The Landscape of Slavery

In September 1861, half the slaves of the South live, labor, and die on small farms worked by fewer than 20 slaves. They build barns, fix houses, clear fields, work gardens, feed animals, weave cloth, perform the toughest domestic chores, and harvest tobacco, the farm's cash crop. Money from tobacco buys fabric from mills, tools from factories, small luxuries like sugar and tea, and more slaves. Labor is short because the owner died that summer and two of his sons have become Confederate soldiers. Hopeful that Union victory will bring freedom, slaves pass news of the war by word of mouth on the “grapevine telegraph.”

Westlake Corner, Virginia · United States