What Did Slaves Eat? - Cooking Tom Thank you very much!! There were many African grown crops that traveled along the slave ship with slaves. Others hoped that property ownership might induce enslaved people to work harderfor themselves and, by extension, their masters. Where allowed, some slaves grew crops of their own to supplement diets or to barter and truck. For masters and bondpeople alike, the internal economy both challenged the institution of slavery and shored it up. Enslaved cooks brought this cuisine its unique flavors, adding ingredients such as hot peppers, peanuts, okra, and greens. yams. Craft's comments since in the first sentence, he refers to the "peace, security and national, JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 2018. Gibbs declares that there is no class of working people in the world better cared for than the Southern slave. He states that many medicines, as well as high quality Brandy or wine, are made available to sick slaves, and that the hygiene/cleanliness of plantation environments is held to a high standard. What the Slaves Ate. Information about diet and food production for enslaved Africans on plantations. Both unprocessed and processed corn was used, but well go with the hominy version of it for our recipe. However, grilled and roasted okra make delicious side dishes. Drawing water, hewing wood, cleaning, cooking, waiting on table, taking out the garbage, shopping, child-tending, and similar domestic occupations were the major functions of slaves in all slave-owning societies. During the time of slavery, African Americans brought with them the food traditions from their native lands. Onions could be grown in the yard, alongside the black-eyed peas. Enslaved people suffered, yetas bidding in Richmonds auction houses showsthey recognized opportunity as well. 5 0 obj Think leafy greens and black-eyed. Slaves were especially deficient in iron, calcium, vitamin A and Vitamin D. Each of these deficiencies causes its own set of health risks. The word gumbo comes from the Bantu word for okra, " ki ngombo ". Storing the potatoes and other root vegetables over the winter may have been a subtle act of rebellion. I delivered the talk to an audience of 30 at the Maier Museum of Art in Lynchburg, Virginia. Typically slave labor on the plantation was divided into two broad categories: house servants and field hands. It was only a matter of time before hominy was ground and boiled, and the result became an easy (and cheap) food to sustain both slaves and slaveholders. Offerings such as pepper pot, okra stew, gumbo, and jambalaya became staples on American dining tables. Susan McIntosh remembered that, in contrast to the coarse and rough shoes provided by her masters, she and her companions bought calico, muslin and good shoes, pants, coats and other nice things for their Sunday clothes.[4] In his 1859 autobiography, escaped slave Charles Ball described this process in more detail, elaborating spending priorities. [iii] Covey, Herbert, and Dwight Eisnach. When does spring start? What crops did slaves grow on plantations? Internal economy focused political struggle, and consumption was deeply woven into the tragic and tangled fabric of the master-slave relation. While it might be fun to think about boiled sweet potatoes and cornbread, we must also remember the dark truth of slavery. Number of slaves in the Upper South: 1,208,758 (29% of total population) 4,165 million. Required fields are marked *. Food George Washington's Mount Vernon [3]. In fact, okra is what helps thicken gumbo. Cooked low and slow, these greens are often flavored with a small piece of ham or bacon. Looking forward to trying out all the recipes. This page was last edited on 11 October 2022, at 21:29. All rights reserved, Culinary historian and author Jessica Harris. Learn how your comment data is processed. Your email address will not be published. Food not only brings us together in our current communities. Slaveholders lamented the theft of plantation stores, noting that slaves traded purloined corn, cotton, and bacon for goods of their choosing or cash outright. The system had a good many benefits, as Georgia slaveholder Thomas Clay explained. Take, for example, Georgia planter James Towns, whose end-of-year celebrations always included a pay day for good behavior. The plantation owners then turned to enslaved Africans for labor. Guests wrote gushing missives about the meals in they ate while visiting these homes. \ .2LE_mm5!aq e2z(~i+Lj4 +a,bN^e8w)q~A0*,A|EncL&L3upPm4Y]}R"XNeFWeoN;N&hS3LW0Km]-+SNjzq"-b5m:-`v]zf6P5'm0t"~VK,Le-}9r"v The pre-slavery ancestors of people of the African Canadian community ate food directly harvested from the land. Serve with plain white rice, perhaps cooked with a little extra water, so that it softens a bit more than usual, and if you have it, dash some pepper sauce over it to liven up the flavor. Once landed, the survivors were sold as chattel labor to work colonial mines and plantations. Heres the technology that helped scientists find itand what it may have been used for. Your email address will not be published. Scientists just confirmed a 30-foot void first detected inside the monument years ago. New York, New York: Berg, 2012. [4], As the plantation economy expanded, the slave trade grew to meet the growing demand for labor. Red peas are a tangible connection to her own African heritage, Bailey says, and one reason why she has started to grow the crop commercially. Cookie Policy They were shipped from ports in West Africa to European colonies in the Americas. The Campus of The University of North Carolina, Located in the Village of Chapel Hill. And, ground corn continues to appear on menus in everything from cakes to breading on fish. As Frederick Douglas recounts I have often been so pinched with hunger, that I have fought with the dog. His great-great-great grandfather Jupiter Gilliard, the man who purchased the farm, was born a slave in 1812. House Slaves: An Overview | Encyclopedia.com :"Zc35I*Ga^ Slavery and the Making of America . The Slave Experience: Living | PBS It was to the economic advantage of owners to keep their working slaves healthy, and those of reproductive age reproducing. Food items included alcohol, sugar, molasses, flour, coffee, rice, spices, butter, cheese, bacon, candy, cakes, and tea. 2 tbsp (30 ml) bacon fat, Add: At the top of that list is Atlanta chef Linton Hopkins, who has concocted several ways to serve her peas at his acclaimed southern-upscale Restaurant Eugene, including in his version of Hoppin' John. [1]. The roughly 5,000-year-old human remains were found in graves from the Yamnaya culture, and the discovery may partially explain their rapid expansion throughout Europe. Required fields are marked *. Heres why each season begins twice. Before long these enslaved cooks took the roles that had once been occupied by white indentured servants. Slave Consumption in the Old South: A Double-Edged Sword Retrieved from, Stephen Behrendt (1999). 4 cups (900 ml) black-eyed peas. Up every day before dawn, they baked bread for the mornings, cooked soups for the afternoons, and created divine feasts for the evenings. I know versions of his diary exist elsewhere, but the war time entries can be found, Thank you for sharing that, Adam. In my recent study of enslaved cooks, I relied on archaeological evidence and material culturethe rooms where they once lived, the heavy cast iron pots they lugged around, the gardens they plantedand documents such as slaveholders letters, cookbooks, and plantation records to learn about their experiences. He came to the North Carolina conference with a yellowed letter, a rare piece of history addressed from his great-grandmother to his grandmother, detailing how and where to plant corn, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, and watermelon. 1 tsp (5 ml) salt, Add, stirring constantly: Old cells hang around as we age, doing damage to the body. In urban and rural areas alike, storekeepers petitioned local legislatures to expand trade hours to promote slave shopping, especially during the Christmas season. This cornbread was crumbled into the bottom of the bowl to soak up the last bits of savory flavor. If a traveler showed up, day or night, bells would ring for the enslaved cook to prepare food. Perhaps the easiest way to monitor slave spending was through the operation of a plantation store. It is often smoked or roasted at Fall Pumpkin festivals. Plantation slavery was not exclusive to the Americas. Reduce heat to a low simmer and cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27858. What is wind chill, and how does it affect your body? How did this mountain lion reach an uninhabited island? The practice was abolished in most places during the 19th century. 8LX They were given a. African rice often accompanied slave voyages. Some of the foods that could be consumed by slaves were beans, peas, corn, wheat, rice, oats, rye, barley, wheat flour, oatmeal, wheat bran, maize, apples, pears, beets, carrots, beets, carrots, apples, pears, berries, honey, currants, raisins, lemons, raspberries, plums, kiwi fruit, lychees, peaches, figs, pomegranates, oranges, grapes, peaches, We need to forget about this so we can heal, said an elderly white woman, as she left my lecture on the history of enslaved cooks and their influence on American cuisine. Grits are today considered a staple of the Southern diet, but they were, in fact, a classic merger of the Old World and the New. During the 18th century Cuba depended increasingly on the sugarcane crop and on the expansive, slave-based plantations that produced it. They may well have also added greens like collards, but this is really quite a nourishing meal. For decades, the bang of the gavel had broadcast both triumph and tragedy in Virginias capital as propertylivestock, furniture, human soulstraded in the citys busy auction houses. On a plantation with more than 100 slaves, the capital value of the slaves was greater than the capital value of the land and farming implements. Edit View history The health of slaves on American plantations was a matter of concern to both slaves and their owners. All the plantation system had a form of slavery in its establishment, slaves were initially forced to be labors to the plantation system, these slaves were primarily native Indians, but the system was later extended to include slaves shipped from Africa. The total number of slave owners was 385,000 (including, in Louisiana, some free African Americans), amounting to approximately 3.8% of the Southern and Border states population. Reckoning with it can be cumbersome, but its also necessary. For decades she has used an image of okra on her business cards as a symbol of her family's African roots and her own connection to the continent's cuisine. When working on her master's thesis, Cromwell buried herself in documentslegislative records, tax rolls, newspaper clippings, and primary sources other scholars had reviewed hundreds, if not thousands of times beforeand was able to discern that female Muslim Nigerian slaves, working as fruit sellers and market vendors on behalf of their owners, helped shape the overall economic structure of the American South with long-distance price fixing and aggressive sales techniques. Want to read more articles just like these? "We have a waiting list that's almost a yard long," she says, adding that they should have enough to go around, at least this year. I did find references to collard greens and cabbage in the course of my research, yes. [2] The number of slaves in the 15 States was just shy of 4 million in a total population 12.4 million and the percentage was 32% of the population. While newly free African Americans fled the plantations to find work as housekeepers, butlers, cooks, drivers, Pullman porters and waitersthe only jobs they could getAunt Jemima and Rastus smiled while serving white folks, enhancing the myth that black cooks had always been cheerful and satisfied, during slavery and with their current situation. Blacks wasted their money, masters opined, or bought goods impractical for their lowly lives. Choosing to buy control of ones own body affirmed a slaves status as chattel, even as that commodity transaction broke the chains of servitude completely. By the Civil Wars last weary winter, Confederate Richmond, had become accustomed to the pounding of artillery echoing across nearby fields. Some indentured servants were also leaving to . Part of the National Museums Liverpool group. My favorite plant-based recipe for Carolina Gold rice is Southern Collard Dolmades. Black-Eyed Peas and Rice. Do let me know what you think of the recipes that you try. Advertisers leaned on characters like Aunt Jemima and Rastus, stereotypical black domestics, drawn from minstrel song. Number of slaves in the Border States: 432,586 (13% of total population) 3,323 million. What good could it possibly do them? More importantly, he must have thought, What good does a slave with money do me? Plenty, he and others like him imagined. Print. Purchased clothes were garish and gaudy, they scoffed. Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Plantation complexes in the Southern United States, https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Plantation, "How Slavery Helped Build a World Economy", http://abolition.e2bn.org/slavery_42.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Slave_plantation&oldid=1115516973. We feature smart, groundbreaking research and well-written narratives from expert writers. At this time, Europe was starting to industrialize, and it needed a lot of materials to manufacture goods. However, because the availability of ham and even bell peppers, typical of the later dish, would likely have been limited, weve stuck with a much more limited selection of ingredients for our recipe. Take [your] negroes to the nearest dry goods store (do not let them go alone) and let them select such things as suit their fancies, he advised. Agricultural journals and plantation records burst with strategies and advice. X11ej9G}R)\.}F5aj??*? Each of these plant-based foods impacted the history of our eating traditions. Black cooks were bound to the fire, 24 hours a day. The perfect taste of summer! I top them with broccoli and red chili paste, Roasted Corn with Garlic Shallot Buttah, able to survive by hunting, fishing, and gardening. Yet, many of the plant-based foods in our current diet are reflections of our nations history. Folklore, archaeological evidence, and a rich oral tradition reveal that other cooks, their names now lost, also weaved their talents into the fabric of our culinary heritage, creating and normalizing the mixture of European, African, and Native American cuisines that became the staples of Southern food. Enslaved men and women began the year with a set amount of cash listed in Towns log book, deductions being made over the course of the year for disciplinary breaches or property loss. 9eBOn What food did the slaves eat? - MassInitiative Some plantations also went a step further and distilled the molasses, the liquid left after the sugar is boiled or clarified, to make rum. A slave plantation was an agricultural farm that used enslaved people for labour. During the 19th century, there were moments of widespread fear that these cooks would poison them, and we know from court records and other documents that on at least a few occasions enslaved cooks did slip poisons like hemlock into their masters food. Post-emancipation America still relied heavily on the skills and labor of newly freed African Americans. What foods did slaves bring to America? It means that whilst the dish may be a national staple on both islands in Trinidad and Tobago . They constructed potato holes, often near the fire, where they would bury their sweet potatoes. The Bantu people originated in Central Africa, near Nigeria and the Congo. watermelon. Once in the Americas, slaves then planted the rice for their own consumption. Bacon grease or other pork fat would have been relatively easy to come by, and if chicken stock werent available on a given day, this recipe would still work, with the addition of some extra salt. One formerly-enslaved woman remembered that she and her family aint had nothin but de coarsest food an clothes. Educator and former slave Booker T. Washington commented on clothing in particular, recalling shirts that were stiff and coarse . They intentionally brought it to provide sustenance to slaves during the journey. This Historian Wants You To Know The Real Story Of Southern Food - NPR.org It is the story of people like Chef Hercules, George Washington's chef; and Emmanuel Jones, who used his skills to transition out of enslavement into a successful career cooking in the food industry, evading the oppressive trappings of sharecropping. That meant the slaves could plant for themselves," says Bailey, who has recruited other local farmers to plant the crop this spring. Enslaved people did not restrict their spending to established merchants. For the women who wrote and preserved the receipt books, these recipes, the products of African foodways, were something worthy of remembering, re-creating, and establishing as Americana. There was waste and urine throughout the hold; this caused the captives to get sick and to die from illnesses that could not be cured. Of course, nobody at that time had any sense of vitamins or trace minerals, but some cookbooks of the period do have lengthy discourses on the importance of balance of different sorts in ones diet. What did the slaves eat on the plantations? Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic SocietyCopyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. 2023 Smithsonian Magazine But cooks wielded great power: As part of the front stage of plantation culture, they carried the reputations of their enslaversand of Virginiaon their shoulders. The remainder of the letter consists of detailed explanations of medical care and resources made available to Gibbs slaves. Preheat oven to 400 F (200 C). Some indentured servants were also leaving to start their own farms as land was widely available. The practice was abolished in most places during the 19th century. Once a task was finished, that persons labor was complete for the day. The master class scraped to make ends meet. 1, 115; Ibid., 12, pt. SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA is a production of Thirteen/WNET New York. House slave was a term used to refer to those enslaved Africans relegated to performing domestic work on American slave plantations. An illustration depicts slaves crushing the sap out of sugar cane on a sugar plantation in New Orleans. These skeletons may have the answer, Scientists are making advancements in birth controlfor men, Blood cleaning? Diet of a Southern SlaveAlly Dombroski Indigofera was a major crop cultivated during the 18th century, in Venezuela, Guatemalaand Haiti until the slave rebellion against France that left them embargoed by Europe and India in the 19th and 20th centuries. The next time you sit down to a piece of cornbread, a stewed gumbo, or a roasted sweet potato, take a moment to reflect on the story of this food.