Berry, Daina Ramey

Harris, Leslie M.

English

Texas ScholarWorks

The past is never dead. It's not even pastNOT EVEN PASTSearch the site ...  Like 86 TweetSlavery and Freedom in Savannahby Leslie M. Harris and Daina Ramey BerrySlavery and Freedom in Savannah puts African Americans and slavery at the center ofthe history of a popular tourist destination. The Telfair Museum’s Owens-ThomasHouse is the most-visited house museum in Savannah. We worked with the museumstaff to bring together the latest historical research on the role of African Americans inSavannah and the importance of slavery to the life of the city.Telfair Museums plans to build on this research by incorporating the history of slaverymore fully into its interpretation of the history of the Owens-Thomas house and thepeople who lived and worked there. This project builds upon some twenty-plus years ofcollaboration among museum professionals, academic historians, and historicalarcheologists, enabling major landmarks and historic sites in this nation to begin to tellmore fully the history of non-whites and non-elites.Privacy  - TermsDaina Berry and Leslie Harris on Urban Slavery…Watch later ShareSavannah is a prime location for understanding the centrality of slavery and race to thenational and world economy, and the importance of the city to southern landscapes andthe southern economy. Because of the great economic and social dominance of ruralplantation-based slavery in the Americas, historians have long assumed that that slavelabor was not suited to cities and therefore slavery in American cities was insigni cant.But a re-examination of slavery in cities throughout the Atlantic World has demonstratedthe importance of urban areas to the slave economy and the adaptability of slave laborand slave ownership to metropolitan regions, especially port cities such as Savannah..Urban slavery was part of, not exceptional to, the slave-based economies of NorthAmerica and the Atlantic world.Unknown photographer. Late nineteenth-century image of the Owens-Thomas House.Telfair Museums, Savannah, GeorgiaUrban communities such as Savannah incorporated slave labor into their economic,social and political frameworks, often from the very beginning of their existence. By thetime the Georgia colony was founded in the  rst third of the eighteenth century, it wasdi cult for the colonists or the trustees to imagine a world without slavery. Although thetrustees, led by James Edward Oglethorpe, instituted a ban on slavery in the colony’searly years, in fact those same founders also requested and received black enslavedlaborers from South Carolina to help them construct the city. Despite their own use ofslave labor, Oglethorpe and his fellow trustees vigorously opposed proslavery colonistsduring the 1730s and 1740s. But many colonial residents believed that slave labor wasnecessary to the success of the colony, and to their pursuit of wealth, and found ways towork around the ban, importing slaves for various uses. By the time the ban waso cially lifted in 1751, there were already 400 slaves in Georgia.Going to Market- A Scene Near Savannah, Georgia. Harper’s Weekly, 1875 Courtesy ofthe Library of Congress, Miscellaneous Items in Hight Demand collection, Prints andPhotographs Division, LC-USZ62-102153The slave population in Georgia grew rapidly after the ban on slavery was lifted in 1751.By the eve of the American Revolution, the colony held 16,000 slaves. Almost all of theforced migrants arrived in Georgia through the port of Savannah. Slave labor quicklybecame central to the economic success of the Georgia colony. Slaves were used toclear land, construct buildings, and cultivate rice and indigo.Olivia Alison, Owens-Thomas House Slave Quarters, West Façade Telfair Museums,Savannah, GeorgiaThe American Revolution and its aftermath was a time of great upheaval for the slavesystem in Georgia, and in the nation. For some, and particularly for enslaved blacks, itappeared that slavery might be on the verge of ending, even in the South. Despite the on-going struggle between slave-owning whites and blacks seeking freedom, thesuccessful emergence of the slave-based cotton economy in the nineteenth-century inpart guaranteed the continuation of slavery. Savannah grew to be the third-largestantebellum exporter of cotton in the South, behind New Orleans and Mobile. Rice andindigo were also important export crops that carried over from the eighteenth-centuryeconomy; rice reached its peak production in the region on the eve of the Civil War.Savannah  ourished because of its location amid fertile coastal rice plantations, cottonplantations to the west, and Atlantic access to markets for raw materials, slaves, and nished products. The Savannah port also exported signi cant amounts of lumber andtimber. The production of all of these goods involved the use of slave labor. AntebellumSavannah was one of the smaller southern cities by population, lagging far behind NewOrleans, Baltimore and Charleston; only Norfolk, Virginia, was smaller in terms of majorsouthern cities. But the enormous wealth produced by slaves is still evident in thegracious squares of the planned city.19th century 20th Century African American History american history Asia Asia & Middle East book review BrazilBritish Empire China Civil War Cold War Colonialism communism cultural history digital history Early Modern Europe Europe  lm gender history History of Science immigration India Islam Latin America Latin American History Mexico Not Even Past Public History race religion Russia slavery Texas Texas History Texas History Day Transnational Twentieth Century History United States US History USSR Womens History world history World War IINOT EVEN PAST is produced by The Department of History THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN  We are supported by the College of Liberal Arts And our READERSOwens-Thomas House today. Sloweking4 (via Wikimedia Commons)On the eve of the Civil War, Savannah’s commitment to slavery was secure. But itseconomic success and political position in the south made its capture central to theUnion army’s plan to crush the slaveholding republic. Although the city’s beautifularchitecture was largely preserved, Sherman’s troops destroyed slavery and, temporarilyat least, reordered the relationships between blacks and whites. Following the war, andin the face of strong and sometimes violent white opposition, blacks brie y gainedaccess to the vote and political o ce, and expanded on antebellum institutions such aschurches and schools. For the next forty years, blacks sought to negotiate their newroles as members of a wage-earning working class, hoping to carve a space in which toexercise their full rights as citizens. But by 1900, the gains blacks had made duringReconstruction had been replaced by legal segregation. Whites limited blacks’ access tothe political realm, employment, and a host of other rights and privileges of citizenship.In response, Savannah’s blacks became active members of regional and national effortsto continue the march toward freedom and autonomy for African Americans, work thatwould not see fruition until the mid-1950s, when a series of Supreme Court decisionsstruck down legal segregation.Featured image: Owens -Thomas House, Savannah, via Flickr by DenisbinHere are Berry’s and Harris’s suggested further readings on urban slavery You may also like:Berry and Harris on 15 MInute History talking about urban slavery in the US southJacqueline Jones on Civil War SavannahHenry Wiencek, Visualizing Emancipation(s): Mapping the End of Slavery in AmericaMore articles on NEP about slavery Posted October 1, 2014More Features, Monthly FeaturesDONATE  CONTACT  All content © 2010-present NOT EVEN PAST and the authors, unless otherwise notedSign up to receive the monthly Not Even Past newsletterSUBSCRIBEYour email addressFEATURES BOOKS TEACHING DIGITAL & FILMBLOG IHS & PUBLIC HISTORY TEXAS ABOUT

Slavery and Freedom in Savannah

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Slavery and Freedom in Savannah

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