Capitalist Entrepreneurs and Industrial Slavery in the Rural Antebellum South

While the alkaline glazed stoneware potteries of the Old Edgefield District of South Carolina have previously been categorized as a Southern \u27folk tradition\u27, recent research regarding the extent of production and labor organization, along with the social and cultural milieu, reveal an early example of rural antebellum industrialization enabled and made successful through the use of enslaved labor. Archaeological investigations within the domestic loci at the Reverend John Landrum site (38AK497) combined with the analysis of historical documents help to illuminate the economic and social strategies of one pottery owner whose use of enslaved labor within his own manufacturing establishment allowed him to gain the capital necessary to portray his desired social and economic position within the community. Although this analysis illuminates the actions and motivations of the \u27invisible hand\u27 of slavery, further research reveals that the enslaved were not passive victims of structural oppression, but rather, were able to exercise cultural creativity and take action within their own small sites of powe