By 1860, approximately 2 million enslaved people worked on cotton plantations in the United States, producing around 4.5 million bales of cotton each year.
On the eve of the Civil War, the Louisiana sugar industry alone reached a peak value of $25 million, illustrating the immense economic power generated by the exploitation of enslaved labor on sugar plantations.
$25 million dollars in 1861 would be equivalent to approximately $800 million dollars, accounting for inflation, in 2024.
“I was owned by Johnson Bell and born in New Orleans, in Loisiana. Cordin to the bill of sale, I’m eighty-six years old, and my master was a Frenchman and was real mean to me. He ran saloon and kept bad women. I don’t know nothing ‘bout my folks, if I had any, ‘crept my mama. They done tell me she was a bad woman and a French Creole. I worked ‘round master’s saloon, kep everything cleaned up after they’d have all night drinkin’ parties, men and women.”
“Anne Bell: Dats de reason I likes to sing dat old plantation spiritual, ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Jesus Gwinter Carry me Home’. Does I believe in ‘ligion? What else good for colored folks? I ask you if dere ain’t a heaven, what’s colored folks got to look forward to? They can’t git anywhere down here.”
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The title of my first exhibition is called Plantation Life.
My goal is to create a sacred space where guests can learn, heal, and reflect on this dark chapter of our history. At the heart of the exhibition will be 24 to 36 fine art prints of slave quarters from across the American South, accompanied by audio narrations sharing the personal stories of former slaves.
The photos showcased will be of slave quarters and homes that housed slaves throughout the American South.
I’ve included a handful of those images on this page and plan on the creating the rest of them in December, 2024, and January, 2025.
The exhibition experience will include audio narration from actors performing excerpts of the slaves featured in the Federal Writers Project, 1936 - 1938.
This content will be juxtaposed with audio narration from one of the leading pro-slavery thinkers of that time. His name is George Fitzhugh, and he wrote a highly influential book of that time titled Sociology for the South.
Guests will hear the arguments that were put forth during that time to justify slavery alongside direct quotes from the slaves as to provide poignant insight into this dark time.
“The overseers and patterollers in the time of slavery were called poor white trash by the slaves. On the plantations, not every one, but some of the slave holders would have some certain slave women reserved for their own use. Sometimes children almost white would be born to them. I have seen many of these children. ”
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This is an important topic and every American should feel this history. Start or continue your education through experiencing the spaces, places, stories, and people from this time.
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