I ! I » 
CARRIAGE HOUSE 
SLVllAc 
Si AVk 
E3 
» B 
B 
5 
B 
H 
LEFT WM6 mCHT WIN® 
\ s 
SITE PLAN 
jKklruytils BAYOU LAFOUROHE 
320 
Appendix 3-b 
Plan of the Uncle Sam Plantation in St. James Parish, Louisiana, showing 
regularly-spaced double slave cabins, and their proximity to the slave 
hospital and the planter's house. 
a: planter's house 
b: slave houses-double cabins 
e: slave hospital 
Source: Historic American Buildings Survey, LA. 74, Department of 
Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, 
Louisiana. 
321 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
322 
Appendix 3-b 
"List of Houses Needed for Accommodation of Negroes--1856." 
Gay Plantation, Iberville Parish, Louisiana. 
No. 
1 App [Absalom] & family consisting of Eliza, Leah, App [Absalom 
Jr.] [husband, wife and two children] 
2 Dick & Hilly [husband and wife] 
3 Levin & Anica [husband and wife] 
4 Ned Davis, Sally, Armas [husband, wife and one child] 
5 Big Austin, Lizzy, Wm [husband, wife and one child] 
6 Little Austin, Phoebe, Patsy [husband, wife and one child] 
7 Alfred, Cynthia, Abram, Hacket, Phi lis, Com [husband, wife and 
four children] 
8 Charles, Lizzy, Penelope, Andrew [husband, wife and two children] 
9 Levi, Adeline, Gracy, Henry [husband, wife, and two children] 
10 Drummer John, Ailsy, F**aRk [sic - died 1854] [husband and wife] 
11 Black Augustus, Mary Biddy [husband and wife] 
12 Yellow Augustus, Horace, Margaret [father and two children] 
13 Jerry, Viney, Lucy, Alfred [husband, wife and two children] 
14 Woodson, Comfort, Adam [husband, wife and one child] 
15 Geo. Green, Maria, Anna, Henderson [husband, wife and two child-
ren] 
16 Caroline Lenox, Anna [mother and one daughter] 
17 Joe Bell, Betsy [husband and wife] 
323 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
18 Scipio, Becky, Henry [husband, wife and one child] 
19 Jim Thornton, Betty, Violet, John [husband, wife and two chil-
dren] 
20 Bill Chase 
21 Bill Garner, Henna, Sally Ann, John [husband, wife and two chil-
dren] 
22 Bill Moss, Susan, Harriet, Lavinia, Priscy [husband, wife and 
three children] 
23 Ben, Emily, Horace, Hamilton, Eady, Lizzy [husband, wife and 
four children] 
24 Thornton, Melissa, Bill Thornton, Enoch [husband, wife and two 
chi1dren] 
25 Jim Shallowhorn, Patsey, Rachel, Becky [husband, wife and two 
children] 
26 Harry Tunley, Lucy, Fanny, Biddy, Henry, Charles, Polly [husband, 
wife and five children] 
27 Sugar Charles, Nancy [husband and wife] 
28 Simpson, Caroline, Sally Ann [husband, wife and one child] 
29 Moses, Charity, Easter, Perry [husband, wife and two children] 
30 House for old men & young men without homes Joe Penny, Jim Babe, 
Peter, Sam Henderson, Ceazar Naylor, Daniel, Ferdinand, Armas, 
Sam Satin, Jim Tunley 
31 Ceazar, Nancy [husband and wife] 
324 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
32 Tom Bell, Charity, Sophy, George [husband, wife and two children] 
33 Maria, Mack, Charlotte [mother, son and granddaughter] 
34 Bill Dock, Louisa, Matilda, Henna, Lavinia [husband, wife and 
three children] 
35 Tom, Eliza [husband and wife] 
36 Julian, Edmund [two males] 
37 Peyton, Rachel, Ellen, Josiah [husband, wife and two children] 
38 Ned Dickinson, Rinda, Gracy, Polly Ann [husband, wife and two 
chi1dren] 
39 Perry, George, Laura [father and two children] 
40 Henry Hynes, Mary, Joe, Sally Ann [husband, wife and two children] 
41 Jake Lennox, Jenny, Henna, Jake, Aleck [husband, wife and three 
children] 
42 Henderson, Patsy, Harry, Jim, Lucy [husband, wife and three chil-
dren] 
43 Jim Banks 
44 Elias, Rainy [two males] 
45 Joe Hynes, Tulip [husband and wife] 
46 John Gibson, Ritta [husband and wife] 
47 Maria (Nathan^ Victor [mother and child—Maria was the wife of 
Nathan, Nathan died in 1854] 
48 Mary Jackson, Foxall, Toby [mother and two children] 
49 Viney, Rinda [mother and daughter] 
325 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
25 Double houses of which we have 18 
Bill Garners house's left 1 
Source: Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Volume 36, Plantation Record 
Book 1849-1860, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State 
University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
326 
Appendix 3-b 
Gay Plantation, Iberville Parish, Louisiana 
"Blankets Delivered January 14, 1340." 
Moses, Beckey 2 
Rachel Shallowhorn, 5 Children, Wm Sanders, Scipio 1 Daniel 6 
Phoebe & 3 children 2 
Big London, Elsey & 5 children, Little London 1 Major 4 
Jim Tunley, Amy Brice & one child 2 
Harry, Lucy & 3 children 3 
Julia Ann, Alcade 2 
Jacob Lenox, Little Jinny & 4 children 4 
Caroline 1 
Suckey Hoi brook, Henry Hoi brook 2 
Little Charity, Little Moses & 4 children 4 
Aunt Milly (1), Linda (1) 2 
Dutch Betsey 1 
Mary & 1 child 1 
Frankey 1 
Alfred, Dido & 4 children 4 
Isaac, Anica 2 
Bill Garner, Henna & 2 children 3 
Tom Bell, Charity, 3 children, Joe Bell 4 
Sophia (1 ), Joe (1) 2 
327 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
Beckey 1 
Aunt Violet, Davy 2 
Henderson, Patsy 2 
Amstead & Viney 2 
Mary Mouse ] 
Charlotte & children 2 
Lucy & chi1dren 2 
Lawrence, Suckey Elias & 2 children 3 
Jim Banks, Amy Gilchrist 2 
Jim Pipkins, Aunt Sally 2 
Saml, Todd, Minta 2 
Peter Purnell, Nancy, Mary Ann, Maria 4 
Pollard, Charlotte 2 
Lewis Bell, Polly (2), Mahala Ann & Oliver (1) 3 
Lewis & Davy 1 
Aunt Phil lis, Coon Charles 2 
Nathan, Maria 2 
Louisa 1 
Miller Billy 1 
Elias 1 
Hukey 1 
Saml. Jenkins 1 
Isaac Blacksmith 1 
328 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
Drummer John 
Ennells 
Ben Gray 
Toney 
Saml. Jones 
Aunt Marjery, Rachel 
Esther, Joe 
Leaven King (1), Jacob (1), El sey & Jane (1), Comfort (1 ) 
Suckey Sigh, Rachel & 2 children, Josiah, Augustin 
Cooper Peter 
Yellow Augustin 
Sugar Charles 
Ceasar Naylor 
Isaac Ball (1), Cromwell (1) 
A1 ex 
Rob Ross 
Long Susan 
Jerry 
Yellow Daniel 
Little Polly & 4 children 
Tamer 
Big Washington 
Granny Jinny 
Ram George 
329 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
Patrick, Charity, Martha, Mary, Caroline 5 
Thornton, Melissa, Jane, Jim 4 
Maria, Mark 2 
Aunt Julia } 
Ned, Polly 2 
Ann, Harriet 2 
Rainey, Davy Stump 2 
Polly, Emily 2 
Clarissa, Toney 2 
Cook Dick 1 
Emily 1 
Penny, Martin, Harriet, Joe, Jackson 5 
Aunt Gray, Adeline 2 
Minerva, Henry Bias 2 
Aunt Prissa, Susan, Bill Moss 3 
Aunt Aggy, Ned & 4 children 3 
Rachel Butter, Edmond 2 
Fanny Beard, John White 2 
Jane, Joe 2 
Ellen & 3 children 2 
Eliza, App 2 
Maria Henderson, Sam Henderson 2 
Bill Chase 1 
Hercules 1 
330 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
Kenawa Moses ] 
Big Ben 1 
Austin, Washington, Alfred, Simpson, Doc William, Pale 6 
Cynthia 1 
Note: Numbers in parentheses alongside the names of slaves denote that 
blankets were issued individually, although the persons named *ere 
bracketed together 
Source: Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Volume 8, Estate Record Book, 
1831-1845, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State Univer-
sity, Baton Rouge. 
331 
Appendix 3-b 
"Blankets given out to the Negroes October 8, 1854/' 
Stirling Family's Wakefield Plantation, 
West Feliciana Parish. 
In Family B1ankets 
Long George 11 11 
Wilson 10 10 
Lindu1s House 5 S 
Henrietta 9 9 
Hannah 4 4 
0 Joe 2 2 
Sambo 6 6 
Suckey 2 2 
Chaney 8 8 
Tompo 1 1 
Yanco, Jack, Fanswoise & Child 4 4 
Liddy, Charlotte & Child 4 4 
Bartlet 2 2 
Harry, Wife & Chi s 3 3 
Nelson 9 9 
Affy 2 2 
Sam Jackson 1 1 
Sophy 3 3 
Dilily 7 7 
Barica 4 4 
332 
Appendix 3-c! (continued) 
Sam Brown 5 5 
Erv i n 11 11 
Ginny & Monday 2 2 
Levin 1 Maretta 5 6 6 
George Austin 1 1 
Adam 6 6 
Allen 4 4 
Ellen 4 4 
Isaac 1 1 
Anderson 5 5 
Washington 4 4 
A1fred 4 4 
Julius 1 1 
Cecile 1 1 
Spencer 2 2 
Catri ne 1 1 
Source: Stirling (Lewis and Family) Papers, Folder 48, Department of 
Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louis-
iana. 
333 
Appendix 3-b 
"Blankets given out December 25, 1857.11 
Stirling Family's Wakefield Plantation, West Feliciana Parish. 
2 to Eveli ne for Sidney & Ervin 
1 to Lindu for Rosal1ie 
2 to Charlotte for Mary & Celia 
1 to Cecil e for Virgil 
2 to Phoebe for Bartlet & Julius 
2 to Frozine for York & Patterson 
to Sarah for Ned 
to Isabel for Charles 
to Clarinda for Georgiana 
to Affey for Hannah 
to Henrietta for Albert 
to Margaret for Thomas 
to Maretta for Leven 
to Maria for Judy 
to Rose for Cinthia 
to Lucy for A11 en 
to Harriet for Martin 
to Easter for Richard 
Note: This list is followed by a distribution of blankets for the remainder 
of the slaves on the plantation which is similar to the 1854 list 
reproduced in Appendix 3-m. 
Source: Stirling (Lewis and Family) Papers, Folder 54, Department of 
Archives and Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
Chapter 4 
The Clothing of Slaves on Sugar Plantations 
in Jamaica and Louisiana 
335 
Under Jamaica and Louisiana 1 aw, slaveholders bore the expense 
of slave clothing. The 1792 Consolidated Slave Act of Jamaica required: 
that every master, owner, or possessor of slaves, shall, once in 
every year, provide and give to each slave they shall be possessed 
of, proper and sufficient clothing, to be approved of by the justices 
and vestry of the parish where such master, owner, or possessor of 
such slaves resides. 
The early territorial legislatures of Louisiana also sought to ensure 
that slaves received adequate clothing. If slaves did not get land 
where they could grow market crops and provide themselves with clothes 
out of the accrued profits, slaveowners, by law, had to give them two 
sets of clothing each year, a summer and a winter issue. The Louisiana 
legislatures, however, soon gave up trying to specify what these outfits 
should comprise. Although both societies attempted to legislate for 
"adequate" slave clothing, the statutes characteristically lacked both 
definition and enforcibi1ityJ 
As a general rule, planters in Jamaica gave slaves annually 
either a suit of ready-made clothes, or adequate lengths of material. 
In Louisiana, slaves generally received two suits of clothing a year, 
either made-up or the equivalent in material: one of lightweight cloth 
suitable for summer wear, and the other a heavier winter issue. 
Marked disparities in the clothing of sugar plantation slaves 
in these societies resulted from differences in both the clothing 
1 Bryan Edwards, The History,Civil and Commercial, of the British 
Colonies ir^  the_ West Indies (1793, rpt. New York, 1 972), II, 148, Joe 
Gray Taylor, Negro Slavery in Louisiana (Baton Rouge, 19G3), 106. 
336 
planters supplied slaves and the apparel slaves themselves purchased. 
The clothing distribution varied from estate to estate and often even on 
the same plantation where, for example, privileged slaves like drivers 
and tradesmen received bonuses beyond the regular issue given field hands. 
Moreover, sugar plantation slaves in Jamaica and Louisiana had clothes 
other than those supplied them by the planter. Slaves obtained these 
garments, which they never wore at work on the plantation, through their 
own efforts, by purchasing them with money they had earned, trading for 
them, or even stealing them. No matter how limited the independent 
economic activities in a given slave community, the acquisition of clo-
thing was always a significant part of the pattern of slave expenditures. 
This aspect of slave clothing, therefore, permits a fuller understanding 
of the extent and complexity of the internal economy of sugar plantation 
slaves in the two societies. 
i 
Slaves on Jamaican plantations commonly wore work clothes of 
osnaburg cloth. This coarse, hard-wearing linen fabric (named for its 
town of origin, Qsnabrtlck) served for slaves1 work clothes throughout 
the Caribbean. Other textiles issued Jamaican slaves included baize, 
kersey, penistone flannel and other coarse woollens, fustian (a cotton/ 
flax mixture), 1 insey-woolsey (a wool/flax mixture) and various cottons. 
Customarily, Jamaican planters purchased the cloth or clothing for the 
slaves, and bore the entire expense. Besides the main items of clothing 
(trousers, jackets, frocks, coats and shirts), the planter also supplied 
337 
various accessories, for example, hats, caps and kerchiefs. Since 
Jamaican planters did not supply field hands with shoes, most slaves 
worked barefoot. 
Jamaican slaves usually received an annual issue of lengths of 
cloth, which they themselves sewed into garments, using needles and 
thread that were also supplied them. On Peeke Fuller's Thetford Planta-
tion in the Parish of St. John, the standard allotment for adult slaves 
in the clothing distribution of 1800 was a cap, seven yards of osnaburg 
and three-and-a-half yards of baize. Adolescent girls and boys received 
a cap, five yards of osnaburg and two-and-a-half yards of baize, while 
younger children were allotted two yards of osnaburg and a yard-and-a-
half of baize. Apart from a few minor variations, the only consistent 
divergence from this allocation pattern was that drivers and head trades-
2 
men received an additional one to five yards of osnaburg. 
The annual allowance of clothing for slaves on Hinton East's 
Somerset Plantation for 1793 showed a similar structure, but a much more 
complex breakdown of allocations. Not only did privileged slaves receive 
extra allowances and children less than the adult ration, but also dis-
tinctions existed among and within the various work gangs, because of 
the differing capabilities of individual slaves. Slaves in the first 
or great gang received a larger allowance than those in the weaker and 
less productive second gang, who in turn received more than slaves work-
ing in the still weaker third gang. Superannuated slaves, watchmen and 
2 Thetford Plantation Book 1798-1799, 4-23/9, Worthy Park Estate, 
Jamaica Archives, Spanish Town, Jamaica. 
338 
others with lower working capacities received a reduced allowance. (See 
Appendix 4-a for a full breakdown.) Another distribution variant, 
contained in the 1799 clothing list for Harmony Hall Estate (reproduced 
in Appendix 4-b), not only shows quantity differentials determined by 
age and occupation, but also by sex, with men receiving a larger allow-
ance than women. Michael Craton's compilation of the clothing issued 
slaves on Worthy Park Estate in 1 793 (reproduced as Appendix 4-c) 
evinces a similar distribution pattern, one that was common throughout 
the island, where slaves in the various gangs and trades received dif-
3 
fering amounts and types of clothing. 
Through the early years of the nineteenth century, especially 
after the closure of the slave trade, however, the amount of material 
furnished Jamaican slaves increased. Table 4-1, a comparison of the 
quantities given the slaves on Harmony Hall Estate in 1799 with the 
annual distributions on that estate for 1811 and 1813, clearly shows 
this. The 1811 ration was significantly larger than that of 1799, 
while the subsequent year showed the same general distribution, but 
slightly increased quantities. The coincidence of increased clothing 
allocations with the agitation against, and ultimate abolition of, the 
slave trade indicates that this development was one of the ameliorative 
measures which planters hoped would cause the slave population to 
3 Journal of Somerset Plantation, MS 229, Institute of Jamaica, 
Kingston, Jamaica; List of Slaves on Harmony Hall Estate, Trelawny, 
6 June 1799, Gifts and Deposits, 7/7-1, Jamaica Archives, Michael Cra-
ton, Searching for the Invisible Man (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), 176-9. 
339 
1799 
Men 
Women 
Boys 
Girl s 
Table 4-1 
Cloth Rations Issued Slaves on 
Harmony Hall Estate, 1799, 1811, 1813. 
Osnaburg (yards) Baize (yards) Hats 
6 3 1 
6 2 1/2 1 
3 2 
6 - 1 
1811 
Men 
Women 
Children 
8 5 1 
7 6 1 
5 3 1 
1813 
Men (24 men got) 8 5 1/2 1 
(16 men got) 7 
Women 7 
Children 6 
5 1 
6 1/2 1 
4 1 
Source: List of Slaves on Harmony 
Gifts and Deposits, 7/7-1, Jamaica 
Account Book--Hannony Hall Estate, 
Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica. 
Hall Estate, Trelawny, 6 June 1799, 
Archives, Spanish Town, Jamaica; 
MS 1652, Volume 1, Institute of 
340 
increase naturally. This would obviate the need for supplemental imports 
4 
of slaves from Africa. 
Although the combination of osnaburg linen and baize woollen 
comprised the usual issue to slaves, planters substituted a variety 
of other materials. There were three different causes for divergence 
from the osnaburg/baize norm: market pressures, or the predilections 
of either slaves or planters. 
An important market influence was the emergent British cotton 
industry, which was challenging the dominance of European-manufactured 
linens, such as osnaburg. International conflicts, especially the 
blockades of Europe during the Napoleonic Wars, contributed to shifts 5 
in market and product, again adversely affecting the trade in osnaburg. 
Slaves took it on themselves to voice their opinions on the 
cloth they received, indicating their preferences and dissatisfactions. 
Absentee sugar planter Nathaniel Phillips, in an October 1789 letter 
written to the overseer of his Jamaican sugar estate, revealed how 
slaves expressed their opinion: "Agreeable to my promise to my black 
friends, I have sent them Blue Cottons, and also some striped do. for 
the Women." A letter from overseer Barritt to Phillips in April 1793 
related that the slaves "have not been well pleased with their Oznabrig, 
Hats & thread this year," and seven years later the issue recurred, 
when slaves complained that the osnaburg and thread were both of poor 
4 List of Slaves on Harmony Hall Estate, Trelawny, 6 June 1799, 
Gifts and Deposits, 7/7-1, Jamaica Archives; Account Book—Harmony Hall 
Estate, MS 1652, Volume 1, Institute of Jamaica. 
5 Grace Lovat Fraser, Textiles By Britain (London, 1948), 64-75. 
341 
quality. The chief problems seemed to have been the coarseness and 
openness of the weave of the cloth. The slaves on Phillips' planta-
tions also found fault with the heavier material given them. Barritt 
wrote to Phillips in May 1791: "I had [the slaves] served the 22nd 
Inst with their Blanket Clothing, when the women in general mentioned 
that they wished you would send them out Blue Blanks, to their coats, 
instead of the linsey woolsey, as it lasts much longer."6 
Aesthetic considerations were also apparently important to slaves, 
since in October 1791, Phillips wrote apologetically that "The Striped 
Woollens were shipped for the Women before I understood that they pre-
ferred the Blue." In trying to resolve the problem, he observed "You 
will find by the Invoices that I have sent an additional quantity of 
Blue Cotton (& some Gray (for a trial) [sic] in all 550 yards—so that 
you may keep that quantity of the Striped for the year following." 
Either Phillips confused the cloths, or else he expected slaves to 
choose the color they preferred even though it was in a different 
material? 
In clothing the slaves, Jamaican planters probably considered 
cost first. Only a small expenditure, however, was required to supply 
6 Letter from Nathaniel Phillips, London, to Thomas Barritt 
(Overseer), Jamaica, 20 October 1789, Letter-Book from June 1778, MS 
11434; Letter from Thomas Barritt, Pleasant Hill, to Nathaniel Phillips, 
10 April 1793, MS 8413; Barritt to Phillips, 25 May 1791, MS 3374, 
.Nathaniel Phillips Papers, West India Reference Library, University of 
the West Indies, Mona, Kingston. 
7 Phillips to Barritt, 12 October 1791, Letter-Book from June 
1778, MS 11484, Phillips Papers. 
342 
a slave with the quantities of material which comprised the normal 
allocation. Charles Gordon, in calculating various expenses on his 
Georgia Estate, estimated that providing a slave with "cloathing and 
feeding [cost] £10" annually. The "Negro Accounts" of Hugh Hamilton's 
estate showed the purchase, in July 1784, of 447 yards of osnaburg at 
the cost of £14:13:5%. By December 1787 the price of osnaburg had 
risen to 10^d per yard, 428 yards being bought at the cost of £18:14:6. 
At this time Hamilton also purchased three pounds of osnaburg thread 
at 3/9d per pound, and "5 Dozn. Negroe Hats" at £1:2:6 per dozen 
(1/1CM each). The price of osnaburg continued to rise, and in 1789 
the Duckenfield Hall Estate accounts record that the cost of osnaburg 
was 1 /3d per yard. Cost was not the only factor; planters showed con-
cern over whether or not the cloth could adequately protect the slaves, 
o 
and prove durable.0 
Occasionally in Jamaica slaves were issued ready-made clothing 
as either the whole or a part of their issue. Normally, however, only 
"special status" slaves received made-up apparel. Sick slaves often 
received made-up clothing, as did slaves in positions of authority and 
privilege. Child-bearing women also received clothes, either for them-
selves or for their infants, as an incentive to raise a large family, 
while other slaves were allocated clothes as a bonus payment. James 
8 Letter from Charles Gordon to Francis Grant, 19 May 1737, 
1160/6/86, Manuscripts by or concerning the families of Gordon of 
Buthlaw and Cairness, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland; 
"Negro Account," 1784; "Negro Account," 1787, B1755, Hamilton of Pin-
more Papers, Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh, Scotland; Acc. 775, 
943/6, Records relating to Duckenfield Hall Plantation, Jamaica, West 
India Reference Library, UWI. 
343 
Chisholme, for example, sent word to his resident overseer James 
Craggs that he was shipping eight bedgowns for slave women with young 
children, twelve check shirts for children of one month old, and an 
old coat, waistcoat and breeches of his which were to be given to "the 
most deserving negro." Four years later, his concern for stimulating 
the growth of slave families prompted Chisholme to extend incentive 
payments to the nurses since he sent a trunk containing "72 yards of 
printed cotton for the breeding women . . . several parcels marked for 
the Children's Nurses," and a sizable quantity of his old clothes which 
9 
were to be given to deserving slaves at the overseer's discretion. 
A report on the condition of pregnant women on one of Lord 
Penrhyn's sugar estates, submitted by the resident agent, shows both 
the solicitous attitude taken towards "breeding" on some plantations, 
and the widespread inadequacy of infant clothing elsewhere. The agent, 
David Ewart, reported to Penrhyn, that: 
I have always, My Lord, given great encouragement to Breeding, with-
out reference to the late measures of the abolition, and I hold out 
several little rewards to the Women, which few others do--Your Lord-
ship will observe a dozen suits of Baby Linen written for in the 
List of Supplies, after their arrival every Child will have one 
given to it—The Mothers can hardly be expected to have those 
things, particularly the poorer sort of Negro Women, and the old 
Sheets, Table Cloths etc of many Estates do not afford a sufficient 
supply—Osnaburghs are too coarse for such infants.IU 
Letter from James Chisholme, Bath, to James Craggs, Vere, 
Jamaica, 10 December 1793; Chisholme to Craggs, 3 December 1797, Let-
terbook of James Chisholme, MS 5476, Papers of William and James 
Chisholme, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. 
1 0 Letter from David Ewart, Westmoreland, to Lord Penrhyn, 6 
August 1807, MS 1477, Penrhyn Castle Papers, West India Reference 
Library, UWI. 
344 
Sugar planter Gilbert Mathison was equally solicitous. He 
drew up a formal "Code of Regulations" for the overseer on his estate, 
which was issued on 1 January 1810. One provision stipulated that 
each woman who delivered a child was to receive a calico or linen frock 
for herself, plus two of the same for her child when it reached the age 
of one month (the threat of infant mortality, especially from tetanus, 
had, by this time, lessened). On other plantations, women who had 
just borne children received additional lengths of cloth, sometimes of 
superior material. On the Hope Estate, near Kingston, as on James 
Chisholme's estate, mothers of young children received lengths of 
calico and printed cotton.^ 
Concern for sick slaves impelled planters to distribute ready-
made clothing. The Duckenfield Hall Estate accounts show a payment of 
6/8d being made for a "Frock for sick negro named Tryal." Jacob Israel 
Bernal, the proprietor of Richmond New Works sugar plantation in St. 
Ann Parish, spent £1:2:6 in October and November 1792, furnishing a 
sick male slave with "a warm Jacket," "a check shirt" and "a pair of 
shoes." The policy on Nathaniel Phillips1 plantations was to supply 
12 
all measles victims with dry housing and warm clothing. 
Supplemental clothing allocations for slaves in positions of 
authority or privilege were made by giving clothes as well as extra 
11 Gilbert Mathison, Notices Respecting Jamaica, in, 1808-180j-
1810 (London. 1811), 107-17; The Jamaica Journal, I (November 1818), 
15-25; Chisholme to Craggs, 3 December 1797, Chisholme Papers. 
1 2 Acc. 775, 945/9 (1791 ), Duckenfield Hall Papers; MS 1073, 
Accounts of Jacob Israel Bernal, Esq., proprietor of Richmond New Works, 
Sugar Plantation, St. Ann Parish, Middlesex, 1792, Institute of Jamaica; 
Barritt to Phillips, 27 May 1795, MS 9205, Phillips Papers. 
345 
lengths of cloth. In the 1798 clothing distribution on Harmony Hall 
Estate, the driver, Spize, received an additional five yards of osna-
burg beyond the standard ration of seven and "A Jacket & Pantaloons." 
According to the anonymous author of the novel Marly; or a Planter's 
Life in Jamaica, head slaves received a woollen jacket as well as the 
13 
regular osnaburg and baize issue. 
James Stewart in his Brief Account of the Present State o£ the 
Negroes in Jamaica noted that some planters, when distributing clothes, 
made special provision for "indolent" slaves. The annual clothing 
allowance, distributed at Christmas, was equivalent to two suits of 
osnaburg and one suit of Kendal cotton. Stewart claimed that "the 
intelligent [slaves] receive their quantums of cloth which they make 
up at leisure after any fashion they please." He contended, however, 
that planters had to give made-up clothing to other slaves, and made 
the undoubtedly exaggerated claim that "it [was] often necessary to 
cloath the indolent and careless, five or six times during the year." 
Stewart's observations certainly do not agree with those of Robert 
Renny who observed that the clothing given to slaves by the planters 
was coarse and scanty, "it being in many instances, two years, before 14 new osnaburg frocks [were] allotted to them." 
1 3 Harmony Hall Papers, Gifts and Deposits, 7/56-1, Jamaica 
Archives; Anon., Marly; or a Planter's Life in Jamaica (Glasgow, 1828), 
64. 
1 4 James Stewart, A Brief Account of the Present State of the 
Negroes in Jamaica (Bath, 1792), 12; Robert Renny, An History of Jamaica 
(London,"T807), 179. 
346 
Sometimes a broader section of the plantation community 
received ready-made clothing, either as a regular or supplemental allo-
cation. James Chisholme wrote to his overseer that he was sending a 
slave domestic, a maid, to his Trouthall Estate "to make new Negro 
clothes." Similarly, the 1798 clothing distribution list for Harmony 
Hall Estate (reproduced as Appendix 4-d) showed that a number of slaves 
received clothing already made-up, and not lengths of cloth. Interest-
ingly, this list showed that only women received needles. Possibly, 
couples were given cloth, the wives receiving needles to sew clothing 
for herself and her spouse, while planters gave the single slaves ready-
to-wear garments. Nathaniel Phillips, for a reason that is not revealed 
in the letter, intended to give the slaves on his plantation gifts of 
clothing, since his overseer, Thomas Barritt, wrote: 
I have been consulting Old Betty and some others of the good people 
to know what present from Young Massa & Missus will be most pleas-
ing to them, and they seem to hint that a shirt of cotton check to 
the Males, and a coat of Do. to the females with a Handkerchief 
each would make them say Thankey grandee to both.1^ 
Newly-purchased African slaves constituted another group that 
usually received made-up clothing. On arrival in Jamaica, these slaves 
would, at most, be clothed in a loin cloth or shift. Planters supplied 
them with clothes immediately after purchase, or on reaching the plan-
tation. One contemporary source mentions that when the slaves were 
1 5 Chisholme to Craggs, 10 December 1793, Letterbook of James 
Chisholme, Chisholme Papers; "Served with Cloath etc 2nd February 1798," 
Gifts and Deposits, 7/56-1, Harmony Hall Papers, Jamaica Archives; 
Barritt to Phillips, 5 June 1799, MS 11603, Phillips Papers. 
347 
taken on shore, they were immediately clothed, men in osnaburg trousers 
and frocks and woollen caps, women in osnaburg shifts and coats and 
checkered kerchiefs. Bryan Edwards corroborated this practice noting 
that African slaves, after purchase, were clothed in osnaburg, and 
given hats or kerchiefs and knives. Worthy Park Plantation records 
mention that a female slave, Cuba, received "12 yds Oz [osnaburg] to 
make 4 Pair Truses [trousers] for the New Negroes—Falmouth, Homer, 
Samson, Philip." Apparently these slaves did not receive the full 
clothing allotment until their arrival at the plantation.^ 
Clothing rations slaves received often proved inadequate. Not 
all planters felt obliged to provide adequate clothing and there were 
few sanctions which could be brought to bear on them. As sentiment 
grew among planters in favor of amelioration, the clothing supplies 
apparently improved somewhat. "Of clothing," Bryan Edwards observed 
in 1793, "the allowance of the master is not always so liberal as might 
be wished, but much more so of late years than formerly." Similarly, 
John Stewart claimed that, after the closure of the slave trade, plan-
ters treated slaves better, and one of the measures taken was improving 
the clothing ration. Despite such sentiments, and legal provisions 
mandating adequate clothing supplies notwithstanding, many planters 
failed to supply slaves with "proper and sufficient clothing."17 
1 6 Anon., "Characteristic Traits of the Creolian and African 
Negroes in this Island," The Columbian Magazine; or Monthly Miscellany, 
2 (April 1797), 700-1 ; FriwarriTTHistory. Civil and Commercial; ^ II, 118; 
Plantation Book: Worthy Park 1783-1787, 37^l7Tforthy Park Papers, 
1 7 Edwards, History, Crvi]_ and Commercial, II, 127, 148; John 
Stewart, A View of the_ Past and Present State of the Island o£ Jamaica 
(1823, rpt. New York, 19657, 230T; 
348 
Inadequate apparel may not have been too detrimental to the 
health of most slaves. Jamaica's benign climate meant that slaves, 
even though insufficiently clothed, were not likely to suffer unduly 
from exposure. The ragged clothing slaves wore was sufficient garb 
for most of the year. Moreover, lightly-clad slaves may have been 
healthier than the planters, who, in conformity with their perceived 
status and rank, felt obliged to overdress in formal attire more suited 
to Britain's cool, temperate climate. Light or scanty clothing was 
cooler and more comfortable, less apt to become damp with perspiration, 
and easily washed and dried. Shoes and more adequate clothing, however, 
would have helped prevent the cuts, bruises and insect bites that slaves 
suffered a great deal from, especially when working in the fields. 
Jamaica's dependency on imports from Europe influenced the 
adequacy of slaves' clothing rations. Sea routes often were temporarily 
severed, especially during periods of warfare between European nations 
when adversaries preyed on each others' shipping. On these occasions, 
local stocks of provisions were likely to be overtaxed or exhausted, 
as one overseer reported in a letter to his employer in England. He 
bemoaned the fact that the outward-bound fleet had to put back after 
fifty days at sea, noting "we are in great want of W Hoops, Oil, Grease, 
Copper Nails, Candles, and the Negro Cloathing, all of which articles, 
wth. many others, sells here at three times the price that they formerly 
cost."18 
1 8 Barritt to Phillips, 15 April 1796, MS 11571, Phillips 
Papers. 
349 
Dry goods in Kingston were consistently more expensive than 
those bought in the United Kingdom and shipped directly to the estate; 
planters invariably preferred the latter. Circumstances, however, some-
times forced the planter to buy in Kingston. "If there is not a suf-
ficient quantity of warm Cloathing shipt to supply the aged People on 
the Estate and Breeding Women," Ezekiel Dickinson wrote to his nephew 
who ran one of his estates, adding parenthetically, "(who I am very 
desirous shall have all reasonable indulgence particularly such as may 
be descendants from those who were resident on my late Patriot Colonel 
Gomersals time) I desire you will purchase what further may be wanted 
19 
in Kingston." 
Other plantation records evinced a similar concern about slaves' 
clothing. Overseer Thomas Barritt assured Nathaniel Phillips that 
"every attention is paid to their Houses, Clothing & feeding," while 
Phillips' expressed his "earnest wish to have adopted every reasonable 
plan to make [the slaves] comfortable and happy." A few years later 
Barritt wrote to Phillips blaming slaves' attitudes, and not the inad-
equacy of their clothing, for sickness among them: "I believe oweing 
to the North winds prevailing at this time of year, many of them are 
troubled with Colds and fevers and it is impossible to make any of them 
put on their warm clothing." When floods on one of the Penrhyn plan-
tations swept away some of the slaves' houses, along with some of their 
1 9 Letter from Ezekiel Dickinson, Bowden House, Wiltshire, to 
Caleb Dickinson, 28 November 1786, Letterbook of Ezekiel Dickinson, 
Papers of Caleb and Ezekiel Dickinson, West India Reference Library, 
UWI. 
350 
clothes and other possessions, Penrhyn's agent reported that he was 
"obliged . . . to help them out by replacing their little losses."20 
Needless to say, not all planters or their delegates shared 
the solicitude shown by Phillips and Penrhyn's agent. Nor was Jamaica's 
climate so equable that clothing did not matter at all. During the 
autumn and spring rains, and in winter nights, especially on the higher 
elevations, temperatures could be cool and the atmosphere damp. At 
such times, all slaves, but especially the weak, the elderly, the young 
and the sick, were adversely affected by their inadequate clothing. 
While some plantations made special accommodation for these groups, 
on others, "scanty" clothing undoubtedly caused sickness and death. 
William Beckford lamented the lot of slaves working as watchmen (tra-
ditionally an occupation for the elderly), especially on plantations 
and pens at higher elevations. He noted that cold winds were particu-
larly hard on them, for they were obliged to be on hill summits all 
21 
night "without raiment perhaps, and without food." 
At the other end of the spectrum, privileged slaves often 
received a supply of clothing which was both ample and of superior 
quality. Evidence for this can be found both in plantation records 
2 0 Barritt to Phillips, 8 September 1790, MS 8363; Phillips 
to Barritt, 1 November 1790, Letter-Book from June 1778, MS 11484; 
Barritt to Phillips, 20 November 1793, MS 8424, Phillips Papers; Letter 
from Rowland William Fearon (Attorney), Clarendon, Jamaica, to Lord 
Penrhyn, 6 June 1806, MS 1424, Penrhyn Papers. 
21 William Beckford, A Descriptive Account of the Island of 
Jamaica (London, 1790), I, 198-9. 
351 
and in the visual testimony of various artists who painted scenes of 
plantation life. Appendix 4-e comprises a series of contemporary prints, 
all of which show drivers wearing a much more elaborate outfit tnan 
the field hands. Items of clothing such as frock coats, shoes, collar 
and cravat, and glazed hats, along with the omnipresent whip or swagger 
stick, all distinguished the driver in his position of privilege. One 
should, however, be wary of the idealization or stylization which may 
have been made of the subjects of these prints, as even the field hands 
seem to be overdressed for the arduous tasks of holeing, loading and 
cutting they are performing. For example, in Print 4, all of them seem 
to be wearing their full annual issue of clothing. 
Clothing was used as an instrument by which Jamaican planters 
sought to control the slaves on their plantations. The manner in which 
planters clothed newly-purchased African slaves clearly manifested this, 
as did the system of differential clothing allocations on the planta-
tion. 
Slaves arriving from Africa underwent a rite of passage immedi-
ately following their sale to the planter. The key elements of this 
ritual were twofold; the assertion of power dominance by virtue of 
ownership, and an acculturation process designed to restructure iden-
tity. A slave's ownership was legally established by purchase. Plan-
ters asserted control and power dominance concomitant with ownership 
by branding slaves and limiting their movements and activities. 
Slaves could be separated from relatives and companions, shackled and 
forced to walk or be transported to a destination of the planters' 
352 
choosing: the sugar plantation where they would probably spend the 
rest of their lives in bondage. These actions were legitimized and 
justified both by the immediate sanction, the ubiquitous whip, and by 
the formal legal structure of the society. 
Clothing was one of the most important instruments planters 
used to establish the second element of the rite of passage, the 
acculturation process designed to restructure the identity of slaves. 
Slaves arriving in Jamaica were either naked or clad in a loin cloth, 
but immediately were clothed in garb foreign to all their previous 
experience. The style, cut and material of the clothing derived from 
the heritage of the slave-holding Europeans, but at the same time cut 
in a manner that immediately identified the wearer's status. The men 
wore trousers and a loose shirt-like frock or smock covering their 
upper body, while the women wore a full-length shift and a half-to 
three-quarter-length coat. Headgear consisted of woollen caps, 
glazed or felt hats and kerchiefs. Men wore hats or caps; women usually 
wore kerchiefs. Children were scantily clothed, both sexes wearing 
only simple one-piece shifts, if, indeed, they wore anything at all. 
Although the material and style were European, however, the osnaburg 
trousers, frocks, shifts and coats were the clothing of slaves and 
slaves alone. 
On the plantation different clothing allocations further served 
the planters1 desire to control the slave population. Drivers and 
other privileged slaves received clothes which not only placed them 
apart from ordinary field hands, but also brought them closer to the 
whites, since, as the prints in Appendix 4-e show, their clothes more 
closely resembled those of the planters. Planters created a hierarchy 
353 
of privilege that was affirmed by tangible, visible rewards such as 
better housing and food, as well as power and influence. Clothing, 
of course, was one of the most visible perquisites. 
Since the clothing given the elite slaves more closely resembled 
that of the planter, one can see the continuance of the europeanization 
(or in the case of Jamaica, angl icization) of the slaves which was 
started with the rite of passage at the dockside sale. Angl icization 
was embedded in the privileges sought by some members of the slave 
community. Drivers, liaising between slaves and planters, adopted 
attitudes of dress, manners and speech that more closely approximated 
white attitudes than did those of field hands. In an allusion to this 
process, Edward Brathwaite uses the evocative image of "snow . . . fall-
ing on the canefields." Clearly the quality and style of clothing 
issued to drivers and other elite slaves forms a vital link in this 
22 
process. 
The pervasive influence of clothing as an instrument of domi-
nation can be seen in the way it affected a sphere of activity which 
in itself was essentially outside the sway of the planters. Jamaican 
slaves spent a large part of any revenue they accumulated purchasing 
clothing for Sunday and holiday wear. 
Slaves often invested in ready-made clothing. Thus, they 
bought clothing, either made locally or in Europe, that followed Euro-
pean styles. If slaves bought material, they made it up to resemble, 
even to the point of caricature, the current European fashions which 
2 2 Edward Brathwaite, The Development of Creole. Society in, 
Jamaica 1770-1820 (London, 197TT73WI 
354 
both slave and slave-owner at least aspired to wear. John Stewart 
concluded his description of the clothing of slaves with these observa-
tions: 
Neither sex wear shoes in common, these being reserved for particu-
lar occasions, such as dances, etc., when all who can afford it 
appear in very gay apparel--the men in broad-cloth coats, fancy 
waistcoats, and nankeen or jean trowsers, and the women in white 
or fancy muslin gowns, beaver or silk hats, and a variety of expen-
sive jewelIry. . . . All of them who can afford to buy a finer dress, 
seldom appear, excepting when at work, in the coarse habitments 
given them by their masters. 
Some years earlier, James Stewart commented on the finery which the 
slaves "sport[ed] on holidays or extraordinary occasions." Female 
slaves wore fine linen, cambric and muslin, and were bejewelled with 
costly ornaments, while the dress of the men comprised cocked hats, 
waistcoats, breeches and "preposterous ruffles and coats." A similar 
pattern, to which plantation slaves probably aspired although few would 
have attained, was manifested by urban slave artisans and described 
in a contemporary journal: 
Mechanics are generally able from their own labour to buy good 
cloathing: Broadcloth coats, linen waistcoats and breeches, a smart 
cocked hat, with a gold or silver loop, button and band, are common 
with them in the holidays; to which they sometimes add shoes and 
stockings. They frequently have their cloaths made 1n the newest 
English fashion and sometimes exceed it fantastically. 
John Stewart, in his description of the demeanor of slaves 
when dressed for holidays, observed: 
2 3 John Stewart, A View, 269; James Stewart, A Brief Account, 
10-1; Anon., "Characteristic Traits," Columbian Magazine, 3 (June I/97J, 
7. 
355 
On these occasions the slaves appear an altered race of beings. 
They show themselves off to the greatest advantage, by fine clothes 
and a profusion of trinkets; they affect a more polished behaviour 
and mode of speech; they address the whites with greater familiarity, 
they come into their masters' houses, and drink with them; the dis-
tance between them appears to be annihilated for the moment.24 
The process of cultural interchange affected all of Jamaica's 
inhabitants, black and white, slave and free. It is not within the 
province of this study to assess the extent of African and Creole influ-
ences on the European population, or of African and European influences 
on the Creole population, but, as is documented elsewhere, these pro-
25 
cesses did occur. 
Despite the element of emulation or adoption of various modes 
of European dress by slaves, the complete effect was not European. 
Indications of this can be found initially in the same records which 
show most clearly the European influence in the "best" clothing of 
slaves. The Columbian Magazine reported that "they frequently have 
their cloaths made in the newest European fashion and sometimes exceed 
it fantastically." James Stewart mentioned "the preposterous ruffles 
and coats," while John Stewart noted that the slaves wore "fine 26 clothes and a profusion of trinkets" (my emphasis). 
2 4 John Stewart, A View, 270-1. 
2 5 Brathwaite, Creole Society, passim. The word "Creole" is used 
to describe that which is born in, or native to, the particular region. 
2 6 Anon., "Characteristic Traits," Columbian Magazine, 3 (June 
1797), 7; James Stewart, A Brief Account, 11; John Stewart, A View, 2/1. 
Slave finery was describe? most fully in records and histories written 
by planters. The descriptions thus incorporate certain biases. As 
well as stressing the benignity of slavery, planters, as a result of 
356 
The clothing of slaves displayed three influences, African, 
Creole and European. Some of the clothing slaves bought had been 
imported, ready-made, from Europe, and they wore it unmodified. Creole 
clothing incorporated adaptations of other styles, which struck James 
Stewart as being "preposterous" parodies or caricatures. Creolization 
was further evidenced in the ways in which items of clothing were worn 
together, despite what would, in European or African eyes, be seen as 
an incongruity or clashing of styles. 
Some items, particularly accessories, were of African derivation 
and worn in African ways. Perhaps the most common item of clothing of 
African descent was the turban worn by the women. As can be seen in 
the prints in Appendix 4-e women wore turbans as part of their work 
dress, and the contemporary prints portraying slaves at their leisure 
(reproduced as Appendix 4-f) show that this item of dress was also part 
of their finery. Edward Long refers to the predilection of slave women 
for turbans which they wore "at all times," and Michael Scott's descrip-
tion of women dressed in finery during a holiday celebration included 
reference to "their nice showy, well put on toques, or Madras handker-
chiefs, all of the same pattern, tied round their heads, fresh out of 
the fold." The kerchiefs used by women for their turbans were usually 
27 part of the regular clothing issue given by the planter. 
their conviction of the cultural supremacy of whites, probably over-
emphasized the extent to which slaves imitated and mimicked the clothing 
and other standards of the planter class. 
2 7 Edward Long, The History of Jamaica (1774, rpt. New York, 
1972), II, 412-3; M i c h a e r S c ^ t T T o m ^ Lp£ (1838, rpt. London, 
1915), 245. 
357 
Slaves wore jewels and ornaments as an integral part of their 
best clothing. John Stewart noted "the profusion of trinkets" worn 
on festive occasions, and William Beckford commented on the slaves' 
liking for beads, coral, glass and chains which were worn on the neck 
and wrists. Jewelry was, of course, worn as an accessory in European 
fashions. The styles worn by slave women, however, although partly 
incorporating European styles, were also of African derivation, as is 
shown in this contemporary description: 
Besides the usual European ornaments of ear-rings and necklaces, 
the women have at different times used as beads, the seeds of Jobs-
tears^ 1 iquorice, and lilac; the vertebrae of the shark; and lately 
red sealing wax, which in appearance nearly resembles coral. Some-
times they sportively affix to the lip of the ear, a pindal or ground 
nut, open at one end; at other times they thrust through the hole 
bored for the ear-ring, the round yellow flower of opopinax. 
African heritages also appeared in the adornments, the "party-coloured 
beads tied around their loins," which Scott saw slave children wearing, 
and can be inferred from the "profusion of beads and corals, and gold 
ornaments of all description" with which Matthew Lewis saw slave women 
28 
bedecked at the commencement of a festival on his plantation. 
Many slaves on Jamaican sugar plantations, however, did not 
wear much other than the planter's issue. Those unable or unwilling to 
garner sufficient funds or trading goods, in particular had little 
opportunity to supplement the scanty garb supplied them by the planter 
with better apparel, the cloth and cut of which immediately distinguished 
2 8 John Stewart, A View, 271; Beckford, A Descriptive Account, 
II, 386; Anon., "CharacteriltTc TraitsColumbian Magazine, 3 (July 
1797), 109; Scott, Tom Cringle, 141; Matthew Gregory Lewis, Journal of, 
a West India Proprietor (London, 1834), 74. 
358 
it from the coarse plantation wear. All slaves did not benefit equally 
from the internal economy. As a consequence, although some could 
acquire various fineries, the "wardrobe" of others contained little 
except the meager plantation ration that would deteriorate into rags 
before the next issue. 
ii 
As in Jamaica, slaves in Louisiana spent a considerable portion 
of any revenue they accumulated on the purchase of clothing. Whether 
or not they purchased made-up items, the styles of the slaves' "best" 
clothing conformed to the general dictates of fashion in the region. 
The syncretic influences, so important in determining the styles of 
such clothing in Jamaica, were less apparent in Louisiana. Like other 
facets of slavery in the United States, the process of creolization of 
clothing styles was further advanced and was reflected in the homoge-
nization of fashions throughout society. Nevertheless, evidence of an 
exaggerated "creole" style of clothing is found in William Howard Rus-
sell's My Diary North and South, where he noted that the slaves' Sunday 
29 
clothes were "strangely cut" and "wonderfully made." 
The extent and nature of clothing purchases by slaves show that 
it was essentially an autonomous activity of great importance to both 
slave societies. Although opportunities to accrue wealth were severely 
limited, slaves invariably spent part of any income they had to 
2 9 William Howard Russell, ttyj Diary North and South (London, 
1863), 373. 
359 
purchase clothes. Moreover, some slaves managed to buy clothing of high 
quality cut in the most elegant styles. 
The records of the Gay family's sugar plantation in Iberville 
Parish, Louisiana, offer many examples of slaves purchasing apparel. 
Among the items purchased by slaves in 1844 were a "Fine Summer Coat" 
bought at the cost of $3.00 by a field hand named Lee, and a "Fine 
Russian Hat bt. in N. Orleans" for $3.00 by another field hand, Elias. 
Alfred Cooper bought two "Elegant Bonnets" at $2.00 each, presumably 
for his wife Dido and his sixteen-year old daughter Louisiana. Three 
years earlier, the account of William Sanders, another slave, was 
debited by an unrecorded amount for a fur hat, black shoes and a calico 
dress for his wife, while Patrick bought a pair of boots and a watch 
costing $15.00 to $20.00, Hercules paid $10.00 for a roundabout jacket 
of blue or black cloth, a dark-colored umbrella and a waistcoat, Ned 
Davis made a similar purchase of a fur hat, a roundabout and an umbrella, 
and Samuel Todd bought a white "cambrice" dress for his wife. Similar 
purchasing patterns continued on the Gay Estate up until the Civil 
u 30 War. 
Throughout extant Louisiana sugar plantation records, the pur-
chases of similar luxury apparel recur. For example, in 1848, slaves 
on Alexis Ferry's plantation bought, among other things, expensive 
lengths of cloth ("aunes coutes") and a fine dress ("robe bontenit"). 
On George Lanaux' Bellevue Estate in the early 1850s, slaves paid $2.50 
3 0 Daybook 1843-1847 (Volume 5); Memorandum Book 1840-41 (Vol-
ume 28), Edward J. Gay and Family Papers, Department of Archives and 
Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
360 
each for oiled-cloth winter coats, and $1.25 a pair for "log cabin' 
trousers, among other items, while a cash-book for W. W. Pugh's Wood-
lawn Plantation in Assumption Parish lists a slave named Woodson beinc 
charged $12.50 for a silk dress for Rachel.31 
The recollections of slaves further attest to such purchases. 
Elizabeth Ross Hite recalled that her mother raised corn, sold it at 
fifty cents per barrel, and "bought good clothes wid de money, nothing 
but silk dresses." Although Mrs. Ross Hite's mother undoubtedly bought 
more than silk dresses, the frequency of similar references to the fine 
clothing slaves bought to wear on days off, throughout the slave nar-
32 
ratives, indicates that the purchase of such items was not unusual. 
More typically, however, slaves spent their earnings on plainer 
and less expensive clothing, a practice widespread among sugar planta-
tion slaves in Louisiana. On one of Benjamin Tureaud's estates, slaves 
spent some of the money they earned by selling corn and cutting wood 
on such diverse items as shoes, hats, hose, shirts, pants, dresses and 
handkerchiefs, as well as a variety of cloths such as cottonade, check, 
cotton and calico. In the 1858-59 ledger are the names of 98 male 
slaves, all but two of whom accumulated money over the period, the sums 
31 Volume 1, #331, 1842-1865, 1877, Alexis Ferry Journals, 
Department of Archives, Tulane University, New Orleans; Ledger 1851-
1856 (Volume 18), Lanaux (George and Family) Papers, Archives, LSU, 
Cashbook for Negroes 1848-55 (Volume 6), Colonel W. W. Pugh Papers, 
Archives, LSU. 
3 2 Interview conducted under the auspices of the Slave Narrative 
Collection Project organized by the Federal Writers' Project of the 
Works Progress Administration. Interviewee—Elizabeth Ross Hite: 
Interviewer—Robert McKinney: Date—ca. 1940, Louisiana Writers1 Project 
File, Louisiana State Library, Baton Rouge. 
361 
ranging from $1.00 to $170.00. Well over half of them, including the 
two non-earners who received goods on credit, spent part of their earn-
ings on clothing. Only eight of the thirty women in the ledger earned 
any money, and of them, only three spent any of it on cloth or clothing. 
The other five withdrew their earnings in cash. Virtually all the 106 
slaves who earned money during this time withdrew at least part of their 
earnings in cash, and probably some of this went towards the purchase 
33 
of clothing off the plantation. 
The Gay Plantation slave accounts for 1844 itemized clothing 
purchases other than luxury items. In a slave community that two years 
previously numbered 267 persons, 86 of whom were males over the age 
of sixteen years, 77 slaves (71 men and 6 women) earned $900.12, out 
of which they purchased, among other items, cloth and clothing. Again, 
virtually all the slaves withdrew part of their earnings in cash. 
Apart from a few luxury items of ready-made clothing, slaves mainly 
bought lengths of cloth: calico, domestic, white cotton, brown linen 
and cottonade. Thus, in this year, almost every slave family on the 
Gay Plantation earned money, or received credit, which, in turn, they 34 
partly invested in clothing for holiday and Sunday wear. 
The best clothes of slaves conformed to contemporary styles and 
fashions. The description of a slave wedding that took place on Howard 
Bond's Crescent Place sugar plantation near Houma in Terrebonne Parish, 
recorded in the diary of Bond's wife, Priscilla "Mittle11 Munnikhuysen 
3 3 Ledger 1858-1872 (48), Tureaud (Benjamin) Papers, Archives, 
LSU. 
3 4 Daybook 1843-1847 (Volume 5), Gay Papers. 
362 
Bond, exemplifies this. The scene described is atypical, probably 
depicting the nuptials of two favored slaves, perhaps domestics. Never-
theless, it gives a good portrait of the dress of the participants: 
Had a wedding here tonight, two of the servants got married. 
The bride looked quite nice dressed in white, I made her turbin o* 
white swiss-pink tarlton [tarlaton] & oranges blossoms. . . . I 
wonder what the "Yankees" would think of it if they had seen how 
happy they were dressed in their ball dresses. The groom had a 
suit of black, white gloves, & a tall beaver. The bride dressed in 
white swiss, pink trimmings & white gloves. The bride's-made & 
groom's-man dressed to correspond. 
The presence of an ornate turban in the bride's ensemble can be accounted 
for because they "were the most popular head-dresses of women [in the 
United States] during the first half of the nineteenth-century" rather 
than laid to the syncretic influence of an African-derived clothing 
heritage peculiar to the slave population. The rest of the clothing 
35 
described was very much 5 la mode. 
Although ex-slave Elizabeth Ross Hite's recollection of the fine 
clothing worn by slaves at weddings closely matched Bond's description, 
she also indicated that such elaborate ceremonies were atypical. "Some-
times de slaves would have marriages lak de people do today wid all de 
same trimmings. De veil, gown an ev'rything," Hite recalled. "Dey 
married fo de preacher an had big affairs in dere quarters. Den some-
time dey would go to do master to git his permission an blessings." 
She added, however, "Shucks som of dem darkies didn't care er bout 
3 5 Diary 1857-1869, Bond (Priscilla "Mittle" Munnikhuysen) 
Papers, Archives, LSU; Elizabeth McClellan, History of American Costume 
1607-1870 (1904, rpt. New York, 1969), 638. 
363 
master, preacher or nobody dey just went an got married." The cere-
monial garb donned for religious occasions, like funerals, baptisms 
and marriages, and the best clothing worn to go to town or market, or 
when visiting friends and relations on holidays, conformed to the cur-
rent fashion trends in the United States. (For a contemporary print 
depicting the best clothing of sugar plantation slaves in Louisiana, 
36 
see Appendix 4-g.) 
Since the purchase of best clothing was an autonomous activity, 
the decisions concerning the extent and direction of investment rested 
with the slaves. Former slave Martha Stuart maintained that slaves 
could buy "any kind er dress [they] wanted to get." Elizabeth Ross 
Hite noted that some plantation owners were averse to such practices, 
which were, nevertheless, carried on clandestinely. She recalled that 
"we sold old clothes to darkies who had mean masters. Dey had to hide 
'em though."37 
The principal considerations determining the extent of slave 
purchases were the predilections of the slaves, and the amount of money 
they had. As Martha Stuart observed, slaves could have as "many 
[dresses] as [they] wanted, many as [they] could buy." The final proviso 
Interview with Elizabeth Ross Hite, loc. cit. 
3 7 Interview conducted under the auspices of a Slave Narrative 
Collection Project organized by Dillard University using only blacky 
interviewers. This project developed alongside the Federal Writers' 
program. Interviewee—Martha Stuart: Interviewer—Octave Lilly, Jr., 
Date—ca. 1938, Archives and Manuscripts Department, Earl K. Long Library, 
University of New Orleans, New Orleans; Interview with Elizabeth Ross 
Hite, loc. cit. 
364 
is, of course, the important one. Not all slaves had the financial 
wherewithal to buy such clothing, nor had they the opportunities to 
accumulate the necessary money. Thus, while Martha Stuart related 
that "de oversee used to tell us, you darkies . . . got better clothes 
den ma wife and chillun's got," other slaves in the Louisiana sugar 
region wore only what was distributed to them at the expense of the 
38 
plantation. 
Slaves sometimes received special "Sunday" clothing in the 
form of gifts from the planter. Ellen McCollam mentioned that she 
"gave out to the negro women each a new dress and handkerchief as a 
Christmas present," in addition to the regular distribution of work 
clothes- Similarly, "on Christmas master would give his slaves pres-
ents," Elizabeth Ross Hite recalled. "Dey would be clothes most of de 
time." Another time when superior clothing may have been given to 
slaves was on the occasion of a wedding. Ex-slave Louisa Martin 
recalled that slaves, "w'en dey wante to git married dey'd go to de 
white folks and dey'd give em fine clothes to wear.11 This was true of 
at least part of the bride's ensemble in the slave wedding on Howard 39 
Bond's plantation, described above. 
As in Jamaica, Louisiana planters customarily purchased the 
slaves' work clothes and bore the entire cost. The materials Louisiana 
no J u Interview with Martha Stuart, loc. cit. 
3 9 Diary and Plantation Record of Ellen E. McCollam, Volume II, 
1847-1851, McCollam (Andrew and Ellen E.) Papers, Archives, LSU; Inter-
view with Elizabeth Ross Hite, loc. cit.; Interviewee—Louisa Martin: 
Interviewer—Octave Lilly, Jr.: Date—1938: Dlllard Project, Archives, 
UNO; Diary 1857-1869, Bond Papers, Archives, LSU. 
365 
planters most commonly bought were woollens and various cottons such 
as denim, calico, cottonade, "lowell" and a twill called "jane" or 
"jean." Less frequently Louisiana planters distributed osnaburg, fus-
tian and linsey-woolsey. Although Julia Woodrich, who had been a slave 
on a Louisiana sugar plantation, recalled that "the missus wove the 
cloth," this was not typical: planters usually bought commercially-
i 4 0 woven cloth. 
The clothing issue to slaves in both Jamaica and Louisiana 
included accessories like hats and kerchiefs in addition to the main 
items: trousers, skirts, frocks and coats. An important difference 
between the clothing rations was that slaves on Louisiana plantations 
received shoes and sometimes socks, while Jamaican slaves worked bare-
foot. 
As a general rule, slaves on Louisiana sugar plantations 
received larger clothing allocations than Jamaican slaves. Moreover, 
distribution was more frequent, usually twice a year, as compared to 
the annual distribution most common in Jamaica. Such differences in 
slave clothing in the two societies, however, probably only reflected 
the climatic disparity between the regions; it is doubtful whether 
Louisiana slaves were better equipped, since they needed protection 
from a harsher climate than that of Jamaica. 
Of the two issues each year, one was designed to be worn during 
the warm Louisiana summer, the other to combat the cold and damp winter 
4 0 Interviewee—Julia Woodrich: Interviewer—Flossie McElwee: 
Date—1940: FWP Interviews, Louisiana State Library. 
366 
months with their frost and snow, which were unknown in Jamaica. The 
Louisiana slaves received their lighter-weight summer clothing in spring 
or early summer and their heavier issue in the fall or early winter. 
The clothing issued to Louisiana slaves for summer wear was 
usually cotton. A man received a pair of pants and a shirt, a woman, 
a dress and a chemise. If slaves did not get ready-made apparel, equiva-
lent lengths of cotton material were given to them, and they were 
expected to make their own clothes. Headgear, usually kerchiefs for 
women and straw hats for men, was also included in this distribution. 
From the records of John Moore's Magi 11 Plantation, one can estimate 
the quantities of material necessary to furnish such clothing. A letter 
to Moore from his overseer, William Lourd, includes the amount of cloth 
needed for the spring issue: 
I give a list of clothing for a suit a piece, 31 grown women--6 
small girls, which will take 241 yds for frocks 4 for chemise 105 
yds, close calculation. 35 men will take for pantaloons 105 yds, 
nine small boys, will take 18 yds--making 123 yds for pantaloons, 
and the same quantity of stuff for shirting. 
Adult female slaves, therefore, each received seven yards for a frock 
and three yards for a chemise, adult male slaves, each three yards for 
a shirt and three for a pair of pants. Young girls, by which Lourd 
meant early adolescents, each received four yards for a frock and two 
yards for a chemise, while their male counterparts were each given two 
yards for making a shirt, and another two for a pair of pants. Younger 
children on this plantation were given clothing less frequently. 
367 
Lourd stated that "the children can do without clothes till fall as I 
gave them all a suit a piece last fall."41 
Other sugar estates exhibited similar distribution patterns. 
On John Randolph's Nottoway Plantation, summer clothing, usually issued 
in mid-March, comprised pants and a shirt for each man, and a dress, 
or a dress and a chemise for a woman, all of which were ready-made. 
Equivalent lengths of cloth were given the slaves on David Magi ITs 
plantation, although there different types of cotton were to be used 
for the various articles of clothing: the men received twilled cotton 
for making pants, women denim for their dresses, and both were given 
42 
plain cotton for shirts and chemises respectively. 
Throughout the sugar region, the distribution patterns for sum-
mer clothing displayed considerable uniformity. The usual practice, 
mentioned in many plantation journals, was to issue slaves all their 
summer clothing at one time, that is, on a given day in spring or early 
summer. Similarly, planters gave the slaves most of their heavier 
winter issue on a single day late in the year. 
It was, however, more common for slaves to receive supplemental 
winter allocations of clothing than was true with the summer issue. 
On John Randolph's plantation, for example, slaves received their 
winter clothing, comprising a shirt, two pairs of pants and a pair of 
41 Letter from William Lourd (Overseer), Magi 11 Plantation, to 
John Moore, 20 February 1862, Box 38, Folder 185, Weeks Papers. 
4 2 Ledger 1862-1865 (Volume 8), John H. Randolph Papers, 
Archives, LSU; Cashbook 1856-1859 (Volume 12), Estate of D. W. Magi 11, 
Box 58, Weeks Papers. 
368 
shoes for each man, and a dress, chemise and a pair of shoes for each 
woman, usually in mid-October. Various ledger entries, however, indicate 
that, as the winter progressed, other items were distributed such as 
"extra shoes," "josies" (short jackets) given to the women in January and 
February, and "woollen jackets and socks" given out in November. More 
over, some planters chose to give lengths of cloth which the slaves 
themselves made up. (See Table 4-2 for the standard winter clothing 
issue on the Weeks family's Grande Cote Island plantation.)43 
Various types of woollen cloths served the slaves as winter 
wear. On the Weeks plantation, slaves received kersey, a coarse, ribbed 
woollen material, which, in 1857, cost 27 cents per yard. The standard 
adult issue of kersey for both men and women in that year was seven 
yards apiece. Philip Hicky, on his Hope Estate, used linsey-woolsey, 
a coarse linen and wool or cotton and wool mix, for slaves' heavier 
clothing, and Elizabeth Ross Hite, an ex-slave, recalled the "thick 
yarn clothes" which slaves on Pierre Landreaux' Trinity Plantation 
wore in winter. Rachel O'Connor, a slave-holder in the Bayou Sara 
sugar region, referred to the blanket cloth she used for slaves' heavy 
clothing, while the records of numerous other plantations merely cite 
44 "woollen cloths" in describing the winter issue. 
4 3 Ledger 1862-1865 (Volume 8), Randolph Papers; "Clothing 
Assessments for Grande Cote," Box 42, Folder 260, Weeks Papers. 
4 4 Letter from Ally Meade to Mary C. Moore, 2 October 1857; 
Cashbook 1856-1859 (Volume 12), Weeks Papers; Letter from Philip Hicky, 
Hope Estate, to Morris Morgan, 12 July 1859, Hicky (Philip and Family) 
Papers, Archives, LSU; Interview with Elizabeth Ross Hite, loc. cit.; 
Letter from Rachel O'Connor to David Weeks, 20 November 1833, Box 4, 
Folder 17, Weeks Papers. 
369 
Table 4-2 
Standard Winter Clothing Issue for Each Slave 
on Grande Cote Island Estate 
Shirting (cotton) Woollens Shoes 
Men 3 yards 6 yards 1 pair 
6 yards 1 pair 
5 yards 1 pair 
6 yards 1 pair 
Women 6 yards 
Boys (adolescents) 2^ yards 
Girls (adolescents) 5 yards 
*Smal 1 Children 2 yards 
•Small children received 2 yards of cotton shirting each in both fall 
and spring. 
Source: "Clothing Assessments for Grande Cote," Box 42, Folder 260, 
Weeks (David and Family) Papers, Department of Archives and Manuscripts, 
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 
370 
With the exception of children, all slaves on Louisiana sugar 
plantations received shoes as part of their regular clothing allowance. 
These were either purchased ready-made, or made on the plantation. In 
either case, they were crudely constructed, especially if fabricated 
on the estate. Charles Gayarre's account of life on a Louisiana sugar 
plantation included reference to the crude cobbling techniques used 
to make shoes. Slaves, he noted: 
protected their feet with what they called quantiers made in this 
way. The negro would plant his foot on an ox-hide that had under-
gone a certain preparatory process to soften it. Armed with a flat 
and keen blade, another negro would cut the hide according to the 
size and shape of the foot, leaving enought margin to overlap the 
top of it up to the ankle. Holes were bored into it, and with strips 
of the same leather this rustic shoe was laced tight to the foot. 
It was rough and unsightly, but wholesome, like the French sabot 
or wooden shoe. The foot, in a woollen sock, or even bare, when 
encased in a auantier stuffed with rags or hay, was kept remarkably 
warm and dry. 
Catherine Cornelius recalled that on the plantation on which 
she was a slave the male slaves made the work shoes "wid beef hide." 
Other than that the shoes were "heavy," she mentioned neither their 
quality, nor the skill with which they were fabricated, so it may be 
that they were of similar construction to those described by Gayarre. 
There were, however, other instances, in which tradesman, apparently 
skilled in the craft of shoe-making, were employed to supply a plan-
tation. Ex-slave Elizabeth Ross Hite recalled that, on Pierre Landreaux' 
sugar estate, "dere was a big brick house fo' de shoemaker shop. De 
4 5 Charles Gayarre, "A Louisiana Plantation of the Old Regime," 
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, LXXIV (March 1887), 610-1. 
371 
shoemaker was cullored. He was free. His name was Beverly. He tanned 
de hides an' did ev'rything. Even teached de darkies, dat is, de younq 
ones." Alternatively, some planters hired skilled slaves from outside 
the plantation to cobble slave shoes, as when "Mr Billards negro man 
Edmund came to make shoes" for the slaves on William Palfrey's planta-
. 46 tion. 
Many planters, however, chose to buy commercially made "negro 
shoes" for the slaves. These were also of crude construction, and the 
"ponderous ill-made" footwear seen by William Howard Russell was, as 
likely as not, of this type. For example, 1t is unlikely that the con-
tract Nashville, Tennessee penitentiary had with the Gay plantation 1n 
1840 for making shoes at fifty cents a pair furnished the slaves with 
well-crafted footwear. Although the retail price for "negro shoes" 
was somewhat higher if purchased through the usual commercial outlets 
($1.00 to $1.25 per pair in the 1840s and 1850s), the quality probably 
4 7 
did not differ markedly. 
The shoes issued to field hands were often described as "russett 
brogans," a term indicating not only the coarse construction, but also 
the condition and color of the leather, which had retained Its brown 
4 6 Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. c1t.; Interview 
with Elizabeth Ross Hite, loc. cit.; Plantation Diary 1860-1868, 1895 
(Volume 18), William T. and George D. Palfrey Account Books, Archives, 
LSU. 
4 7 Russell, My Diary, 380; Box 6, Folder 51, Gay Papers; "W. 
Emerson's a/c for Boots & Shoes for Southdown & Waterloo for 1849," 
Diary 4 - 1850, Minor (William J. and Family) Papers, Archives, LSU; 
Journal—Plantation Book 1847-1852 (Volume 5), Randolph Papers; Box 5, 
Folder 25, Stirling (Lewis and Family) Papers, Archives, LSU. 
372 
hue through tanning. On a number of larger plantations, however, bet-
ter quality black shoes were purchased for domestic house slaves. For 
example, included in the distribution for 1854 of "negro shoes" on the 
Sitrling family's plantation were "House Servants Black Shoes" of various 
sizes, and ex-slave Elizabeth Ross Hite recalled that "de master brougnt 
his house people shoes from France. Dey had to look gud, caise de 
48 
master had plenty of company." 
While domestics and slaves at work in the fields wore shoes, 
hands employed in two of the more arduous tasks on the plantation, 
ditching and wood-cutting, sometimes received boots. Both the wood-
cutting, done in the swamps abutting the plantations, and ditching 
meant that the slaves spent extended periods standing in water. Con-
sequently, some plantation owners chose to give boots to slaves so 
employed, as, for example, on the Gay family's plantation where some 49 
of the male slaves got "ditching boots." 
Slaves received shoes once or twice a year. Practices varied 
from plantation to plantation, and, on the same estate, slaves1 sex 
and age could influence the frequency of issue. When planters issued 
only one pair of shoes a year, they usually comprised part of the fall 
clothing ration. Elu Landry, for example, gave the slaves their shoes 
in October 1848 and November 1849, while on the Stirling family's plan-50 tation in 1859-61 , the shoe issue fell regularly in October. 
4 8 "Negroe Shoes given out in 1854," Box 8, Folder 48, Stirling 
Papers; Interview with Elizabeth Ross Hite, loc. cit. 
4 9 Estate Record Book 1831-1845 (Volume 8), Gay Papers. 
5 0 Plantation Diary and Ledger, Landry (Elu) Estate, Archives, 
LSU; "List of Negroes Coats & Shoes," Box 10, Folder 59, Stirling Papers. 
373 
A different system prevailed on the Gay family's estate. In 
1849-53, slave men of working age received two pairs of shoes each 
year, usually in February and October, while some slave women received 
only one pair and others two. There is no discernible pattern indicat-
ing why some women received two pairs and some one, but since the ledaer 
listed what each individual slave received, the allocation may have 
been based on demonstrable need. Alternatively, some of the women 
may have been doing light work, perhaps because they were pregnant or 
suckling, and consequently did not receive the ration accorded field 
hands. Need seems to have been the determining criterion on John Ran-
dolph's plantation, a ledger of which lists, without further explana-
51 
tion, "Extra shoes given out." 
Not all slaves received the full allotment of footwear. On 
the Gay plantation, for example, superannuated and adolescent slaves 
received shoes less frequently than working adults. The records do 
not reveal whether this was a specific policy, or if these groups wore 
out their shoes less quickly. Young children usually went without shoes. 
Carlyle Stewart, who, as a child, had been a slave on Octave de la 
Houssaye's sugar estate, recollected that as children "we didn't have 
no shoes." The clothing allocation of slaves on the Weeks family's 
sugar estate supports Stewart's testimony, since it shows that small 52 children received no shoes. (See Table 4-2.) 
51 Plantation Record Book 1849-1860 (Volume 36), Gay Papers; 
Ledger 1862-1865 (Volume 8), Randolph Papers. 
5 2 Plantation Record Book 1849-1860 (Volume 36), Gay Papers; 
Interviewee—Carlyle Stewart: Interviewer—Flossie McElwee: Date--
1940, F.W.P. Interviews, Louisiana State Library; "Clothing Assessments 
for Grande Cote," Box 42, Folder 260, Weeks Papers. 
374 
Other exceptions to the annual/semi-annual shoe distribution 
pattern occur, for example, in the ledger recording shoes given out on 
the Gay family's estate for 1859 and 1860. On numerous occasions 
throughout these years slaves, numbering anywhere from 1 to 45, received 
shoes, presumably when they needed them; similarly, Maunsell White 
claimed that he gave the slaves on his Deer Range Plantation M2 pr. & 
sometimes 3 pair in the course of the year depending much on their 
53 
quality." 
On other occasions, slaves whose shoes wore out before the 
next scheduled distribution had to do without. This would, of course, 
have been a greater problem when slaves received one rather than two 
pairs of shoes a year. One reason for the annual fall distribution 
may have been that, if the shoes wore out before the next issue, slaves 
would go barefoot in the more clement summer months at a time when the 
work of weeding and laying the crop by was somewhat less onerous. In 
other cases, the want of shoes occurred at times which must have 
caused slaves a great deal of discomfort. For example, John Craighead 
wrote from his plantation in Iberville Parish to his partner Andrew 
Hynes, that, with the temperatures near freezing, he was "about to „54 commence making Sugar without . . . shoes for the negroes." 
5 3 Ration Book 1859-1863 (Volume 90), Gay Papers; Letter from 
Maunsell White, Deer Range to Charles H. Mason, Esq., Editor of the 
Economist, Cannelton, 14 September 1849, Maunsell White Letterbook, 
Archives, LSU. 
5 4 Letter from John B. Craighead, Iberville, to Colonel Andrew 
Hynes, Nashville, 1 October 1837, Box 5, Folder 41, Gay Papers. 
375 
With the prospect of going barefoot in inclement weather, some 
slaves sought to extend the life of their shoes by caring for them in 
the manner recalled by ex-slave Catherine Cornelius. To preserve the 
leather and make them more supple and comfortable, she claimed the 
slaves "greas[ed] shoes wid meat skin en put on pot blackenin." The 
slaves1 use of blackening may have been an attempt to imitate the 
c c 
appearance of the black shoes worn by house slaves.^ 
Planters throughout the Louisiana sugar region adhered, fairly 
consistently, to the general pattern of two clothing issues per year, 
one for summer wear, the other for winter. Failure to meet this sched-
ule caused planters or their representatives some concern. W. W. Law-
less, overseer on Charles Mathews' Chaseland Plantation, on the Bayou 
Lafourche, wrote to the owner "I have no stuff as yet for the sumer 
clothing for the Negroes & the Seamstresses here have nothing to do & 
will be late to get the clothirvg made." Mary Weeks' overseer, John 
Merriman, reported that, at her Grande Cote Island plantation, "the 
Negro clothing is very indiferent stuff and I think the quantity 
insufficient as I have received only two hundred and thirty yards--I 
also received some Bore Stuf, but no cotton for tops, nor none for , 56 shirting, do you wish the men to have jackets this season." 
5 5 Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. cit. Similar prac-
tices prevailed in other shoe-wearing rural populations. Thomas Hardy, 
in J u d e the Obscure, mentions "a piece of flesh, the characteristic 
part [penis] of a barrow-pig [castrated boar] which the country-men 
used for greasing their boots." Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure (1895, 
rpt. New York, 1973), 33. 
,6 Letter from W. W. Lawless (Overseer) to William C. Leich, 
Bayou Lafourche, 21 March 1858, Box 2, Folder 20, Mathews (Charles L. 
and Family) Papers, Archives, LSU; Letter from John Merriman, Grande 
Cote, to Mary Weeks, New Iberia, 12 July 1840, Box 8, Folder 28, Weeks 
Papers. 
376 
There were a number of causes for this concern. Planters wno 
delegated the responsibility for making clothing to slave seamstresses 
on the plantation would not want these people to be idle for lack of 
cloth, and they also realized, no doubt, that the slaves would be 
healthier and would work better if suitably outfitted for the demand-
ing tasks they performed. Conversely, it is as likely that slaves, 
deprived of what they considered their due ration of clothing, would 
have shown their disapproval, perhaps by attacking the plantations' 
productivity through sundry job actions. As in many other areas of 
plantation life, overseers and planters underestimated at their peril 
the power of slaves. Relations between slaves and whites on the plan-
tation did not reflect total power dominance by the "master class.'1 
Planters, if they wanted the estate to run efficiently, had to recognize 
and respect what was often a very delicate balance of reciprocal rights 
and obligations in such areas as privacy, holidays, rights to property 
and its disposal and other established routines of plantation life. 
It is, therefore, likely that slaves could exert pressures to make 
planters conform to the established routine of clothing distribution. 
Extant records show that slaves on Louisiana sugar plantations 
usually received their regular ration of clothes. It is doubtful, how-
ever, that these allocations suited the needs of an extremely hard-
worked labor force. Ceceil George, who was sold as a slave from a 
cotton plantation in South Carolina to a sugar plantation in St. Ber-
nard Parish, Louisiana, recalled that "in de ole country (S.C.) dey 
had spinning wheels made dere own cloth—made gloves, caps for de 
head. . . . In dis country [Louisiana], dey give yo' de ole clothes, 
377 
one pair shoes a year, no stockin's an' in de winter, someti-nes yo' so 
cold—Lawd (Lord) have mercy 
Contemporary travellers and commentators disagreed on the ade-
quacy of slaves' clothing. Accounts range from a description of slaves 
"with their bodies half exposed to the severest of cold weather," and 
James Pearse's comments on their "scanty dress," to the views of Solon 
Robinson, that the slaves were "all neatly dressed," and William Howard 
Russell, that slaves' clothing "seemed heavy for the climate." One 
can assume that slaves in such an extensive plantation system experi-
c o 
enced this entire range. 
The summer and winter clothing issues were, however, unlikely 
to fulfill the needs of working slaves unless augmented by various 
supplemental allocations. Some plantations made additional allotments 
of such items as hats, socks and outer and under garments. While 
ex-slave Ceceil George complained that slaves on the la Houssaye plan-
tation were given "no stockin's," Maunsell White ordered, for his 
Deer Range Estate, "20 doz. of knit woollen socks for [the] negroes," 
specifying that he wanted the larger and better quality items which 
sold for $1.50 to $2.25 per dozen. White also wrote of having "splendid 
5 7 Interviewee—Ceceil George: Interviewer—Maude Wallace: 
Date--!940: F.W.P. Interviews, Louisiana State Library. 
5 8 The Planter's Banner (Franklin, St. Mary's Parish, Louisiana), 
XIV (2 August^849), 1; James Pearse, A Narrative of the Life of James 
Pearse (Rutland, Vt., 1825), 83; Herbert Anthony Kellar, ed., Solon 
ftobinson, Pioneer and Agriculturalist (Indianapolis, 1936), II, 167; 
Russell, M^ Diary7380. 
378 
over coats made for the people that work in the Field, Blue & green 
of a large size, so that they last them 3 years." Similarly, Rachel 
O'Connor issued slaves overcoats ("good warm blanket coat[s]") for win-
ter wear, and on other plantations, slaves received similar outer gar-, 
ments, or shorter coats and jackets such as roundabouts and "joseys." 
Included in the slaves1 1850 clothing allocations on William Minor's 
Southdown Plantation were a pair of woollen socks, a nightshirt and a 
pair of cotton drawers, while, in addition to their regular fall allo-
cation, slaves on John Randolph's Nottoway Plantation got josies, 
woollen pants, jackets and socks at various times during the winter 
months. Winter headgear usually comprised felt or glazed hats, or 
woollen caps for the men, and woollen caps, or kerchiefs suitable to 
be tied turban-style, for the women. (See Appendix 4-h for contemporary 
59 
prints depicting the working garb of Louisiana sugar plantation slaves.) 
Clothing allowances supplemental to the regular semi-annual 
distributions frequently favored certain groups of slaves on the plan-
tation. Slaves in positions of authority, such as drivers and trades-
men, received extra and superior clothing. Moses Driver, for example, 
a slave driver on the Gay Estate, received "woolen pantaloons" in addi-
tion to the regular allowance given the other slaves on the plantation, 
while, in the previous year, of the 51 men supplied with winter 
5 9 Interview with Ceceil George, loc. cit.; Letter from Maun-
sell White, New Orleans, to Dr. Thos. E. Wilson, Louisville, 9 November 
1848; Letter, White to James P. Bracewell, 10 August 1849, White Letter-
book; Letter from Rachel O'Connor to David Weeks, 20 November 1833, 
Box 4, Folder 17, Weeks Papers; Ledger 1862-1865 (Volume 8), Randolph 
Papers; Diary 4—1850, Minor Papers. 
379 
clothing, 10 received "pantaloons only," 33 "coats only,'" 6 "pantaloons 
and coat," one a frock coat and one a roundabout.60 
The care of sick slaves included supplying them with extra 
clothes, as shown by the run on flannel which caused a rise in its 
value in New Orleans during the cholera epidemic of 1832. A. T. Con-
rad wrote to his sister Mary Weeks, who herself owned a sugar planta-
tion in St. Martin's Parish, that planters were providing their slaves 
with flannel, to be worn "next to the skin," and woollen socks in order 
to prevent infection. This had caused flannel to become a scarce com-
modity in the city.6^ 
Pregnant women were another "special status" group that bene-
fited from an extra clothing issue. Louisiana planters, like their 
Jamaican counterparts, rewarded fecund slave women. Rachel O'Connor, 
for instance, gave a calico dress to each slave woman on her estate 
CO 
who bore a child. 
Slave owners in Louisiana, of course, had a legal obligation 
to supply slaves with clothing. Codification of slave laws throughout 
the early nineteenth century aimed at ensuring the provision of "ade-
quate" clothing for slaves. Contractual obligations for the hiring out 
or employment of slaves by parties other than the owner included stipu-
lations about their clothing. A series of contracts from 1844-47 
6 0 Memorandum Book 1840 (Volume 27); Estate Record Book 1831-
1845 (Volume 8\ Gay Papers. 
61 Letter from A. T. Conrad, New Orleans to Mary Weeks, 29 
October 1832, Box 4, Folder 14, Weeks Papers. 
6 2 Letter from Rachel O'Connor to A. T. Conrad, 12 April 1835, 
Box 6, Folder 22, Weeks Papers. 
380 
between John Randolph of Nottoway Estate and C. A. Thornton for the use 
of Thornton's slaves on Randolph's sugar plantation included specifica-
tions about clothing them. Similarly, a partnership contracted in 1847 
between William F. Weeks, Alfred C. Weeks and Mary C. Moore "for the 
purpose of cultivating and carrying on a Sugar plantation on Grande 
Cote in the Parish of St. Mary" specified that, "The Slaves working 
hands furnished by the parties together with their children and such 
as may be old and infirm . . . shall be clothed, fed, and receive all 
necessary medical attendance, at the Expense of the partnership and 
shall [be] humanely treated." In 1857-59, John Moore, a St. Mary Parish 
sugar planter, hired two adult male slaves and a 26 year-old female 
slave, along with her two infant children, to William Gary for $500.00 
a year plus clothing, feeding, good care, payment for medical atten-
tion and the stipulation that they be treated "as a good master should 
and not . . . [put to] any work to jeopardize life or limb." Although 
there is no indication in the preceding contracts of what specifically 
constituted adequate clothing, one can infer that since the convention 
of a semi-annual distribution was so widely established throughout 
6 3 
the Louisiana sugar region, it provided the standard of adequacy. 
Clothing slaves was not a heavy financial burden for planters. 
John Palfrey, who had a sugar plantation on the German Coast just west 
of New Orleans, calculated, in 1815, the cost of clothing a ten year-
old slave girl for the previous 4^ years at $22.50, an average of 
3 Box 1, Folder 6, Randolph Papers; Box 14, Folder 40; Box 34, 
Folder 168, Weeks Papers. 
381 
$5.00 a year. For adult slaves, of course, the cost would have been 
somewhat higher. As noted above, shoes cost from $1.00 to $1.25 per 
pair during the period under study, and boots around $2.00 or a little 
more. John Randolph was buying men's jackets in 1860 at "$3.50 less 
10 pr. ct." each, and a couple of years previously had paid $210.43 
for "65 Suits of Kerseys [i.e. winter suits] for negro men," that is 
about $3.25 per suit. Clothing bills for the Uncle Sam Plantation in 
the late 1850s itemized the cost of various articles of slave garb: 
kersey pants for men cost $1.25 per pair, kersey coats $2.50 each, 
while for children these articles were $1.12*s and $2.00 respectively. 
Lowell [cotton] pants cost $1.00 a pair, and heavy "log cabin" pants 
cost $1.50, while the price of shirts ranged from 60 cents for lowell 
twilled to 50 cents for flannel, and "Campechy" hats [straw hats from 
Mexico] cost $2.00 per dozen. Presumably, the flannel shirts issued 
to slaves on Benjamin Tureaud's Houmas and Whitehall plantations in 
1852 were superior to those of the slaves on Uncle Sam Estate, for they 
cost $1.25 each.64 
The cost of clothing slaves was considerably less if planters 
bought cloth and had it made into apparel on the plantation; and it 
would be even less expensive if the cloth itself was spun and woven on 
the estate. Maunsell White calculated that, in 1849, he was paying an 
average of 12% cents per yard for cottonade, jean and lowell cloth, 
6 4 Letter from John Palfrey to Chew and Relf, New Orleans, 16 
October 1815, Box 1, Folder 5, Palfrey (William T. and Family) Papers, 
Archives, LSU; Journal 6, Plantation Book 1853-63, Randolph Papers; 
Box 1, Uncle Sam Plantation Papers, Archives, LSU; Box 1, Folder 2, 
Tureaud Papers. 
382 
while six years later, John Randolph paid somewhat less than 10 cents 
a yard (550 yards for $53.25) for "Cotton sheeting fron the Penitentiary 
where he also bought 20 pounds of thread for $5.00. In I860, Lewis 
Stirling's Wakefield Plantation bought seven-eighths weight osnaburg 
at 11 cents a yard and four-fourths weight at 13 cents. The heavier 
kersey cloth used for winter clothes sold for 27 cents a yard in 1857, 
while 25 years earlier linsey-woolsey had cost 50 cents a yard and 
wool cloth 45 cents a yard. When these prices are equated with the 
annual yardage given slaves—summer issue about ten yards for a woman 
and six yards for a man, winter issue about twelve yards for a woman 
and nine yards for a man, with lesser amounts given to children, the 
expense of clothing slaves was a modest one.66 
At least one planter, however, formulated a plan to decrease 
further her expenses in clothing slaves on her estate. Rachel O'Con-
nor, who owned a plantation in the Bayou Sara sugar region north of 
Baton Rouge, was, in 1835, "buying negro crops [corn] at five bitts pr. 
barrel, out of which they [the slaves] buy their summer clothing for 
themselves." She did not mention those slaves who, for such reasons 
as age, infirmity, or inability, either did not grow crops or had a 
poor harvest. Those slaves, presumably, would either have received 
a supplemental allocation at the plantation's expense, have been 
6 Letter from Maunsell White to Charles H. Mason, 14 Septem-
ber 1849, White Letterbook; Journal 6, Plantation Book 1853-63, Randolph 
Papers; Box 9, Folder 58, Plantation Diary 2 October 1831-25 February 
1833, Stirling Papers; Letter from Ally Meade to Mary Moore, 2 October 
1857, Box 30, Folder 139, Weeks Papers. 
383 
cared for by other members of the slave community, or, possibly, have 
to make do with one set of clothing per year, spending the sunmer months 
sparsely clad in worn-out garments.66 
On some large plantations, slave seamstresses worked year round 
sewing up clothing. Ex-slave Elizabeth Ross Hite recalled "winter 
clothes was made in summer an' summer clothes was made in winter . . 
by old lady Betsy Adams . . . de seamstress." Sewing up slave clothing 
was, of course, not the only work done by seamstresses, for they were 
also often responsible for making clothing for the planter and his 
family, and for other domestic duties. In fact, Braxton Bragg, a 
Louisiana sugar planter and later a leading Confederate general, 
apparently did not use the skilled seamstress on his estate for making 
slave clothing. In a letter to his wife, Bragg mentioned that "Rose 
is a fine looking girl, 18 yrs, said to be a faithful trusty house 
girl and fair seamstress. Nancy also sews, and one of the field hands 
makes negro clothing." In 1861, Richard Pugh, a Lafourche Parish 
sugar planter, paid $800.00 for a "Black Woman, Louise, aged about 
34 yrs--a superior french Cook, Washer & Ironer, fluter i Seamstress." 
Louise's skills were probably applied to the cuisine and wardrobe of the 
Pugh family, while less accomplished bondswomen sewed the clothing for 
slaves on the plantation.67 
6 6 Letter from Rachel O'Connor to Mary Weeks, 14 December 
1835, Box 6, Folder 23, Weeks Papers. 
6 7 Interview with Elizabeth Ross Hite, loc. cit.; Letter from 
Braxton Bragg to his wife, 10 February 1856, Braxton Bragg Papers, 
Archives, LSU; Folder 3, Pugh (Richard L.) Papers, Archives, LSU. 
384 
On the Weeks family's Grande Cote plantation through the mid-
1850s six slaves worked to sew the men's summer clothing. In one year, 
for example, Charity, Phoebe and Mary made 19 sets of shirts and pants 
of the first size, Nancy, Silvia, Nelly and Charity made 34 sets of the 
second size, while Silvia also sewed 24 pairs of boy's pants. On the 
Grande Cote Estate, the slaves worked under the direction of the plant-
er's wife. She provided the slaves with bolts of cloth and paper pat-
terns for the various sizes of clothing. The slave seamstresses cut 
the cloth according to the patterns and quantities required, then 
68 
stitched up the garments. 
On Andrew and Ellen McCollam's relatively small Ellendale sugar 
plantation, the number of slaves (about 25) did not warrant slave seam-
stresses working full-time making clothing. As on other estates of 
similar size, those slaves employed in sewing alternated this task 
with other routine plantation work. A series of entries in Ellen 
McCollam's plantation diary provides evidence of this: 
[5 August 1847] Took Cinthy in to make up the negro clothing 
[16 August 1847] Cinthy commenced sewing again. She left 
off last Monday to make brick. 
[13 September 1847] Cinthy and Chatty sewing. 
[2 October 1847] Cinthy sewed three days and a half 
6 8 Notebook 1853-1857 (Volume 9), Weeks Hall Memorial Collec-
tion, Weeks (David and Family) Collection, Archives, LSU; Letter from 
William F. Weeks to John Moore, 5 August 1855, Box 26, Folder 112, 
Weeks Papers. 
385 
The fall issue of clothing, on which Cinthy and Chatty worked, was dis-
tributed on 17 October 1847. In the following two years, the one or 
two slave women delegated to sew slave clothing alternated between this 
work and field work. Witness, perhaps, to the inadequacy of the clo-
thing distributed were the two cryptic entries in the diary--
[23 August 1848] Had 8 shirts stolen out of the wash 
[10 September 1849] I had a pair of sheets table cloth stollen 
out of the garden 
69 
No mention is made of their recovery, or of a culprit being apprehended. 
The care of their clothing, after its distribution, was the 
slaves' responsibility. In this, as elsewhere, there was no uniformity 
of experience. William Howard Russell observed slaves with their 
"stockings worn away" and a Franklin Planter's Banner correspondent 
remarked on slaves whose clothing was "thick with filth exuded from 
their skins." On Lewis Stirling's plantation there was evidence of 
greater concern for hygiene. The 1851 plantation journal made note 
of tasks performed by the slave work force, and, for example, on Tues-
day, 21 October 1851, while "Men & boys were employed putting dirt 
Round the Matlas of Seed Cane . . . the Women and Girls [were] washing 
up their Clothes." Three ex-slaves, Catherine Cornelius, Martha Stu-
art and Louise Downs, all recalled that the slaves were responsible 
for washing their own clothes. Martha Stuart remembered that this 
was done at "a big wash place at de bayou, a great big spring," and she 
6 9 Diary and Plantation Record of Ellen McCollam, II, McCollam 
Papers. 
386 
also mentioned that slaves "pressfed] 'em dey ownself." The clothes 
which the slaves pressed, however, were probably their own Sunday gar-
* 70 ments. 
Jamaican slaves, similarly, were responsible for the care o* 
their clothing. J. B. Moreton indicated that clothes-washing was part 
of an intrafamily division of labor for slaves living as husband and 
wife: 
Those who live in pairs together, as man and wife, are mutual help-
mates to each other: the men build the huts and assist to work their 
grounds; the women prog for food, boil pots at noon and night, louse 
their heads, extract chiggers from their toes, and wash their frocks 
and trowsers. 
William Beckford observed that Jamaican slaves did their washing at 
river banks, where they also performed their personal toilet, while 
Moreton provided a description of the washing techniques of the "black 
women [who] take of beating and rubbing the clothes with stones and 
stumps of grass to save the expence of soap." This process, he claimed, 
wore clothes out "amazing fast."71 
iii 
The description of slaves' clothing embraces two discrete phe-
nomena: work clothes the planters provided, and "best" clothes the 
7 0 Russell, My Diary, 380; Planter's Banner, XIV (2 August 
1849), 1; Cotton Record Book 1833-38, 1851-59 (H-13, Volume 14), Stir-
ling Papers; Interview with Catherine Cornelius, loc. c1t.; Interview 
with Martha Stuart, loc. cit.; Interviewee—Louise Downs: Interviewer-
Octave Lilly, Jr.: Date—1938: Dillard Project, Archives, UNO. 
71 J. B. Moreton, West India, Customs and Manners (London, 1793), 
98, 150; Beckford, A Descriptive Account, 230. 
387 
slaves furnished for themselves. Apparel issued by the planter often 
favored those slaves at the top of the planter-structured hierarchy on 
the estate—drivers, tradesmen and other head people—as well as such 
"special status" groups as pregnant and nursing women and the sick. 
Slaves most able to earn money could more readily provide themselves 
with clothing to be worn when not at work on the plantation, 
An analysis of the clothing of slaves on sugar plantations in 
Jamaica and Louisiana is not readily amenable to broad generalizations. 
The diversity of slaves' apparel overshadows any discernible patterns 
of regularity. 
Little consensus existed among planters as to what clothing 
they considered necessary to supply slaves, nor did they conform to 
legal stipulations on the subject. Plantation records show that even 
on a single estate some slaves received adequate apparel while others 
did not. At the level of the plantation society, the hundreds of thou-
sands of people enslaved in the two plantation systems experienced wide 
disparities in clothing allocations. The evil of this distribution 
pattern involved not only the inequities but also that those slaves 
who suffered most were frequently those least able to withstand depri-
vation; particularly the elderly, the young and the weak. 
On the other hand, the ways in which slaves accumulated private 
wardrobes testify to the vitality of the slave community. Slaves eagerly 
sought to provide themselves with clothing other than their plantation 
work garb. When slaves spent money which they earned, clothing ranks 
among the staple items, along with foodstuffs, tobacco and alcohol, 
388 
that they invariably purchased. Lack of income meant that sone slaves 
could spend little on clothing themselves and, consequently, could only 
acquire the humblest of habiliments, while other slaves wore nothing 
other than what the plantation supplied. Even slaves who garnered 
minimal earnings, however, customarily purchased clothing. 
Slaves appear to have used clothing formally to distinguish 
between their lives as enslaved laborers and the time over which they 
had greater control--days off, holidays, sundown to sunup. When work-
ing for the planter, slaves never wore the clothes they had bought 
for themselves, and, conversely, slaves divested themselves of planter-
supplied garb, if they could afford to, in favor of their own clothes 
when their time was their own. 
The emphasis slaves gave to clothing offers the historian 
important insights into the structure of slave communities on sugar 
plantations in Jamaica and Louisiana. The direction of their expendi-
tures permits an understanding of how slaves defined themselves, and 
what they construed as self-improvement. For all sugar plantation 
slaves, money was scarce and earning it difficult, and yet, what slaves 
did procure they consistently spent on the same priority items. Further 
the very existence of these purchasing practices testifies to the vigor 
of the slave coranunities and the vitality of their autonomous economic 
activi ties. 
389 
Appendix 4-a 
"A List of Somerset Negroes served with their 
Annual Allowance of Clothing for 1793" 
First Gang Osnaburg 
(yds.) 
Baize 
(yds.; 
Thread 
(skeins) 
Needles 
46 men & 50 women received 8 4 4 4 
2 men received 12 4 8 6 
3 men received 10 4 4 4 
Second Gang 
8 men & 21 women received 6 4 4 4 
1 man received 12 4 6 6 
Third Gang 
11 men & 9 women received 4 2 3 2 
1 man received 8 4 4 4 
Carpenters 
6 men received 10 4 4 4 
1 man received 12 4 6 6 
Watchmen 
18 men received 8 4 4 4 
1 man received 12 4 6 6 
Domestics (6 men & 5 women) 
2 received 10 4 4 4 
1 received 6 3 4 4 
8 received 8 4 4 4 
390 
Appendix 4-a (continued) 
Osnaburg Baize Thread Needles Hat 
(yds.) (yds.) (skeins) 
Superannuated 
9 men & 11 women received 
Children unfit to work 
19 received 
24 received 
3 
3 
14 
15 
2 
2 
Stockkeepers 
5 men 
2 men 
received 
received 
8 
6 
4 
34 
4 
4 
4 
4 
Others (status unknown) 
4 men received 
1 man received 
1 woman received 
8 
4 
4 
4 
24 
24 
4 
4 
4 
4 1 
4 1 
4 1 
Source: Journal of Somerset Plantation, Hinton East, Proprietor, 1 782-
1796, MS 229, Institute of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica. 
391 
Appendix 4-b 
Clothing Issued Slaves on Harmony Hall Estate, Trelawny, 
2 men 
3 men 
22 men 
26 men 
received 
received 
received 
received 
on 6 June 1799 
Osnaburg 
(yds.) 
10 
10 
6 
6 
Blanketting 
(yds.) 
3*5 
3 
3 
3 
Hats 
1 
1 
Caps 
10 boys 
1 boy 
received 
received 
3 
3 
(also listed, "1 boy runaway," and 
"1 infant boy." No clothing ration 
for either.) 
2 
2h 
36 women 
6 women 
8 girls 
received 
received 
received 
6 
6 
2% 
3 female children received 
Source: List of Slaves on Harmony Hall Estate, Trelawny, 6 June 1799, 
Gifts and Deposits, 7/7-1, Jamaica Archives, Spanish Town, Jamaica. 
392 
Appendix 4-b 
Clothing Issued Slaves on Worthy Park Estate, 1793 
Head Housekeepers 
Head Cooper 
Head Potter 
Second Boilermen 
Head Mason 
Head Sawyer 
Head Carpenter 
Head Blacksmith 
Head Cattleman 
Head Muleman 
Head Home Wainsman 
Head Road Wainsman 
Head Watchman 
Nu
mb
er
 
Os
na
bu
rg
 
(y
ds
.)
 
Ba
iz
e 
(y
ds
.)
 
Ch
ec
k 
(y
ds
.)
 
Ha
ts
 
Ca
ps
 
Co
at
s 
7 10-12 3 3 - 1 
2 10 3 - - 1 
1 10 3 3 - -
1 7 2% 3 - -
1 7 2% 3 - -
1 10 3 3 - -
1 10 3 3 - -
1 10 3 3 - -
1 10 3 3 - 1 
1 10 3 3 - -
1 10- 3 3 - -
1 7 Zh 3 - • -
1 10 3 3 - -
1 10 3 3 - -
Waiting Boys 2 7 2H 3 
Groom 1 7 3 3 1 1 
Seamstresses 2 10 3 - 1 1 
Washerwomen 2 10 3 - 1 1 
Cook 1 10 3 - 1 1 
393 
Midwife 
Hothouse Nurses 
Black Doctor 
Coopers 
Boilers 
Distillers 
Potters 
Sugar Guards 
Carpenters 
Sawyers 
Masons, 
Under Blacksmith 
Home Wainsmen 
Road Wainsjnen 
Mulemen 
Hog Tenders 
Poultry Tenders 
New Negro Tenders. 
Cattlemen and boys 
Ratcatchers 
Appendix 4-a (continued) 
o> 
i- 3 • ^ ^ O) -Q CO CL) • • -Q fO"Q M CO (J l/l CO E c >, t- -o a; ~a 4-> ZJ CO 03 >> -C >> ro 2: o - z: 
1 7 3 1 
2 7 3 1 
1 12 3 3 1 
6 10 3 3 1 
9 7 3 3 1 
4 7 3 3 1 
2 7 3 3 1 
2 10 3 3 1 
9 7-1Q 3 3 1 
3 1Q 3 3 1 
2 10 3 3 1 
1 7 3 3 1 
6. 7 2% 3 1 
7 10 3 3 1 
14 7 2h 3 1 
3 7 2% 3 1 
2 7 2% 3 1 
3 7 2% 3 1 
8 5-10 2-3 3 1 
2 7 2% 3 1 
394 
Appendix 4-a (continued) 
ZJ Z </> O (O >, CD -—- <T3 JZ to <_> 
• w IV O r— O CO 
Great or First Gang 147 7 24 - 1 1 -
Second Gang 67 7 24 - 1 1 -
Third Gang 68 5-6 2 - 1 1 -
Grass or Weeding Gang 21 3-5 2 - 1 1 -
Vagabond Gang 13 5-7 24 - 1 1 -
Pen Negroes 48 7 - - 1 1 -
Watchmen 25 7 3 - 1 1 • • 
Grass Gatherers 7 7 24 - 1 1 -
Hopeless Invalids 18 5-7 24 - 1 1 1 
Child Watchers 3 5 2 - 1 1 -
Pad Menders 2 5 2 - 1. 1 -
Superannuated 2 24 2 - - - -
Infants 37 2-4 1-24 - - - -
Women with 6 children 3 10 3 - 1 1 — — 
• 
Source: Michael Craton, Searching for the Invisible Man: Slaves a 
 
cn i- —* -Q </> 
<c -a c >,  — o
%
a; • ^ . M co o CO •r- "O CD "O fd > >> O  O -— 
 
%
 
 
CO 
0
CO a. ra o 
00 
n3 oo
CO 4-> cd 
c <0 r—
nd 
Plantation Life in Jamaica (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), 176-9. 
395 
Appendix 4-b 
Clothing Issued Slaves on Harmony Hall Estate, Trelawny, 
2 February 1798 
a; > 03 
o 
a; p= r6 
CO 3 4-> (a 4-> c o 
CO s-aj to 
o —s, S-
* — . • CO 1— 
• CO s-
**— CO -a CO CO Q) 4-> 
• "O >> CO +-> CO CO aj I/) >> o M- 3 -O o u *r— O c 
>> s- CO o -C o i- 03 aj a> U- J* 00 O h- r— M c: u u. CO en •r— •r— CD O cn CD CD s- ro 4-> s- i- +-> s- s- S-3 CO 3 Q_ a; 3 3 3 o -Q -a JO JO -Q 03 a C ra 0J c rO ro 03 a; C 3 rO c 3 C C C 3 CO r— r— CO r— 1 — CO to CO r— O CO CO O CO CO O O O CO 
^pize 
+ ,fA Jacket 
& Pantaloons11 
driver 12 
Lisbon ab.1e 
field 
7 2*5 
Dago -do- 1 1 
Cuffee -do- 7 2*5 
James -do- 1 
Bob -do- 6 
Bob cor -do- 6 
Random -do- 7 
Jasper -do- 7 2*5 
Wilks -do- 7 2*5 
Hope -do- 7 
Phillip -do- 1 
George -do- 1 
Charles -do- 1 1 
396 
Appendix 4-a (continued) 
Harry -do-
Tom -do-
Fortune 
(runaway) weak field 
Adam -do-
Peter -do-
Ritchard -do-
Cato -do-
+ "A Jacket' 
Joe man boy 
+ "A B weak field 
Jacket" 
Sam weak field 
Leander Field & 
Cattle Boys 
Pitt -do-
Marbro -do-
Will -do-
+ "J[acket]_ 
& T[rousers~ 1" 
CO 
U1 
CO CO T3 "O co >> >> -O —' 
>> ^ CD CD Nl C cn «r- *p— <3 4-> 3 CO <D -Q J* rO CD C C ZJ (O CO r— r— O CO CO 
on 
O o s- co 
o o s-CD Z3 -10 rO CD C 3 CO i— O CO 
00 
CJ O 
CD 
c to 
5 
CO 4-> 
oo 
cn u 
-Q rO C CO O 
+ "A Jacket11 
Joe 
+ "A B 
Jacket" 
7 
7 
 nJ[a  
f ]11 
397 
Appendix 4-a (continued) 
CD > rO 
CO 
O 
CD E rO 
to 3 
rO +-> LH 
to to "O -O to >> td — " — >> — CD CD M C CD *«- -r-S- ro -M 3 CO O) -Q ^ ro <D C C 3 ro to r— r— O CO CO 
to j*: o o s-
CT> u 3 JO ro C to O 
to 
(J o S-
QJ 3 
CO 
00 to 4-> <4-u •»-O JZ s- OO Li. CD 
CD 3 JO C <o ro C 
r— tO 00 o 
Quashie Field & 
+ HJ[acket] Cattle Boys 
& T[rou-
sers]" 
Gosport 
+ J[acket] 
& Trou-
sers]" 
Cuffie 
-do-
-do-
Joe R Castle 
+ "A Jacket" 
Parson 
+"J[acket] 
& T[rousers]" 
Bumper 
+ "J[acket] 
& T[rousers]" 
Rodney ys 
Charles y s 
+ "J[acket 
& T[rousers]" 
Jamie y s 
Adam 
Peter 
houseboys 
-do-
yaws 
-do-
-do-
small boys 
-do-
398 
cd > 
ra 
00 
O to 3 a> 4-> E «3 03 4-> 
Z 00 
Julinna able women 
Betty -do-
Abigail -do-
Ancilla -do-
Minerva -do-
Fanny 
(washer) 
-do-
Nancey 
(cook) 
-do-
Hannah -do-
Rachael 
(yaws) 
-do-
Eve (sores) -do-
Charity -do-
Bessy 
(doctress) 
-do-
Jeany weak women 
Flora -do-
• 
Patience -do-
4 
Appendix 4-d (continued) 
to s. CD to 3 O s-— to h-
• • S-
— > to to to to CD 4-> 
• -o "O to +-> to to a; to >> o 4J 3 T3 — ^ o u •i— 03 o c s- to o O 03 a; cn Li- S- oo C_J h- t— N c u Ijl CQ Cn •r— •r— en o cn cn CD i- 03 i- s- t. t- V) 3 CQ a; 3 LL. a> 3 3 3 O OJ -Q jQ JO JO -Q 1— 03 (D c ra <d c 03 03 03 CD to to T3 e 3 03 c 3 03 C C C 3 Q. <D on r— j— to r— to to to r— 03 03 aj o CO cq o CO CO O O O CQ •= C_J z 
7 4 1 1 
7 4 1 1 
7 4 1 6 
4 1 1 
7 4 1 1 6 
7 4 1 6 
7 4 1 6 
7 4 1 6 
1 1 1 5 
7 4 1 5 
5 1 1 1 
7 4 1 6 
1 1 1 1 5 
1 1 
1 1 1 1 
cd > rO 
UO 
O CO —"1 
a; mJ -4-> E <T3 ro +J •z. t/1 
Lettuce weak women 
Hellena -do-
Amy -do-
Cleony -do-
Mumboe -do-
Princess -do-
Clarissa Girls 
Frances -do-
Clarissa cor -do-
Pussey -do-
Lavina Children 
Eve -do-
399 
Appendix 4-a (continued) 
• 
' * CO U CO c/") to CO CD 
• TD CO 4-5 CO CO 1/1 >> u tf- 4-> ~o * * — " o o •r- rO O > CO O -c O 
^—' CD Nl CD c Li- CJ s-Ll_ oo O I— CD •r— •r— Cn O CD cn CD S- rO 4-> s- s*. i- s- S-CQ CD Z3 u. CD 13 13 JO J* JD JO JO JO rO <D C rO CD c rO ro rO C rO C rO C C C to r— CO r— r— CO CO 00 o CQ CO O CQ CQ o o o 
7 
7 
3k 
3h 
1 1 
1 1 
t/> S-CD 
CO 13 O 
CD 
c: ro 
r— CQ 
S-o 
OJ 13 
5 
CO CD r— CO CO T3 CL CD fO rO CD m O z: 
5 
5 
5 
5 
Source: Gifts and Deposits, 7/56-1, Harmony Hall Papers, Jamaica Archives, 
Spanish Town, Jamaica. 
400 
Appendix 4-b 
Working Clothes of Slaves on Sugar Plantations in the British West Indies 
Print 1 shows slaves planting canes. The women are shown wearing skirts, 
chemises and turbans, and the men shirts, pants and caps or hats. The 
two drivers who are standing supervising the work are wearing stylishly-
cut coats as part of their dress. 
Print 2 shows sugar cane being fed into a windmill. The women, again, 
are wearing full-length skirts, half- to three-quarter-length tops and 
turbans. The man unloading canes from the cart at the right-hand side 
of the picture is dressed in pants, a shirt or short jacket of a dif-
ferent color and what appears to be a woollen cap. The driver (left-
center foreground between the mill and the white man--probably an 
overseer--who is at the extreme left foreground) again is dressed in a 
manner superior to the field slaves. His clothing consists of a glazed 
hat, a shirt, jacket and pants: he also appears to be wearing shoes. 
Print 3 shows slaves, in their usual working garb, cutting and loading 
sugar cane. In this print, the driver (right foreground, talking with 
the white man on horseback) has an extremely elaborate costume--nattily-
cut jacket and trousers, a ruffled neckerchief and, in his hand, a tall 
glazed hat. 
401 
Appendix 4-a (continued) 
Print 4 depicts field hands performing the arduous work of cane-holeing, 
again wearing what appears to be their full annual issue of work clothes. 
All the men in the picture are dressed in pants, a shirt and either a 
woollen cap or a hat. Their garb differs markedly from that of the 
driver (standing, left-center foreground): he has a cut-away jacket, 
and high collar and neckerchief, trousers and a hat. 
Note: Although these prints depict slaves at work on sugar plantations 
in Antigua, the patterns of dress closely resemble those of Jamaican 
slaves. 
Source: William Clark, Ten Views in the Island of Antigua (London, 1823). 
402 
Appendix 4-e (continued) 
Print 1 
403 
Appendix 4-e (continued) 
Print 2 
404 
Appendix 4-e (continued) 
Print 2 
405 
Appendix 4-e (continued) 
Print 2 
406 
Appendix 4-b 
Best Clothing of Sugar Plantation Slaves in the British West Indies 
Print 1. "A Negro Festival drawn from Nature in the Island of St. Vin-
cent," shows the elaborate dress worn by both male and female slaves. 
The clothing, and the ornate turban of the woman dancing (left-center), 
are markedly different from the working garb portrayed in Appendix 4-e. 
Print 2. The contrast between working garb and Sunday best is shown in 
this illustration of a Jamaican women ca. 1340. 
Print 3. Slaves, elaborately attired (and women bejewelled), celebrat-
ing a Christmas Junkanoo or John Canoe festival. 
Print 4. This scene of an Antiguan mission station in the mid-1840s, 
shows men and women in best clothing. The women are all wearing beads. 
Print 5. Slave dance in Dominica (ca. 1810). The slaves are all 
elaborately attired, although shoeless. Note again the ornate turbans, 
one topped by a broad-brimmed hat, and jewels worn by the women. 
Source: Print 1: reprinted in Terence Brady and Evan Jones, The Fight 
Against Slavery (New York, 1975), 121; Print 2: James M. Phillipo, 
Jamaica: Its Past and Present State (London, 1843), 236; Print 3: 
407 
Appendix 4-a (continued) 
reprinted in Michael Craton, Searching for the Invisible Man (Cambridge, 
Mass., 1978), 24; Print 4: reprinted in Cyril Hamshere, The British in 
the Caribbean (London, 1972), 128-9; Print 5: "A Negroes' Dance in the 
Island of Dominica," by Brunias, published by Thomas Palser, London, 
ca. 1810, reprinted in J. H. Parry and Philip Sherlock, A Short History 
of the West Indies (London, 1971), 168-9. 
419 
Appendix 4-e (continued) 
Print 2 
409 
Appendix 4-f (continued) 
Print 2 
410 
Appendix 4-e (continued) 
Print 2 
411 
Appendix 4-a (continued) 
Print 4 
412 
Appendix 4-e (continued) 
Print 2 
413 
Appendix 4-b 
Best Clothes of Sugar Plantation Slaves in Louisiana 
This print, entitled "Winter Holydays in the Southern States. Planta-
tion Frolic on Christmas Eve," accompanies an article entitled "Christmas 
in the South" written by T. B. Thorpe for Frank Leslie's Illustrated 
Newspaper. The print purportedly shows "Sandy Bill" and "Aunt Patsy," 
slaves on the estate of "a wealthy planter of Louisiana," dancing to 
the accompaniment of banjo and fiddle. Among the items of "best" clo-
thing discernible in the print are the full, collared blouses, dresses, 
shawls, kerchiefs and "tignons"* of the women, and the coats, short 
jackets, high-collared shirts and neckerchiefs of the men. 
* The "tignons1 slave women wore were Madras handkerchiefs bound turban-
like around the head. This fashion reportedly came to Louisiana from 
the French sugar islands of Martinique and St. Domingue, and thus links 
the clothing of Louisiana sugar slaves with their West Indian counter-
parts. Various Jamaican sources, as noted earlier in this chapter, 
referred to the Madras handkerchiefs or "toques" worn by female slaves 
there. Slave women in the two plantation societies, therefore, commonly 
wore similar headgear, derived from an African clothing heritage. 
Source: T. B. Thorpe, "Christmas in the South," Frank Leslie's Illus-
trated Newspaper, 26 December 1857, p. 62. 
414 
Appendix 4-a (continued) 
415 
Appendix 4-b 
Working Clothes of Sugar Plantation Slaves in Louisiana 
Prints 1 to 6 accompany an article entitled "Sugar and the Sugar Region 
of Louisiana," written by T. B. Thorpe for Harper's New Monthly Maga-
zine. They depict the working garb of sugar plantation slaves: men's 
jackets, shirts, trousers, woollen caps and wide-brimmed straw hats; 
women's full skirts, chemises and turbans. Prints 7 and 8, which show 
Louisiana sugar plantation slaves harvesting cane and transporting it to 
the sugar mill, are details from a sketch by Alfred R. Waud entitled 
"The Sugar Harvest in Louisiana." This sketch, in which slaves' work 
clothes are clearly depicted, is housed in the Historic New Orleans 
Collection and is reproduced on the cover of R. J. Le Gardeur, Jr., et 
al., Green Fields: Two Hundred Years of Louisiana Sugar (Lafayette, La., 
1980). 
Source: T. B. Thorpe, "Sugar and the Sugar Region of Louisiana," 
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 7 (Nov. 1853), 746-67; R. J. Le Gardeur, 
Jr., et al., Green Fields: Two Hundred Years of Louisiana Sugar 
(Lafayette, La., 1980). 
416 
Appendix 4-e (continued) 
Print 2 
OATIIEIINO TUB CAM. 
417 
Appendix 4-e (continued) 
Print 2 
418 
Appendix 4-h (continued) 
Print 3 
419 
Appendix 4-e (continued) 
Print 2 
420 
Appendix 4-e (continued) 
Print 2 
421 
Appendix 4-a (continued) 
Print 6 
422 
Appendix 4-h (continued) 
Print 7 
423 
Appendix 4-e (continued) 
Print 2 
Conclusion 
425 
The historiography of slavery has often tended to obscure the 
complexity of slaves' lives by focusing too heavily on their role as 
plantation laborers toiling, sunup to sundown, for the planter. Despite 
the oppressiveness of the institution of slavery, people enslaved within 
it were not reduced to mere respondents who performed at the behest of 
the planter and reacted to stimuli controlled by him. Defining slaves 
solely in terms of planter, crop and plantation labor conceals the full-
ness of their lives, the variety of their roles within their families 
and their communities. The independence and creativity of slaves was 
manifest in their economic activities: an analysis of the internal 
economy, therefore, permits the historian a rare and important insight 
into the private lives of a people who have too often been defined in 
terms of how they acted in the presence of their oppressors. 
The private economic activities of slaves have not been subject 
to extensive scholarly analysis. The presence of the internal economy, 
however, has long been acknowledged. Primary documents, both manuscript 
and printed, abound with salient information on the topic, while the 
historiography of slavery contains frequent allusions to this dimension 
of slave life. 
Although the internal economy has received more attention from 
recent scholars, even the earlier studies of slavery referred to it. 
In American Negro Slavery, Ulrich Phillips detailed "the assignment of 
gardens and patches to such slaves as wanted to cultivate them at leisure 
times," pointing out that slaves also had "the privilege of marketing 
their produce and poultry 'at suitable leisure times.'" V. Alton Moody's 
pioneering study, Slavery on Louisiana Sugar Plantations, chronicled 
426 
the work slaves did for themselves and the manner in which they disposed 
of their earnings, while J. Carlyle Sitterson, in his analysis of the 
cane sugar industry in the southern United States, mentioned that plant-
ers encouraged "slaves to cultivate crops of their own and to raise 
chickens for sale . . . as a means of earning their spending money."1 
While the scholarship of Phillips and others correctly noted 
the presence of an internal economy, the manner in which they explained 
it fails to do justice to the slave community. In conformity with his 
overall view of the institution of slavery, Phillips interpreted the 
slaves1 economic activities as a manifestation of planter policy. The 
internal economy, thus, was a component of an incentive system 
designed both to extract more work from slaves and to reconcile them 
to their status in bondage. In his scenario, Phillips viewed slaves 
solely as respondents to planter stimuli. 
Kenneth Stampp, in The Peculiar Institution, echoed this per-
spective. He subsumed his analysis of slaves' internal economies under 
the heading of "rewards and incentives." Stampp failed adequately to 
view this aspect of slave life from the perspective of the slaves. 
Rather than consider the internal economies as phenomena which slaves, 
at considerable sacrifice to themselves, were actively involved in 
establishing and developing, Stampp reiterated Phillips by explaining 
1 Ulrich B. Phillips, American Negro Slavery (New York, 1918), 
268; V. Alton Moody, Slavery on Louisiana Sugar Plantations (New 
Orleans, 1924), 64-71; J. Carlyle Sitterson, Sugar Country: The Cane 
Sugar Industry in the South (Lexington, 1953), 98. 
427 
the economies as carrots dangled by planters so that they could better 
2 manipulate the slaves. 
Undoubtedly planters accrued benefits from the economic activi-
ties of slaves on their plantations. Slaves' money-making ventures, 
for example, provided planters with cheap and convenient supplies of a 
variety of goods and services. Nonetheless, it is not adequate to view 
the internal economy solely from the planters' perspective as a scheme 
to manipulate the slave labor force. 
Recent scholarship on slavery emphasizing the perspective of 
slaves and exploring the vitality and diversity of slave family and 
community life has prompted reappraisal of the internal economy. The 
work of such scholars as John Blassingame and George Rawick has made 
it apparent that plantation slaves were neither powerless nor passive 
respondents. Blassingame claimed that "the relationship between slave 
and master was one continual tug of war." The analogy of a "tug of 
war" implies that both protagonists had strengths and were engaged in 
a competitive struggle. Slaves relied on such strengths as resistance 
while the planters often resorted to coercive power and vicious punish-
ments. Goals sought by planters included the presence on their estates 
of a quiescent, productive labor force, while slaves used their 
3 
strengths to improve conditions of work. 
2 Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the 
Ante-Bellum South (New York, T956), 164. 
3 John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life 
in the Antebellum South (New York, 19791, 317; George P. Rawick., The 
American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, vol. 1: From Sundown To 
Sunup: The Making of the Black Community (Westport, Conn., 1972). 
428 
Slaves, however, were not only concerned with effecting change 
in their lot as praedial laborers; they also secured influence over 
their private lives. Despite the oppression and tyranny of the insti-
tution of slavery, slaves achieved control over various facets of their 
family and community lives. Central to such developments was the 
dominion slaves had over the hours when they did no work for the plan-
tation, over territory in the quarters and grounds on which they dwelt 
and raised crops and livestock, and over the accumulation and disposal 
of personal goods and earnings. 
Plantation slaves invariably had some discretionary time. The 
amount of time off varied, depending on such factors as crop and season, 
and, indeed, often was insufficient to permit the slaves to recuperate 
from the labors they had just performed. Nevertheless in both Jamaica 
and Louisiana plantation slaves had periods of free time which they 
could use to their own benefit. In his study From Sundown To Sunup: 
The Making of the Black Community, George Rawick stressed the impor-
tance of this discretionary time, which slaves used "to take care of 
their own chores." The free time, Rawick claimed, "helped create the 
slave community by giving slaves time to pay attention to and develop 
their own lives and needs, even though it often demanded the utmost 
4 ingenuity to do so." 
Private economic activities comprised an important element in 
the community and family life developed by slaves in their time off 
from plantation labor. The recent historiography of slavery provides 
4 Rawick, Sundown To Sunup, 70. 
429 
three examples which show the importance of the internal economy to the 
world the slaves made. Despite the disparities of time, place, crop 
and labor regime, the findings of Neville Hall, Ira Berlin and Nigel 
Bolland display remarkable consistency. In his analysis of "Slaves 
Use of their 'Free1 Time in the Danish Virgin Islands in the Later 
Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century," Hall asserted that, at the 
weekly Sunday market in Christianstead, St. Croix, "the available market 
produce were, overwhelmingly, the result of the slaves' creative init-
iative in the use of their 'free1'time, particularly in the cultivation 
5 
of their provision grounds." 
Ira Berlin's recent essay on the evolution of Afro-American 
society included reference to slaves on cattle pens in the Carolina 
and Georgia lowcountry in the early eighteenth century securing "time 
for their own use." Furthermore, Berlin claimed that: 
the insistence of many hard-pressed frontier slaveowners that their 
slaves raise their own provisions legitimated this autonomy. By 
law, slaves had Sunday to themselves. Time allowed for gardening, 
hunting,, and fishing both affirmed slave independence and supple-
mented the slave diet. It also enabled some industrious blacks to 
produce a small surplus and to participate in the colony's internal 
economy, establishing an important precedent for black life in the 
lowcountry.5 
Slaves thus developed their private economies when the Georgia 
and Carolina lowcountry was an underdeveloped frontier region. As 
5 Neville Hall, "Slaves Use of their 'Free' Time in the Danish 
Virgin Islands in the Later Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century," 
Journal of Caribbean History, 13 (1980), 29; Ira Berlin, "Time, Space, 
and the Evolution of Afro-American Society in British Mainland North 
America," American Historical Review, 85 (1980), 44-78; Nigel Bolland, 
"Slavery in Belize," BISRA Occasional Publication, 7 (1979), 3-36. 
c 
Berlin, "Time, Space," 57. 
430 
Berlin pointed out, however, "blacks kept these prerogatives with the 
development of the [rice] plantation system." Indeed, the growth of 
townships and the tendency of plantations to staple monoculture 
"enlarged the market for slave-grown produce." Whereas some rice plan-
tation slaves took their goods to market, in other cases, "planters 
traded directly with their bondsmen, bartering manufactured goods for 
slave produce." Although "planters found benefits in slave participa-
tion in the lowcountry1s internal economy," Berlin pointed out that 
"the small profits gained by bartering with their bondsmen only 
strengthened the slaves' customary right to their garden and barnyard 
fowl."7 
The development of an independent economy continued until the 
abolition of slavery. "By the Civil War," Berlin claimed, "lowland 
slaves controlled considerable personal property—flocks of ducks, pigs, 
milch cows, and occasionally horses—often the product of stock that 
g 
had been in their families for generations." 
Berlin echoed Rawick in stressing the importance of the use 
of slaves' free time in helping "create the slave community." "Par-
ticipation in the lowcountryrs internal economy," Berlin noted, "pro-
vided slaves with a large measure of control over their lives. The 
autonomy generated by truck gardening and the task system provided 9 
the material basis for lowland black culture." 
7 Ibid., 65. 
8 Ibid. 
. 9 Rawick, Sundown To Sunup, 70; Berlin, "Time, Space," 66. 
431 
Similarly, Nigel Bolland's study of slavery on logwood estates 
in British Honduras showed "that the slaves maintained a degree of con-
trol over their family and community life." This control enabled slaves 
to develop their own economic system. A 1783 description of Honduran 
slave life, cited by Bolland, indicated that the slaves on logwood 
estates were "ever accustomed to make Plantation as they term it, by 
which means they support their wives and children, raise a little Stock 
and so furnish themselves with necessaries." Although slaves consumed 
some of what they raised, they also "participated in a rudimentary 
marketing system whereby some of their produce was taken into the town 
of Belize for sale."10 
Unlike the earlier analyses of slaves' economic activities, the 
works of Berlin, Bolland and Hall emphasized the active, creative par-
ticipation of slaves in the formation and operation of the internal 
economy. Lowcountry rice plantation slaves had "prerogatives" and 
"rights" concerning their private economies which gave them both "au-
tonomy" and "control over their lives," while "control over their family 
and community life" enabled slaves on logwood estates in British Hon-
duras to develop a "marketing system" that involved transporting and 
selling goods in the colony's townships. Similarly, the internal 
economy of sugar plantation slaves in the Danish Virgin Islands emerged 
from "the slaves' creative initiative in the use of their 'free' time."11 
1 0 Bolland, "Slavery in Belize," 4, 11. 
11 Berlin, "Time, Space," 57, 65-6; Bolland, "Slavery in Belize," 
4, 11; Hall, "Slaves Use of 'Free' Time," 29. 
432 
The diversity and ubiquity of the economic activities of slaves 
in Jamaica and Louisiana testifies to the "creative initiative" of the 
slave communities. The lot of slaves in these sugar-producing regions 
encompassed more than the relentless cycle of work, rest from work, and 
work again. Despite such limitations imposed on slaves by the plan-
tation regime as excessive labor, poor diet, clothing and housing, cruel 
punishments and inadequate medical treatment, slaves were yet able to 
participate in, and to a large extent determine the form of, not only 
the internal economies, but also a variety of other family and commu-
nity institutions. 
Although involvement in these private economies afforded slaves 
benefits and rewards, participants had to make extraordinary efforts 
and sacrifices. None of the money they earned came easily, all of the 
work they performed in its pursuit required hard physical effort, which, 
of course, came in addition to the gruelling plantation labor they had 
to do. Slaves, however, made this effort, and assiduously protected 
their rights both to do so, and to benefit from the fruits of their 
labor. 
Analysis of the internal economies shows that the profits accrued 
by individual slaves varied widely. The amount of money a slave earned 
could fluctuate considerably from week to week and year to year, while 
there were often sizable disparities between the earnings of slaves 
throughout the sugar regions and even on a single plantation. While 
some slaves made next to nothing, others were more successful in earn-
ing cash. 
433 
The significance of private economic endeavors to slave life and 
the slave community, however, does not rest solely with the quantities 
of money accumulated. The implications of the presence of autonomous 
economic activity are, ultimately, of greater importance than its volume. 
Participation in the internal economy prompted slave enterprise 
not subservience. Whereas plantation labor followed the will and direc-
tion of the planters, slaves1 economic activities entailed independent 
decision-making and choices. Notwithstanding their status in society 
as chattels, and on the plantation as bonded laborers, the operation 
of the internal economy afforded slaves extensive autonomy and inde-
pendence. In the prosecution of their money-making ventures, slaves 
made planting, harvesting and marketing decisions, chose how to spend 
the earnings they had accumulated, assessed how best to apportion their 
free time and weighed the advisability of this or that theft. Slaves 
conducted their economy essentially beyond the control of planters and 
its operation involved them in a way of life patently at odds with 
their ascribed position in slave society. 
In his essay "On the Totality of Institutions," Samuel Wallace 
noted that "all institutions of a society . . . have some power over 
the individual." Institutions, of course, vary in their control over 
individuals; the extent to which individuals have autonomy and inde-
pendence of action is predicated on the power that the institution 
12 within which they are operating has over them. 
1 2 Samuel E. Wallace, "On the Totality of Institutions," in 
Total Institutions, ed. Samuel E. Wallace, (Chicago, 1971), 1. 
434 
In slave societies, the "peculiar institution" of slavery exerted 
extensive control over slaves. Black slavery in the Americas, however, 
did not exercise total control over the Africans and Afro-Americans 
confined within it: it was not a "total institution." Despite the 
de jure definition of chattel slavery which presumed the total subservi-
ence of the slaves to the will of the masters, and notwithstanding that 
some slaveholders wanted total control over the slaves they "owned," 
documentary evidence shows that slaves invariably exercised autonomy 
in certain realms of activity. The choices open to slaves in their 
economic systems, their religious and cultural practices, their arts 
and their family and community lives, differed less in essence than.in 
degree from the choices open to individuals within less oppressive 
institutions. Whereas less harsh institutions allow individuals within 
them greater freedom of action in these areas, the exercise of such 
choices by slaves stands as testimony to the tenacity with which they 
secured and protected their individuality. 
Participation in the internal economy affected the lives of 
Jamaica and Louisiana sugar plantation slaves on the individual, family 
and community levels. Individually, slaves experienced the material 
and psychological rewards derived from a work regime which was self-
motivated and self-organized, and whose proceeds went to those who 
labored. Slaves mastered the arts of husbandry, and became proficient 
in the skills of barter and marketing both as retailers and consumers. 
Accompanying the material benefits of the internal economy were the 
psychological compensations slaves derived from exercising freedom of 
action. 
435 
As many of the plantation accounts chronicling the economic 
activities of the sugar estate slaves reveal, efforts were organized 
often not around the individual slave, but the slave family. Sidney 
Mintz and Richard Price, in their seminal essay An Anthropological 
Approach to the Afro-American Past: A Caribbean Perspective, agree. 
"Small kin groups," they found, "provided a basis for economic coopera-
tion, [and] were able to develop within some of the most oppressive 
slave systems."13 
The importance of family in the organization of the internal 
economy was apparent both in the accumulation of earnings and tfieir 
disposal. Members of slave families contributed to the economy of 
the family unit according to their dispositions and abilities. 
Elderly slaves, whose plantation duties were often less onerous, tended 
the kitchen gardens and livestock and operated various cottage indus-
tries while stronger adults bore the burden of the heavier labor. 
The bundle of preferences exhibited by slaves in their pur-
chasing habits consistently reflected the primacy of family. In the 
disposal of their earnings, slaves faced various choices as consumers. 
The purchases they made and the manner in which and the reason why 
they made them reveals how slaves sought to improve themselves, and to 
what and to whom they gave priority. In this dimension of the internal 
economy, kinship again appeared as the basic unit of "economic coopera-
tion." 
» 
1 3 Sidney Mintz and Richard Price, An Anthropological Approach 
to the Afro-American Past: A Caribbean Perspective (Philadelphia, 1976), 
38. 
436 
At the community level, the money-making ventures slaves engaged 
in provided the economic foundation for the development of Afro-American 
slave culture. Marketing patterns, both on and off the plantation, 
assumed social importance since they permitted not only economic inde-
pendence, but also distance from the planters' control. For example, 
a broad range of social activities on the part of the slave community 
accompanied the purely economic dimensions of market-day. Furthermore, 
the financial competence that the internal economy created helped 
establish the unique trends of life and society within the slave com-
munities insofar as the autonomy of slave culture was reflected in 
patterns of purchasing and consumption. Standards and styles of clo-
thing, furnishing, eating and drinking, so central to the development 
of slave culture, ultimately derived from the economic independence of 
slaves, as did such other social activities as gambling. Clearly, the 
internal economies of sugar plantation slaves in Jamaica and Louisiana 
were similar to those of rice plantation slaves in lowcountry Georgia 
and Carolina, which Ira Berlin found "provided the material basis for 
. . . black culture."14 
Links have also been established between the internal economies 
of slave populations and the structure of post-Emancipation economies. 
Sidney Mintz and Douglas Hall, in their article on "The Origins of the 
Jamaican Internal Marketing System," "established that both the peasant 
economy and its marketing pattern [in post-Emancipation Jamaica] origi-
nated within the slave system." They contended that "after Emancipation, 
many new markets would appear, and the scope of economic activity open 
1 4 Berlin, "Time, Space," 66. 
437 
to the freedmen would be much increased. But Emancipation, insofar as 
marketing and cultivation practices were concerned, widened opportuni-
ties and increased alternatives; apparently it did not change their 
15 nature substantially." 
The centrality of the internal economy to the "free" time pur-
suits of slaves on Louisiana and Jamaica sugar plantations suggests 
that these private economic activities had an impact on the formation 
and development of Afro-American culture, slave and free, that went 
beyond purely fiscal considerations. The slaves, their families and 
their communities, not only accrued material benefits from the money-
making endeavors, but also established individual lifestyles and rela-
tionships with kin and fellow-slaves that contributed to the creation 
of discrete social structures which endured through slavery and into 
freedom. Indeed, Sidney Mintz and Douglas Hall claimed that "it is upon 
the polinks [provision grounds] that the foundations of the free pea-
santry were established." Although their hypothesis may oversimplify 
what was a complex economic system, recent scholarship lends support 
to this position. "In the Danish Virgin Islands, the slaves by the 
use of the discretionary time, legally and illegally at their disposal, 
had created certain modes of being and behaviour that were distinctly 
theirs," Neville Hall pointed out. "By emancipation they had created 
1 5 Sidney Mintz and Douglas Hall, "The Origins of the Jamaican 
Internal Marketing System," Yale University Publications in Anthropol-
ogy, 57 (I960), 18, 24. 
438 
a culture, neither wholly African nor yet European, retaining, adapting, 
borrowing and adopting."1^ 
The economic activities of slaves thus had profound impact on 
many dimensions of slave life and formed a basis for the establishment 
of an enduring Afro-American culture. The internal economy, however, 
also brought slaves into contact with the free population of the plan-
tation societies. The forms of such contact differed markedly from the 
plantation relationships of taskmaster and slave laborer. As partici-
pants within the internal economy, slaves established and protected 
their autonomy, and exercised considerable power over those with whom 
they traded. The influence and control over the free population that 
slaves derived from their economic activities suggests indeed that the 
internal economy played an integral role in the formation of white 
culture in slave plantation societies. An analysis of the internal 
economy thus permits an understanding of both the private world that 
the slaves made, and "the role of the powerless in affecting, and even 
controlling important parts of the lives of the masters."17 
1 6 Ibid., 9; Hall, "Slaves Use of 'Free' Time," 42. 
1 7 Mintz and Price, Anthropological Approach, 16. 
Bibliography 
440 
Note on Manuscript Sources 
The paucity of slave testimony hampers the study of Afro-American 
slavery. Where such testimony exists, and the United States is undoubtedly 
the most richly endowed of the former slave societies in these materials, 
it is in the form either of .published accounts of exceptional individuals 
or of reminiscences of ex-slaves taken many years after Emancipation. 
None of the other former New World slave societies match the United 
States in such slave testimony. The comparative study of black slavery, 
therefore, must rely heavily on records left by slaveholders. 
Planters throughout the Americas left copious records in every 
form imaginable: plantation records, government testimony, published 
histories, reminiscences and accounts, newspaper and journal articles 
and advertisements, wills, mortgages, inventories, correspondence, 
paintings and drawings. All of these materials, if used circumspectly, 
aid in understanding the "peculiar institution." i 
In conformity with the adage that, for the historian, truth is 
not in accounts but in account books, this study has, wherever possible, 
relied on manuscript plantation records. In their public testimony, 
planters incorporated the biases of their attitudes to slavery and 
race; in their plantation records they did not grind this ax—they were 
concerned merely with tabulating such daily routines on their estates , 
as work schedules, crop production, weather, slave fertility, morbidity 
and mortality, thefts, runaways and punishments. Where it has been 
necessary to use the public testimony of planters in this study, account 
441 
must be taken of the biases inherent in the evidence. As an unadorned 
chronicle of the day-to-day occurrences on the sugar estates, however, 
the plantation records are less prone to these distortions. 
Slave colonies whose planter class exhibited a high rate of 
absenteeism pose additional problems. Many Jamaican planters, for 
example, did not live on the island, preferring to remain in Britain 
and delegate responsibility for running their sugar estates to attor-
neys, managers and overseers. For the historian seeking to locate 
extant manuscript materials, this high rate of absenteeism has both 
benefits and drawbacks. Planters who did not live on their estates 
usually desired to be kept well-informed of the state of the crop, the 
slaves and the buildings. Consequently, the papers of planter families 
often contain extensive chronicles of the organization of the planta-
tions recorded by those the planters delegated to supervise them. 
Planter families, however, lived throughout the British Isles, and the 
records they left are similarly distributed. Research in the manuscript 
collections of Jamaican sugar estates thus necessitates travelling to 
both Britain and Jamaica, and visits to geographically dispersed 
archives in both locations. Louisiana sugar planters usually lived on 
their estates, and their plantation records remain primarily within the 
state, with the largest repository at the Department of Archives and 
Manuscripts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge. Where relevant 
materials are located elsewhere, such as in the Southern Historical 
Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 
microfilm reproductions are often available in the various archives in 
Louisiana. 
442 
The cultivation and processing of sugar was a large-scale 
endeavor involving the labor of scores, often hundreds of slaves. The 
operation of this complex agricultural-industrial system entailed 
extensive organization which resulted in an abundance of records cata-
loging every aspect of life and labor on sugar estates. Another func-
tion of size was continuity. Large sugar slave plantations in both 
Jamaica and Louisiana exhibited a permanence and durability that dif-
fered markedly from the more ephemeral existence of smaller agricul-
tural holdings. Indeed, large sugar estates in both societies not only 
endured through decades during slavery, but also often remained opera-
tional and under the guidance of the same owners after Emancipation. 
Continuity of ownership resulted in continuity of records-keeping. 
The study of slavery on sugar plantations thus is facilitated by the 
abundance and detail of the plantation records, and the consistency 
with which records for the same plantations were kept through the years 
of slavery reveals patterns and rhythms in the lives of those who lived 
on the estates that would not be discernible from more fragmentary 
chronicles. 
The records of a number of Jamaican sugar estates exhibit both 
• 
detail and continuity. The Papers of Nathaniel Phillips cover a 55-
year period from 1759 to 1814 and comprise personal and business cor-
respondence, probate records and an exceptional body of accounts and 
papers for Phillips' Pleasant Hill and Phillipsfield estates. Included 
* A listing of all manuscript materials used in this study, 
including the location of the collections, follows this note. 
443 
in the plantation records are tables of slaves' ages, occupations and 
valuations, chronicles of slave births and deaths (including cause of 
death) and schedules of work and accounts of crops. The correspondence 
between Phillips, who was an absentee owner throughout most of the 
period, and his delegates on the plantations, supplies extensive detail 
of day-to-day life on the estates. 
The Penrhyn Castle Manuscripts cover a 125-year period from 
1709 to 1834, and include a wealth of detail on the organization of the 
Pennant family1s Kupius, Kingfs Valley and Thomas River estates. The 
correspondence between the absentee Pennant owners, especially Lord 
Penrhyn and G. H. D. Pennant, and their attorneys David Ewart and Row-
lartd Fearon, are replete with references to the treatment of slaves, 
while slave lists and plantation accounts divulge much concerning the 
regulation of the estates and the lives of the slave laborers. 
A series of plantation books for Worthy Park Estate, which runs 
from 1783 to 1£45, provides another example of the comprehensive nature 
of the records kept by sugar planters. These records, which Michael 
Craton has made such good use of in A Jamaican Plantation: A History 
of Worthy Park 1670-1970 (with James Walvin; London, 1970) and Search-
ing For The Invisible Man: Slaves and Plantation Life In Jamaica 
(Cambridge, Mass., 1978), reveal in great detail the organization of 
the sugar estate and the lives of the slaves on it. Cataloged in the 
plantation books, for example, are slave work schedules, food and clo-
thing rations, slave fertility, morbidity and mortality, runaways and 
punishments. 
444 
Other plantation records that are similarly rich in detail and 
span long periods during slavery include the Gale Morant Papers (1731-
1845), Dickinson Family Papers (1745-1801 ), Duckenfield Hall Plantation 
Records (1719-1877) and William and James Chisholme Papers (1730-1812). 
Numerous other Jamaican plantation records used in this study are more 
fragmentary, or chronicle a shorter period of time. They are, neverthe-
less, of great value in revealing the character of slave life on the 
sugar estates of the island. The Harmony Hall records (1797-99 and 
1812-14), for example, disclose changes in clothing allocations to 
slaves in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century; the Braco 
Estate Journal (May 1795 to November 1797) gives a daily breakdown of 
the work slaves performed in this thirty-month period, as well as list-
ings of slave births and deaths and the food allocations. The Somerset 
Plantation Journal (1782-86) contains material similar to the records 
of Braco Estate, while the correspondence between absentee owners and 
their Jamaican-based agents contained in the Gordon of Buthlaw and 
Cairness Papers and the Hamilton of Pinmore Papers clearly shows the 
patterns of interaction between slaves and whites—there are, for 
example, in both sets of papers, a number of references to the sale, by 
slaves, of goods and services to whites on the estates. 
The excellent bibliography compiled by K. E. N. Ingram, Sources 
vn Jamaican History 1655-1838: A Bibliographical Survey with Particular 
Reference to Manuscript Sources (2 vols.; Zug, Switzerland, 1976), is 
an indispensible aid to research on sugar slavery in Jamaica. Ingram 
provides an exhaustive listing of manuscript materials, their location 
445 
(and the availability elsewhere of microfilm copies) and a detailed 
description of their contents. 
Unfortunately, there is as yet no comparable bibliography of the 
manuscript sources for sugar slavery in Louisiana. A wealth of extant 
materials, however, enables research in the topic. Louisiana planters, 
like their Jamaican counterparts, incorporated painstaking records-
keeping as a component in the complex organization needed for cultivat-
ing and processing sugar on their estates. The plantation manuscripts 
of Louisiana sugar plantations match those of Jamaican estates in their 
detail, scope and continuity over time. Contained within them are 
records of life and work that few other pre-twentieth century manuscript 
sources can rival. 
The plantation records of the sugar estate of Edward J. Gay and 
Family, for example, run from the first decade of the nineteenth century, 
when the estate's founder, Joseph Erwin, began through the purchase of 
a gang of slaves to the outbreak of the Civil War and beyond. (In 1981, 
the Gay family still owns the former slave plantation and they still 
raise sugar cane.) The life and labor of slaves on the Gay sugar estate 
are revealed in great detail: quantities of food, clothing, shoes, 
blankets, bedding, tools and other utensils issued slaves; slave births 
(naming mother and child), illness (listing ailments and treatments), 
and death (giving cause of death and age of deceased); distribution of 
housing by family (giving ages and cash valuations for each slave); 
work schedules and sugar production; and, of particular importance to 
this study, extensive listings of the money slaves earned, the manner 
in which they earned it, and the expenditures they made, insofar as 
446 
they bought goods through the agency of the planter. In addition, 
family correspondence reveals aspects of the slaves' internal economy 
external to the plantation trading nexus—at markets and with river 
peddlers. 
The Lewis.Stirling and Family Papers (1797-1865), like the Gay 
papers, span the duration of sugar cultivation in Louisiana before the 
Civil War. The Stirling records predate that family's involvement in 
raising sugar; the early records show Lewis Stirling, the son of an 
immigrant Scotsman, building up a gang of slaves through inheritance 
and purchase. The Stirling papers, like the Gay papers, are rich in 
detail concerning slave life. Particularly important for this study 
are the listings of crops grown by slaves, the amounts of cash they 
i 
received for them, and the manner in which they spent these monies. 
Herbert Gutman, in The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom 1750-1925 
(New York, 1976), made excellent use of three Registers of Slaves 
(1807-51, 1846-65 and 1857-64) contained in the Stirling papers. These 
comprise a detailed record of slave births and deaths from the inception 
of the Stirling family's estates up to Emancipation. 
The David Weeks and Family Papers (1801-1862) also predate that 
family's involvement in sugar cultivation, but, like the Gay and Stir-
ling papers, trace the entire course of sugar slavery in Louisiana. 
They also reveal the complexity of slaves' lives under the regime of the 
"sweet malefactor." Other Louisiana sugar plantation records similarly 
rich in such detail are: William T. and George D. Palfrey Account 
Books (1832-1868), Thomas Butler and Family Papers (1830-1869), John 
447 
H. Randolph Papers (1844-1864) and Uncle Sam Plantation Papers (1845-
1863). 
Other plantati on records, although more fragmentary, or spanning 
a shorter duration, nevertheless provide a wealth of evidence on the life 
of slaves on Louisiana sugar plantations. The plantation diary of 
Isaac Erwin only spans four years (1849-52), but gives a daily listing 
of slaves1 labor schedules (including holidays and days off), as do Elu 
Landry's plantation ledger for 1848-9, the 1852 Ashland Plantation 
Record Book, Samuel McCutcheon's plantation diaries for 1838-40, the 
1857-58 Residence Journal of R. R. Barrow, the Colomb Plantation Jour-
nal for 1851-62 and the Journal of Mavis Grove Plantation for 1856-57. 
The Benjamin Tureaud Papers include a ledger for the years 1858-59 list-
ing slaves, the amount of money they earned, how they earned it and 
what they purchased with it at the plantation store. These data are, 
of course, particularly valuable in analyzing the slaves1 internal 
economy. The journals of sugar planter Alexis Ferry contain a similar 
list for 1848. 
The study of the economic activities of slaves on Louisiana 
sugar plantations benefits from the structure of the internal economy 
in that region. Unlike Jamaica, where most of the slaves' economic 
activities were conducted off the plantation, particularly at market, 
and therefore went unrecorded by planters, a large part of the internal 
economy of Louisiana sugar plantation slaves involved transactions with 
planters, and thus were entered into the plantations' records. 
Research into sugar slavery in Louisiana is aided by the presence 
of a large body of slave testimony. In the late 1930s, two projects, 
448 
one organized under the auspices of the Federal Writers' Project of the 
Works Progress Administration and using only white interviewers, the 
other organized through Dillard University and using only black inter-
viewers, undertook to collect the reminiscences of ex-slaves concerning 
their life in slavery. Since the ex-slaves were recalling events of 
some eighty years before, these records must be used circumspectly and 
with an eye to the distortions caused by the frailty of the human 
memory. (Among other sources of distortion was the race of the inter-
viewer. This can be clearly seen in the differing responses ex-slave 
Catherine Cornelius gave to similar questions posed during separate 
interviews by a black and a white interviewer. See Paul D. Escott, 
SIavery Remembered: A Record of Twentieth-Century Slave Narratives 
(Chapel Hill, N.C., 1979), for a methodology to deal with the biases 
in slave testimony.) Such records, however, have the potential, for 
revealing dimensions of slave life unseen by planters and therefore 
unrecorded by them. The clandestine trading activities of slaves with 
river peddlers, for example, of which planters gave little account, 
are documented in the slave narratives, as are intricate details of 
other aspects of the private lives of slaves. All of the Louisiana 
slave narratives remain in archives in the state. Unfortunately, no 
comparable body of slave testimony exists for Jamaica, or, for that 
matter, for any slave societies other than those of the United States. 
There follows a list of all manuscript documents used in this 
study. All of the printed materials consulted for the study are also 
listed below. 
449 
MANUSCRIPT PLANTATION RECORDS 
Jamaica 
The Institute of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica 
Account Book of Carlton Estate, John Packharnis 
Account Book of John Morant 
Accounts of Jacob Israel Bernal 
Braco Estate Account Book 
Fyffe Collection 
Georgia Estate Letter Books and Accounts 
Harmony Hall Estate Account Book 
Journal of Somerset Plantation 
Lady Mary Hamilton's Trust Book 
Letter of William Hylton 
Letters of Charles Gordon Gray 
Memorandum Book of Thomas Munro 
Spring Plantation Accounts 
Jamaica Archives, Spanish Town, Jamaica 
Braco Estate Journal 
Lists of Slaves on Harmony Hall Estate 
Rooke Clarke Papers 
Rose Hall Journal 
450 
Slaves on Harmony Hall Estate, Trelawny 
Thetford Plantation Book 
Worthy Park Estate Records 
West India Collection, University of the West Indies, 
Mona, Kingston, Jamaica 
Dickinson Family Papers (microfilm of papers located at the Wiltshire 
Record Office, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England) 
Duckenfield Hall Plantation Records (microfilm of papers located at 
the Greater London Record Office, Middlesex Records, London, 
England) 
Gale Morant Papers (microfilm of papers located at Exeter University 
Library, Exeter, England) 
Holland, Fish-River, and Petersville Plantations Title Deeds 
James Lyon Will and Accounts 
Nathaniel Phillips Papers (microfilm of papers located at the National 
Library of Wales, Slebech Collection, Aberystwyth, Wales) 
Papers of Caleb and Ezekiel Dickinson (microfilm of papers located at 
the Wiltshire Record Office, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England) 
Penrhyn Castle Papers (microfilm of papers located at the University 
College of North Wales, Bangor, Wales) 
Thomas John Parker Papers 
William Vassal! Letter Books (microfilm of papers located at the Shef-
field City Libraries, Sheffield, England) 
451 
University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland 
Gordon of Buthlaw and Cairness Papers 
Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh, Scotland 
Abercairny Papers 
Airlie Papers 
Hamilton of Pinmore Papers 
Kinloch/Wedderburn Papers 
National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland 
Papers of William and James Chisholme 
Robertson-Macdonald Papers 
British Library, London, England 
James Pinnock Diary 
Liverpool Papers 
Public Record Office, London, England 
Accounts of Blenheim and Cranbrooke Plantations, Estate of James Moffat 
(WO 9-48} 
452 
Bodleian Library, Oxford, England 
Barham Family Papers 
Louisiana 
Department of Archives and Manuscripts, 
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 
Anonymous Planter's Ledger 
Priscilla "Mittie" Munnikhuysen Bond Diary 
Ashland Plantation Record Book 
Braxton Bragg Letter 
Louis Amedee Bringier and Family Papers 
Bruce, Seddon, and Wi1 kins Plantation Records 
Robert 0. Butler Papers 
Thomas W. Butler Papers 
Thomas Butler and Family Papers 
Alexandre E. DeClouet Papers 
Isaac Erwin Diary 
Nathaniel Evans and Family Papers 
Edward J. Gay and Family Papers 
Philip Hicky and Family Papers 
Patrick F. Keary Letters 
Kenner Family Papers 
Charles Landry Mortgage 
Elu Landry Estate Plantation Diary and Ledger 
George Lanaux and Family Papers 
453 
Moses and St. John Liddell and Family Papers 
Andrew and Ellen E. McCollam Papers 
Samuel McCutcheon Papers 
George Mather Account Books 
Joseph Mather Diary 
Charles L. Mathews and Family Papers 
William J. Minor and Family Papers 
William T. Palfrey Papers 
William T. Palfrey and Family Papers 
William T. and George D. Palfrey Account Books 
Pharr Family Papers 
Alexander F. Pugh and Family Papers 
Richard L. Pugh Papers 
Colonel W. W. Pugh Papers 
John H. Randolph Papers 
Slavery Collection 
Lewis Stirling and Family Papers 
Benjamin Tureaud Papers 
Uncle Sam Plantation Papers 
David Weeks and Family Papers 
David Weeks and Family Papers - The Weeks Hall Memorial Collection 
William P. Wei ham Plantation Records 
Maunsell White Letterbook 
454 
Department of Manuscripts and Archives, 
University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, Louisiana 
DeClouet Family Papers 
Department of Archives and Manuscripts, 
Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 
Robert Ruffin Barrow Papers 
The Bringier Papers (Urquhart Collection) 
Burruss Family Papers 
Colomb Plantation Journal 
Alexis Ferry Journals 
Jean Baptiste Ferchaud Papers 
David Rees Papers 
St. Martin Family Papers 
Sebastopol Plantation Papers 
Henry Clay Warmoth Papers 
Department of Archives and Manuscripts, 
Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans, 
New Orleans, Louisiana 
Monnot/Lanier Family Collection 
455 
Louisiana Historical Center, Louisiana State Museum, 
New Orleans, Louisiana 
Book of Accounts of the Magnolia Plantation 
Journal of Mavis Grove Plantation 
Plantation Diary of Valcour Aime 
The Historic New Orleans Collection, 
Kemper and Leila Williams Foundation, 
New Orleans, Louisiana 
Appraisal of the Estate of Widow George Webre 
Ashland (Belle Helene) Plantation Journal 
Magnolia Grove Plantation Sale 
Henri de St. Geme Papers 
456 
SLAVE NARRATIVE COLLECTIONS 
Louisiana 
Federal Writers1 Project Files, Louisiana State Library, Baton Rouge, 
Louisiana. 
Federal Writers1 Project Files, Melrose Collection, Archives Division, 
Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Natchitoches, 
Louisiana. 
Marcus Bruce Christian Collection, Department of Archives and Manu-
scripts, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans, New 
Orleans, Louisiana. 
457 
MISCELLANEOUS MANUSCRIPT MATERIALS 
Jamaica 
Institute of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica 
Annabel!a Smith Letter 
Lemon Lawrence Letter 
Nugent Papers 
The Omnibus; or, Jamaica Scrap Book by Jack Jingle 
Petition of Stephen Fuller 
Philafricanus Letter 
Population of the Sugar Colonies 
Record Book of the Court of the Parish of St. Ann, 1787-1814 (Slave 
Court) 
Remarks on Wilberforce's Tenth Proposition 
Robert R. Gillespie Letter 
Simon Taylor Letters 
Slave Exports 
Slave Sale 
Slave Sale Broadside 
Slave Sale Receipt 
Jamaica Archives, Spanish Town, Jamaica 
Returns of Registrations of Slaves 
458 
Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh, Scotland 
Melville Castle Papers—Dundas 
British Library, London, England 
Clarkson Papers 
Hardwicke Papers 
Liverpool Papers 
Papers Relating to Jamaica, presented by C. E. Long 
Quantity and Value of the Produce of the British West Indies 
Public Record Office, London, England 
Colonial Office Documents (CO 134, CO 137, and CO 140) 
Louisiana 
Louisiana Historical Preservation and Cultural Commission, 
Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism, 
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 
National Register of Historic Places 
The Cottage 
Destrehan Plantation 
Laurel Valley Plantation 
Live Oaks Plantation 
Madewood Plantation 
459 
St. Louis Plantation 
Southdown Plantation 
Department of Archives and Manuscripts, 
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 
D. D. Arden Letter 
Rosella Kenner Brent Papers 
Consolidated Association of the Planters of Louisiana Collection 
Hephzibah Church Book 
Mrs. Isaac H. Hilliard Diary 
Clarissa E. Leavitt Town Diary 
W. L. Martin Papers 
John A. Quitman and Family Papers 
Hudson Tabor and Family Papers 
Department of Manuscripts and Archives, 
University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, Louisiana 
Governor Alexandre Mouton Papers 
Department of Archives and Manuscripts, 
Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 
J. Bart, Jr., Letter 
History of Evan Hall Plantation by Henry McCall 
Marie Victoire 01 lie Pucheu Slave Sale 
460 
The Historic New Orleans Collection, 
Kemper and Leila Williams Foundation, 
New Orleans, Louisiana 
Slave Auction Broadside 
Slavery in Louisiana Collection 
Louisiana Collection, Louisiana State University, 
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 
Historic American Buildings Survey, Survey Number LA 74 (Uncle Sam 
Plantation, Convent, St. James Parish), Public Works Adminis-
0 
tration Program, Federal Project 498-A, Branch of Plans and 
Designs, National Park Service, United States Department of 
the Interior. 
461 
GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS 
Jamaica 
British Sessional Papers: House of Commons 
British Sessional Papers: House of Lords 
Colonial Office Documents (CO 134, 137 and 140): Public Record Office 
Journals of the Assembly of Jamaica 
Report from the Committee on the Commercial State of the West India 
Colonies. Ordered to be printed 24 July 18Q7, 
Two Reports (one presented the 16th of October, the other on the 12th 
of November, 1788) from the Committee of the Honourable House 
of Assembly of Jamaica . . . on the Subject of the Slave Trade, 
and the Treatment of Negroes, etc., etc. Published by Order 
of the House of Assembly by Stephen Fuller, London, 1789. 
Louisiana 
The Consolidation and Revision of the Statutes of the State lof Louisi-
ana], of a General Nature, prepared by Levi Peirce, Miles Taylor, 
William W. King, Commissioners appointed by the State, New 
Orleans, 1852. 
The Revised Statutes of Louisiana, compiled by U. B. Phillips, New 
Orleans, 1856. 
462 
U. S. Bureau of the Census, Fifth Census of the United States, 1830 
Sixth Census of the United States, 1840 
Seventh Census of the United States, 1850 
Eighth Census of the United States, 1860 
463 
NEWSPAPERS AND JOURNALS 
Jamaica 
Anti-Slavery Reporter (London) 
The Columbian Magazine or^  Monthly Miscellany (Kingston, Jamaica 
The Daily Advertiser (Kingston, Jamaica) 
Edinburgh Review 
The Jamaica Journal (Kingston, Jamaica) 
The Jamaica Magazine (Kingston, Jamaica) 
The Jamaica Quarterly and Literary Gazette (Kingston, Jamaica) 
Quarterly Review (London) 
Royal Gazette (Kingston, Jamaica) 
St. Jago de la Vega Gazette (Spanish Town, Jamaica) 
Louisiana 
Century Magazine (New York) 
Commercial Bui1etin (New Orleans) 
De Bow's Review (New Orleans) 
Frank Lesliers Illustrated Newspaper (New York) 
Harper's New Monthly Magazine (New York) 
The Herald (Natchitoches, Louisiana) 
Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review (New York) 
Louisiana Chronicle (St. Francisville, Louisiana) 
New Orleans Bee 
New Orleans Bulletin 
464 
New Orleans Daily Picayune 
The Planter's Banner (Franklin, Louisiana) 
The Planter's Intelligencer (Alexandria, Louisiana) 
Price Current (New Orleans) 
Southern Agriculturalist (Charleston, South Carolina) 
The Sugar Planter (West Baton Rouge, Louisiana) 
465 
CONTEMPORARY PRINTED WORKS 
Jamaica 
Anon. The American Traveller. London, 1745. 
Anon. An Essay Concerning Slavery and the Danger Jamaica is_ Expos'd 
to from the Too Great Number of Slaves and the Too Little Care 
that is Taken to Manage Them. London, [1745?]. 
Anon. Hamel, The Obeah Man. London, 1827. 
Anon. The Koromantyn Slaves, or West Indian Sketches. London, 1823. 
Anon. Letter from a Gentleman in_ Barbados to his friend in London, 
on the subject of manumission from slavery. London, 1803. 
Anon. Marly; or a Planter's Life in Jamaica. Glasgow, 1828. 
Anon. Negro Slavery. London, [18—?]. 
Anon. A Short Journey in the West Indies. London, 1790. 
Anon. The Slave Colonies of Great Britain; or A Picture of Negro 
Slavery drawn by the Colonists Themselves. London, 1826. 
Anon. Slave Sugar in a Nutshell. London, [1850]. 
Anon. Some Considerations on the Present State of our West India Colo-
nies . London, 1830. 
Ashley, John. The Sugar Trade. London, 1734. 
Barclay, Alexander. A Practical View of the Present State of Slavery 
in the West Indies. London, 1828. 
Beckford, William. A Descriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica. 
2 vols., London, 1790. 
. Remarks Upon the Situation of Negroes in Jamaica. London, 1788. 
466 
Bel grove, William. A Treatise upon Husbandry or Planting. Boston, 
1755. 
Bell, Hesketh J. Obeah; Witchcraft in the West Indies. London, 1889. 
Benezet, A. A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and her Colonies. 
London, 1784. 
Bickell, R. The West Indies as they are. London, 1825. 
Bridgens, Richard. West India Scenery. London, [1836?]. 
Bridges, George W. The Annals of Jamaica. 2 vols., London, 1827. 
Burke, William and Edmund. An Account of the European Settlements in 
America. 2 vols., London, 1777. 
By Various Authors. Negro Slavery. London, 1823-6. 
Caines, Clement. Letters oil th£ Cultivation of the Otaheite Cane. 
London, 1801. 
Campbell, Charles. Memoirs of Charles Campbell. Glasgow, 1828. 
Campbell, John. Candid and Impartial Considerations on the Nature of 
the Sugar Trade. London, 1763. 
Carlyle, Thomas. Occasional Discourse on the Nigger Question. London, 
1853. 
Carmichael, Mrs. A. C. Domestic Manners and Social Condition of the 
White, Coloured, and Negro Population of the West Indies. 2 
vols., London, 1833. 
Clark, William. Ten Views in the Island of Antigua. London, 1823. 
Coke, Thomas. A History of the West Indies. 3 vols., London, 1810. 
Collins, Dr. Practical Rules for the Management and Medical Treatment 
of Negro Slaves in the Sugar Colonies. London, 1811. 
467 
Conder, Josiah. Wages or the Whip. London, 1833. 
Cooper, Thomas. Correspondence between George Hibbert, Esq., and the 
Rev. T. Cooper relative to the_ condition of the Negro Slaves in 
Jamaica, extracted from the "Morning Chronicle." London, 1824. 
. Facts Illustrative of the Condition of the Negro Slaves in 
Jamaica. London, 1824. 
Copley, Esther. A History of Slavery. London, 1839. 
Dallas, R. C. The History of the Maroons. 2 vols., London, 1803. 
Davy, J. The West Indies, Before and Since Slave Emancipation. London, 
1854. 
De La Beche, H. T. Notes on the Present Condition of the Negroes iji 
Jamaica. London, 1825. 
Dicker, Samuel. A Letter to a Member of Parliament. London, 1745. 
Dickson, William. Letters on Slavery. London, 1789. 
. Mitigation of Slavery. London, 1814. 
Duperly, Adolphe. Picturesque Jamaica. Kingston, Jamaica, [189-]. 
Edwards, Bryan. Thei History, Civil and Commercial, of the British 
Colonies in the West Indies. 3 vols., London, 1793. 
Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah 
Equiano. 2 vols., London, 1789. 
An Eye Witness. Recent, Affecting and Important Information Respect-
ing the State of Slavery in Jamaica, reprinted from the 
"Dublin Evening Mail," September 30, 1789. n.p., n.'d. 
Foot, Jesse. A Defense of the Planters in the West Indies_. London, 
1792. 
468 
Froude, James Anthony. The English in the West Indies; or, The bow of 
Ulysses. London, 1888. 
Gardner, W. J. A History of Jamaica. London, 1873. 
A Gentleman Resident in the West Indies. Montgomery; or, The West Indian 
Adventurer. Kingston, Jamaica, 1812-3. 
Gladstone, John, and James Cropper. The Correspondence between John 
Gladstone, Esq., M.P_., and James Cropper, Esq., on_ the Present 
State of Slavery in the British West Indies and in the_ United 
States of America. Liverpool, 1824. 
Grainger, James. The Sugar Cane: A Poem. London, 1764. 
Great Britain, Colonial Office. Slave Population. London, 1832. 
. Slaves. London, 1824. 
Harcourt, Henry. The Adventures of a Sugar Plantation. London, 1836. 
Heath, C. A. Considerations Against Laying Any New Duty Upon Sugar. 
London, 1744. 
Hibbert, Robert. Hints to the Young Jamaica Sugar Planter. London, 
1825. 
A Jamaica Planter. Notes on the Two Reports from the Committee of the 
Honourable House of Assembly of_ Jamaica appointed to examine into, 
and to report to the House, the Allegations and Charges contained 
in the several Petitions which have been presented to the British 
House of Commons, on the Subject of the_ Slave Trade, and the 
Treatment of the Negroes, etc., etc. London, 1789. 
A Jamaica Planter. Observations Upon the African Slave Trade, and on 
the Situation of Negroes in_ the West Indies. London, 1788. 
469 
Leslie, Charles. A New History of Jamaica. London, 1740. 
Lewis, Matthew Gregory. Journal of a West India Proprietor. London, 
1834. 
Li gon, Ri chard. A True and Exact History of the Island of Barbados. 
London, 1657. 
Littleton, Edward. The Groans of the Plantations. London, 1689. 
Long, Edward. A Free and Candid Review. London, 1784. 
. The History of Jamaica. 3 vols., London, 1774. 
Luckock, Benjamin. Jamaica: Enslaved and Free. London, 1846. 
Macauley, Zachary. Negro Slavery; or, A View of Some of the Prominent 
Features of that State of Society a£ it exists ijn the United 
States of America and in the Colonies of the West Indies, 
especially Jamaica. London, 1823. 
McMahon, Benjamin. Jamaica Plantership. London, 1839. 
McNeill, Hector. Observations on the Treatment of Negroes in the Island 
of Jamaica. London, [1788?]. 
Martin, Robert Montgomery. History of the Colonies of the British 
Empire. London, 1843. 
Mathison, Gilbert. Notices Respecting Jamaica in 1808 - 1809 - 1810. 
London, 1811. 
Moreton, J. B. Manners and Customs in the West India Islands. London, 
1790. 
Nugent, Lady Maria. A Journal of a Voyage to, and Residence in, the 
Island of Jamaica, from 1801-1805. 2 vols., London, 1839. 
Oliver, Vere Langford. The History of the Island of Antigua. 3 vols., 
London, 1894. 
470 
Orderson, J. W. Cursory Remarks and Plain Facts Connected with the 
Question Produced bv the Proposed Slave Registry Bill. London, 
1816. 
Phi Hippo, James M. Jamaica: Its Past and Present State. London, 
1843. 
Pinckard, George. Notes on the West Indies. 3 vols., London, 1816. 
Porteus, Beilby. Tracts on Various Subjcts. London, 1807. 
Ramsey, James. An Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African 
Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies. London, 1784. 
. A reply to the personal invectives and objections contained in 
two answers, published by certain anonymous persons, to An Essay 
on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British 
Colonies. London, 1785. 
Renny, Robert. An History of Jamaica. London, 1807. 
Ri land, Rev. John. Memoirs of a West-India Planter. London, 1827. 
Roughley, Thomas. The Jamaica Planter's Guide. London, 1823. 
Schaw, Janet. Journal of a Lady of Quality. New Haven, 1921. 
Scott, Michael. Tom Cringle's Log. Paris, 1836. 
Sells, Wi11iam. Remarks on the Condition of the Slaves in the Island 
of Jamaica. London, 1823. 
[Senior, Bernard Martin]. Jamaica As It Was, As It Is_, and As It May 
jte. London, 1835. 
Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of 
Nations. London, 1776. 
Southey, Thomas. Chronological History of the West Indies. 3 vols., 
London, 1827. 
471 
Stephen, James. The Slavery of the British West India Colonies Deline-
ated. 2 vols., London, 1824-1830. 
Stewart, James. A Brief Account of the Present State of the Negroes 
in Jamaica. Bath, 1792. 
Stewart, John. An Account of Jamaica, and Its Inhabitants. London, 
1808. 
• A View of the Past and Present State of the Island of Jamaica; 
with Remarks oil the^  Moral and Physical Condition of the Slaves 
and on the Abolition of Slavery in the Colonies. London, 1823. 
Sturge, Joseph, and Thomas Harvey. The West Indies in 1837. London, 
1838. 
Thome, J. A., and J. H. Kimball. Emancipation in the West Indies. New 
York, 1838. 
Williamson, John. Medical and Miscellaneous Observations Relative to 
the West India Islands. Edinburgh, 1817. 
Wilson, Thomas. Transatlantic Sketches. Montreal, 1860. 
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