Detail of East Front of Mount Vernon, Joachim Ferdinand Richardt, ca. 1870
Meals can tell us how power is exchanged between and among different peoples, races, genders, and classes...Continue to Introduction
Charleston, South Carolina slave auction advertisement, 1769
Maritime spaces served as landscapes of power for colonists, but also provided unique opportunities for enslaved Africans to seek relative autonomy and freedom...Continue to Commerce on Land + Sea
The Natural History of Coffee, Thee, Chocolate, Tobacco. ..., John Chamberlayne, 1682
The Potomac River was a lucrative source of trade and commerce for planters and slaves who, when possible, used the informal economy to barter and exchange fish for other goods...Continue to Producing Food / Negotiating Power
Mixing bowl, ca. 18th century
Plantation kitchens were chaotic, noisy, smoky, smelly, sweltering, and very dangerous...Continue to Kitchen Contradictions
Detail of The Prudent Housewife, Or compleat English Cook; ..., Lydia Fisher, 1800
Slavery put in place social and culinary boundaries that could separate those who ate from those who worked...Continue to Labored Meals
Portrait possibly of Hercules, attributed to Gilbert Stuart, ca. 1795–1797
Slavery was never benevolent or kind. Despite the realm of opportunities provided a slave, she or he always desired freedom and liberty...Continue to Freedom
