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The Plantation Tradition in an Urban Setting: The Case of the Aiken-Rhett House in Charleston, South Carolina

The Plantation Tradition in an Urban Setting: The Case of the Aiken-Rhett House in Charleston,... ESSAY The Plantation Tradition in an Urban Setting The Case of the Aiken-Rhett House in Charleston, South Carolina by John Michael Vlach ^" cholars of southern culture usuaUy define an antebeUum plantation as an agricultural estate comprising several thousand acres where large numbers of enslaved African Americans labored to produce a single commodity-- cotton, rice, tobacco, sugar, hemp -- for export. By 1 860, when close to four milUon African Americans were held as slaves across the southeastern United States, about two- thirds of them were Uving on plantations. If we use ownership of at least twenty slaves as the benchmark of plantation status, we find that in i860 there were over forty-six thousand plantations spread across the southern countryside from Maryland to Texas.1 Although the majority of slaves in the South Uved on plantations, the institution of slavery was equaUy weU entrenched in the region's cities. In the three largest southern cities --New Orleans, Richmond, and Charleston -- slaves made up one-third of the population. Urban slaves usuaUy worked as servants for wealthy whites, but many worked as artisans in their owners' shops. In either case, slaves were usuaUy housed in their masters' homes. Such arrangements, which http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Southern Cultures University of North Carolina Press

The Plantation Tradition in an Urban Setting: The Case of the Aiken-Rhett House in Charleston, South Carolina

Vlach, John Michael
Southern Cultures , Volume 5 (4) – Jan 4, 1999
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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of the American South.
ISSN
1534-1488
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Abstract

ESSAY The Plantation Tradition in an Urban Setting The Case of the Aiken-Rhett House in Charleston, South Carolina by John Michael Vlach ^" cholars of southern culture usuaUy define an antebeUum plantation as an agricultural estate comprising several thousand acres where large numbers of enslaved African Americans labored to produce a single commodity-- cotton, rice, tobacco, sugar, hemp -- for export. By 1 860, when close to four milUon African Americans were held as slaves across the southeastern United States, about two- thirds of them were Uving on plantations. If we use ownership of at least twenty slaves as the benchmark of plantation status, we find that in i860 there were over forty-six thousand plantations spread across the southern countryside from Maryland to Texas.1 Although the majority of slaves in the South Uved on plantations, the institution of slavery was equaUy weU entrenched in the region's cities. In the three largest southern cities --New Orleans, Richmond, and Charleston -- slaves made up one-third of the population. Urban slaves usuaUy worked as servants for wealthy whites, but many worked as artisans in their owners' shops. In either case, slaves were usuaUy housed in their masters' homes. Such arrangements, which

Journal

Southern Cultures – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Jan 4, 1999

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