Edited by Azizi Powell
This post presents an excerpt of Jessica Rose's 2016 City College of the City University of New York dissertation entitled "Food And Slave Communities In The Antebellum South".
This excerpt is given without this dissertation's notes [citations] and bibliography.
The content of this post is presented for historical, socio-cultural, and educational purposes.
I'm particularly interested in how the history shared in this dissertation informs folk songs, rhymes, and singing games that are still performed in the 21st century such as songs about shortnin bread, songs that mention Black people stealing chickens, and songs about people having houses "full of chicken pies".
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to Jessica Rose for her research and writing and thanks to all those who are quoted in her dissertation.
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Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/02/food-or-beverages-references-in-some.html for a link to the first post in a closely related two part pancocojams series entitled "Food Or Beverages References In Some Examples In The 1922 Book "Negro Folk Rhymes" (Part I)".
The link for Part II of that series is included in that post.
The examples showcased in that series include references to food and/or beverages which validate many of the points that are presented in Jessica Rose's 2016 CUNY dissertation. (Jessica Rose's research also presents information about the relationship between poor Whites and enslaved Black people in the southern region of the United States. That subject isn't mentioned in the Negro Folk Rhymes collection.)
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DISSERTATION EXCERPT: FOOD AND SLAVE COMMUNITIES IN THE ANTEBELLUM SOUTH
From https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1576&context=cc_etds_theses
[by] Jessica Rose... May 9, 2016
" Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts of the City College of the City University of New York
[...]
[page] 9
….Many planters set aside provision grounds or garden
patches for the use of enslaved men and women. Often times these plots of land,
which varied in size from plantation to plantation, were adjacent to the cabins
but they could also be away from the slave quarters. 12.
Emanuel Elmore, who
experienced slavery in upcountry South Carolina, be-
[page] 10.
lieved, like many other enslaved individuals, that providing land for
independent cultivation was a sign of a good slaveholder.13 These provision
grounds were important for several reasons. Access to land provided individuals
with an opportunity to make claims to property. One of the pillars of slavery was the notion that
enslaved men, women and children were nothing more than chattel therefore the right
to land claimed by many bonded African-Americans at the very least challenged some
of the tenets of slavery by indirectly affirming that enslaved people had rights, albeit
in custom and not law.14 These gardens also provided enslaved Americans with an opportunity
to generate revenue. They often sold these food crops to the residents in the
plantation household as well as at markets, and they typically kept the profits
for themselves and their families.15 In addition, provision grounds also enabled households to supplement
their rations, which were often low quality, meager and lacking in variety.16 Reflecting on
his time in bondage, James Bolton recalled collards, cabbage, turnips, beets, English
peas, beans, onions and garlic being grown in slave gardens.17 The garden patches tended by
enslaved people provided an opportunity to make claims to property as well as
supplemented the diets of bonded people….
[…]
[page] 12.
III. Cultivating Kinship
The right to work private garden patches was a right fought for and preserved by enslaved African-Americans. While slaveholders saw these plots of land as a means to cut costs, the individuals that worked them used them not only to sustain themselves but also their communities. The food that was grown on provision grounds did not go straight from garden to table. These crops crossed plantation lines and were used to court potential suitors. They were bartered for other ingredients that would be used to prepare special meals for weary husbands. The provisions were also a means to reaffirm the place of the superannuated and erode the parental claims of slaveholders over enslaved children.
Slave narratives and interviews make numerous references to food and when we follow the evidence it becomes clear that food should not be viewed exclusively as a source of sustenance. Food fostered community among enslaved Americans, allowing them to overcome the countless obstacles to its formation.
A critical reading of post-emancipation testimony points to the central role of food in shaping courting practices. African-Americans were opposed to entering into romantic relationships with those in their immediate family.18 Given the restrictions placed on the movement of enslaved men and women and the often small number of slaves living in the average southern household this was problematic for individuals looking for romantic partners....
[page] 14.
An important part of the courting ritual was exchanging gifts and these presents were often food items. Given the limited resources of bondmen and -women, it makes sense that these gifts typically took the form of foodstuff...
Where Buttler sang of being offered a humble meal by his love interest, John White recalled using food to win over the many women he courted. A lifelong bachelor, White served as a cook and washer in the big house. Reflecting on his experiences in bondage,
White recalled taking advantage of his access to food supplies to procure gifts for women: “Sometimes they’d borrow, sometimes i’d slip something from out the kitchen.
The single women folks was bad that way. I favors them wit something extra from the kitchen. Then they favors me.”24 White’s statement speaks to the use of food gifts in courting. It also reveals that enslaved women engaged in their own calculations to determine compatibility. Their calculations involved taking stock of resources possessed by a
[page] 15.
suitor, including their access to food supplies as well as a
willingness to engage in independent cultivation of crops and other food items...
Enslaved men brought products from their garden when courting women and also bragged about their produce to their neighbors. Dylan Penningroth has argued that boasting was an important way to establish and affirm claims to property in the slave quarters.26 I posit that boasting also helped build the reputation of single men and, as a result, enhanced the possibility of finding a mate as well. Boasting about one’s property, whether it be foodstuff or articles obtained by bartering items cultivated in a garden patch, boosted one's reputation. These claims may have been statements of fact but they also doubled as a personal advertisement. Gloating about property was a means to establish oneself as a provider and therefore as a desirable partner.
Food, specifically a willingness to share food items, was an important factor that distinguished romantic relationships among bondspeople. Where “sweethearting,” a temporary, non-monogamous relationship, and “taking up,” a temporary relationship for older couples that required submission to community guidelines, were not considered serious enough to require the sharing of food, living together and marriage were.27 In con-
[page] 16.
trast to White and other individuals who chose to exchange food and other gifts
while courting, some men, like Willis Benfield rejected the
practice in favor of waiting until they were involved in a serious relationship. Benfield is
representative of an untold number of men who were more frugal when
sweethearting or taking up. Prior to his marriage, Benfield courted his wife but when asked if that included
bringing presents he was explicit: I “never give her nuthin’ till I marry
her.”28 Benfield’s statement suggests that while some men thought it was to their advantage to share
their meager bounty when looking for a wife, others chose to wait until marriage to
share their limited possessions.
Courting was an important part in the lives of enslaved individuals but marriage occupied a more revered place in the relationship hierarchy and food assumed a more prominent role.
Many of the courting practices of enslaved Americans carried over into marriage. The distinction of slave versus free was conferred by the status of one’s mother. Thus all children born to an enslaved mother shared her status and were the property of the mothers’ owner. Eugene Genovese argues that these laws created an important opportunity for negotiation between masters and bonded individuals. Abroad marriages, or the union of men and women on different plantations, were often discouraged because the economic advantage fell to the masters of the slave women since children followed the status of their mother. That said, masters recognized that “a man who fell in love with a woman
[page] 17.
off the place would be a poor and sullen worker, and probably soon a runaway,
if deprived of his choice.” In return for the planter condoning abroad
marriages, enslaved men had to work especially hard to avoid upsetting the planter,
which could result in a loss of visiting privileges.29 Married men were responsible for
traveling between plantations to visit their wives and children on holidays as well as on
Wednesdays and Saturdays. The fact that these journeys were miles long and were done on
foot after days spent laboring in the fields is a testament to the value black men placed
on family. While it was common for husbands and wives to live apart, the home was always
considered to be the place where the wife resided. As a result all of the couple’s
valuable items were stored in the wife’s cabin. 30
Similar to the calculations made during courting, when selecting
a partner to live with or marry the ability to provide was an important
consideration for both parties. In addition to obtaining passes to visit once or twice a week
on Wednesdays and/or Saturday, men were also expected to contribute to the
household.31 Contributions could take the form of money or crops, and provision grounds were
critical to the maintenance of households and providing a modicum of comfort to one’s wife
and children. Men were interested in establishing households with women who would
be able to contribute to the domicile once they transitioned to living together and/or
marriage. Men who were only able to see their wives once or twice a week had
expectations. When alone, a man had to prepare his own meals or eat in a communal kitchen. When he
visited his wife; however,
[page] 18.
he looked forward to special meals prepared by her.32 Daina Ramey Berry’s research on gender and slave labor in Georgia demonstrates that by reevaluating our definition of “skilled labor” it becomes apparent that women who worked in the field did much the same work as men and regularly did skilled field labor.33 The statements of formerly enslaved African-Americans suggest that while they were aware of the lack of major gender distinctions in field labor, they welcomed a division of labor within the household. Men were expected to do the hunting while women were expected to prepare meals.
[…]
[page] 20.
The relationship between the slaveholder and the enslaved varied based on age and this had the potential to influence one’s access to food supplies. While men and women of prime working age received clothing allowances and rations, many slaveholders did not believe they were responsible for providing for children and the aged or at least not in the same way as they did for the able-bodied. Slaveholders struggled to incorporate these groups into the plantation labor force and as a result they were often considered to be a burden. Unlike children who would grow into adulthood, seniors had passed their prime and were largely shunned and treated as an expense that offered no return.
Fanny Kemble, actress turned reluctant plantation mistress, shared her observations freely. According to Kemble the elderly on her husband’s plantation resided in an infirmary where the conditions were abysmal.36 Echoing this sentiment Harriet Jacobs relayed a telling anecdote where she observed her new mistress turning away an elderly man who attempted to procure his weekly ration. The mistress’s rationale was that he was too old to receive an allowance and that “when ni—ers* were too old to work, they ought to be fed on grass.”37 This event could be an accurate retelling or the result of an overzealous abolitionist editor’s pen. Regardless of its origins, it points to fear and an acute sense of vulnerability among enslaved individuals about their status in old age and is supported by Kemble’s claims. In addition, it suggests that the aged were more likely to suffer from starvation. Bondmen and -women were considered old at fifty years of age and in the 1850s could command no higher purchase price than that of an eight-year-old child.
Genovese suggests that increasingly strict manumission laws
may have benefitted super-
[page] 21.
annuated bonded people by making it difficult for farmers and planters to free them once they were no longer able to do heavy labor.38 Despite the restrictions on manumission, it was not uncommon for slaveholders to emancipate aged African-Americans during their time of need to avoid providing care. Some planters continued to allow aged members of their labor force to remain on the plantation but refused to provide clothing or rations. In contrast to aged men, older enslaved women seemed to have been viewed as having greater longevity. These women were frequently assigned the role of cook in the plantation household such as Jefferson Franklin Henry’s grandmother Ca’line who was assigned to the plantation kitchen once she was too old to labor in the fields.39 Scholars have argued that this was due in part to owners’ perception of these older women as nonthreatening but also because they were knowledgeable in food service and preparation.40
In sharp contrast to planters, the accounts of ex-slaves
suggests that in the slave quarters,
enslaved people often found ways to equally absorb both aged
men and women. With the able bodied work force in the field all day, the
superannuated took over household tasks, typically food related, that prime hands
had to postpone during the day and on occasion at night when they may have been too tired
after a day stooped over beneath a sweltering sun to do their own domestic
work. Aged African-Americans played an important role in many slave households and the greater
community by providing childcare along with helping with food preparation. Seniors
tended provision grounds, hunted small game, and fished. Regardless of the crop worked
on, agricultural labor was
[page] 22.
taxing. Whether one labored in a task or gang system, there were always additional tasks to be completed in the household and the work of superannuated relatives was greatly appreciated. Those with experience cooking could also contribute to the domicile by selling their goods. Harriet Jacobs’ beloved grandmother Martha was known throughout the community for her cooking skills and was able to save a substantial amount of money from the proceeds of food sales.41 Traditional West African attitudes that venerate wisdom and experience may explain the willingness of enslaved Americans to embrace elderly members of the community. This is particularly important for food cultivation as the aged represented an invaluable source of knowledge. Recipes and techniques for trapping game were passed down from the oldest members of the household to the younger generations. Instead of being a burden on the community, seniors made important contributions.
Likewise, children played an essential role in feeding people on the plantation.
Slave households were the primary beneficiaries of the labor of children. The tasks reserved for children, like those of the superannuated, were invaluable to the household. Children provided indirect assistance to adults in the fields and direct assistance in the home. Before she was old enough to join the field laborers, Martha Spence Bunton recalled working with the other children on her Austin, Texas plantation to carry the dinner pails, containing meat, cabbage, biscuits and milk, to those working in the field.42
Numerous former slaves recounted similar tasks assigned to
them in their youth. While
[page] 23.
they were too young to do demanding field work they could participate by bringing food and water to laborers. Within the slave quarters children did many of the daily, food related tasks that kept the household running, such as fetching water and caring for hogs and chickens.43 Their work in the garden plots, similar to that of the elderly, reduced the burden on their overworked parents.44
However, some outside observers were perturbed by the jobs assigned to children in the slave quarters.45 This is not to suggest that enslaved children spent their youth laboring for their parents before they came of age and their masters commanded their labor.
When recalling their childhood, former slaves had vivid memories of playing with other children in the slave quarters and even the children of planters. Children typically spent their first few years nude but because they would eventually become full hands, planters occasionally took a special interest in their general wellbeing, paying particular attention to their diets.46 Dairy products were not readily available to most enslaved individuals due to the difficulties plantations had producing milk but slaveholders often provided milk for bonded children.47 Chana Littlejohn was about ten years old when union soldiers reached the plantation where she resided with what she estimates were one hundred other enslaved African-Americans. While Littlejohn recalls her family having a garden plot, she also remembers routinely receiving gifts of biscuits along with the other children on the plantation from her master’s mother.48 Littlejohn is not the only individual with
[page] 24.
memories of receiving special food treats from their slaveholders. This is a recurring theme in the WPA interviews. That said, salient in the interviews is the disdain adults felt towards how their meals where furnished as children. How enslaved children were given their meals was one of the first ways their subordinated status was conferred. Frederick Douglass provided a vivid account of what mealtime was like for him and his peers during his youth:
We were not regularly allowanced. Our food was coarse corn meal boiled. This was called mush. It was put into a large wooden tray or trough, and set down upon the ground. The children were then called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush; some with oyster-shells, others with pieces of shingle, some with naked hands, and none with spoons. He that ate the fastest got the most; he that was strongest secured the best place; and few left the trough satisfied.
[…]
[page] 25.
…The paternalistic claims of planters were further weakened by the willingness of enslaved Americans to exchange food items with poor whites.
[…]
[page] 28.
Former slaves suggest that they regularly sought out poor white people or were contacted by them to barter food that provided an incentive to steal. Theft is frequently mentioned in post-emancipation testimony and slave narratives. Capitalizing on their access, whether that be to the kitchen, corn cribs or smoke houses, enslaved men and women frequently helped themselves to their overlord’s foodstuff. Theft was so rampant that during his travels he was bombarded with complaints and stories of slaveholders who fell victim to theft by bonded people.55 Slave narratives and the WPA interviews provide ample evidence of food theft by bonded people. Indeed numerous former slaves shared vivid memories of sermons exhorting against not only theft but also food theft in particular. Richard Caruthers remembered white preachers visiting to warn bondsmen
[page] 29.
and -women that “The good lord say: ‘don’t you ni—ers* steal chicken from your missis. Don’t you ni—ers* steal your master’s hogs.’”56 It is clear that food stealing was a common occurrence and a nuisance to slaveholders who frequently had their slave work force listen to homilies on theft. It would be easy to dismiss theft of food items as the inevitable result of meager rations; however, as the earlier section on relationships within the slave quarters revealed, enslaved African-Americans’ interactions with food went beyond subsistence. It is important to recognize that bondsmen and -women did not exclusively secret items away from slave holders for their individual use or to exchange amongst each other in the slave quarters.
Bonded people looked beyond the color line and often crossed
it when it benefitted them thus incorporating poor whites into their kinship
networks through food. Bondspeople stole food items from their owners and sold
them to poor whites in the vicinity.
Despite the best efforts of slaveholders they were never
able to completely isolate their Slaves. Interviewed in Indiana at the age of 110 Rosaline
Rogers discussed her master’s
refusal to allow the slaves on his plantation to interact
with poor whites in the area who had been born and raised free.57 While slave patrols were
represented as keeping communities safe by making it difficult for enslaved
people to meet and plan revolts, poor whites were overrepresented in their ranks and were conscripted
into service.58 This system favored planters because they were able to avoid
the tedious work but it also had the dual
[page] 30.
benefit of fostering resentment between the poor white and enslaved populations. This animosity is best captured in a popular song:
“Run ni—er*, run
De Patteroll git you!
Run ni—er*, run
De Patteroll come!
Watch ni—er*, watch
De Patteroll trick you!
Watch ni—er*, watch
He got a big gun!
Antebellum poor whites were also open to transcending the south's racial hierarchy when food was involved. Like enslaved blacks, poor farmers found no qualms in claiming foodstuffs from their elite neighbors as their own. Quoting a Charleston newspaper, Olmsted points out that three fourths of the individuals that engage in trade with slaves were too poor to pay the fine levied for this illegal act and rarely had property of their own.64 Similar to bonded people, lower class whites crossed the color line to trade and barter when convenient and were willing to risk prison. They also actively sought out enslaved men and women to engage in the trade of foodstuff and were likely aware that they were receiving stolen goods. Anthony Dawson, another former slave, supported this claim. Speaking with an interviewer, Dawson explained that everyone on his plantation knew that if members of a slave patrol passed by, they were doing their job. If they loitered, it was to initiate some sort of trade.65
Even when the south’s most marginalized weren’t engaged in direct trade, it is evident that an informal culinary exchange was taking place. As Genovese points out, African-Americans “contributed more to the diet of the poorer whites than the poorer whites ever had the chance to contribute to theirs.”66 For example, overcooking vegetables was common across the south. While enslaved Americans followed suit, they retained the liquid or “pot-likker” which happened to contain most of the nutritional value.
The popularity of pot-likker is evident in WPA interviews. Interviewed in Arkansas but raised on a large Alabama plantation, Henry Green was one of many former slaves who
[page] 33
specifically mentioned pot-likker in his description of
slave diets, specifically that of children.67
While it was common for lower-class southern
whites to disdain foods they associated with African-Americans, Genovese suggests that
some also retained the liquid from boiling vegetables for consumption.68 The similarities
between the diets of enslaved Americans and poor whites is examined, among other things,
in Sam Boward Hillard’s classic Hog Meat and Hoecake: Food Supply in the Old South
1840-1860.69 Far less common than garden plots, some enslaved African-Americans
obtained the right to maintain their own livestock. Chickens were a popular
animal kept by slave households because they yielded both meat and eggs.
Another favored animal were pigs. Hillard argues that pigs represented the bulk
of meat consumption across the south for both blacks and whites. While pork was a perennial presence on the tables of
the planter class it was far less common for bonded people and poor whites. The fact that
limited access to meat was an experience common to both enslaved Americans and lower
class whites provided another instance for unity. Moreover the central role of
vegetables and fruits in the diet of both groups yielded many dietary similarities that seemed to
bring both groups together not only in collusion against planters but also in personal
contact with one another as recipes were exchanged and provisions shared.
The work of culinary historians who have examined African-American foodways is most useful in pointing to West African food traditions maintained by enslaved Ameri-
[page] 34
cans and absorbed by southern whites.70 Pot-likker is just
one instance of the informal exchange between enslaved people and poor whites. Limited
access to meat meant that vegetables were the centerpiece of most dishes for both
enslaved Americans and poor whites. Genovese points to “Hopping John,” cowpeas prepared
with pork and with or without rice, as a meal consumed by both groups.71 Lack of
variety, a common complaint, likely encouraged enslaved Americans and landless
whites to not only barter but also exchange tips for enhancing simple dishes. Frederick
Douglas Opie Jr. argues that chitlins, collard greens, okra, and turnip greens were
prepared in the heavily seasoned African-American tradition and eaten by both planters and
lower class whites.72 Given the presences of enslaved Americans in the planter kitchens
it is easy to understand how West African and African-American food became staples in the
planter household. The fact that these foods and cooking practices found their way
into the homes of poor white is significant because it suggests meaningful, personal
contact between the two groups.
This claim is further supported by the frequency of theft of
food items. Despite undeniable tension between both groups, it is apparent that
a lively exchange was in place that brought enslaved blacks and poor whites together in culture
and in informal opposition to the planter class.”…
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*What is commonly known as "the n word" is fully spelled out in this dissertation, but is given with ammended spelling in this pancocojams post.
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