Ceramics for Slaves: Colonoware

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Colonoware vessel, Georgia ca 1750

Ceramics are often the primary find at archaeological digs. They are important in determining the economic status, food ways and eating habits of those that lived there.  In colonial digs here in Charleston, early porcelain shards from Germany and England are common, reflecting Charleston's status as the major seaport on the  eastern seaboard. Late colonial and antebellum digs reveal the Chinese Export porcelain so cherished and displayed today in the china cabinets of many an Old Charleston family. Occasionally, the alkaline glazed stoneware  produced in the upstate of South Carolina is to be found in post -1820 sites. These ceramics are thoroughly documented.

Mixed among the shards are another ceramic not so well documented , and it is dubbed  Colonoware. Colonoware is a hand coiled and pit fired pottery long produced as an inexpensive trade item by American Indians and sold or bartered in the city.  It is never found stashed in the back of barns, or at estate sales. It is never  found passed down as precious family heirlooms. It is commonly found at dig sites of 18th century pioneer settlements and at 18th and  19th century plantation communities. Normally found as broken shards, intact specimens are recovered from riverbeds. Since trade goods were transported by water, the occasional overturned boat provides intact specimens. The example below was recovered from the Savannah River.(see Figure 1 below). 

As Native Americans dispersed from the southeast, it appears that Colonoware production was taken up by plantation blacks to provide cooking and eating vessels. This is a practice most likely encouraged by plantation owners. It was, after all,  an inexpensive source of cooking and eating  ware that put elderly or substantially disabled individuals back to work. 

Typically, plantation slaves would have prepared food in a common pot. The food would have been transferred from the pot to a large wooden trough for serving and eating where it would be shared by all, or the food would be transferred into small bowls or pots, such as the colonoware bowl  here illustrated.

Figure 1.Colonoware Vessel

Classic cooking bowl form

Eighteenth century digs at plantation sites where the enslaves lived reveals little in the way of serving spoons or cutlery of any sort. Most white frontiersman were eating with wooden spoons, and this was probably the norm for the enslaved as well. Although the archaeological record is silen, we do know that they were not eating with metal implements. As pewter became available, it use was reserved initially for whites. Thus, for the first half of the eighteenth century many plantation slaves would have eaten without utensils, using shells or makeshift items. 

Some scholars suggest that Colonoware was folk craft handed down from Africa. There are certainly precedents. Similar coiled and low fired ware was produced in Africa, as it was in virtually all cultures. Indeed, more sophisticated high fired wares were produced in Africa and all over the world. Whatever its origin, we know that the Catawba Tribe was trading in Colonoware well into the nineteenth century, wares that were used on the plantation by slaves. Colonoware shards from the earliest sites reflect the aboriginal styles of the native Americans, but it was not long before the ware produced for sale took on the look of European vessels such as the one pictured above.

 In the short story “Loves of the Driver”, author William Gilmore Simms notes that during his boyhood in the 1810s that 

It was the custom of the Catawba Indians …to come down, at certain seasons, from their far homes in the interior, to the seaboard, bringing to Charleston a little stock of earthen pots and pans….which they bartered in the city. They did not, however, bring their pots and pans from the Nation, but descending to the Lowcountry empty handed, in groups or families, they squatted down on the rich clay lands of the Edisto and and there established themselves in a temporary abiding place, until their simple potteries had yielded them a sufficient supply of wares with which to throw themselves into the market.”

That colonoware was produced for the slave population can be inferred by the statement of Phillip Porcher, a St Stephens SC resident , recounting that :

“….the Catawba Indians ….traveled down from the upcountry to
Charleston, making clay ware for the negroes along the way. They would camp until a section was supplied and then move until finally Charleston was reached.”

Finally, Charley Watson, a former slave from Winnsboro, SC, in a WPA interview in 1935 recalling plantation days of the 1850s  said:

“De Indians fetch their pots and jars to sell”

Note that by this time , (1850s) exceptional high fired utilitarian stoneware was being produced and sold in the Winnsboro area. The stoneware, with a glassy alkaline glaze, was both durable and easy to clean. It was used for food production but also for serving as well, although fancy ware from Charleston was preferred at the dining table by country housewives who could afford it.  By this time tinsmiths were producing plates and cups in the upcountry and rail was bringing goods inland from the coast. Apparently, the use of these items were reserved for the white population, and colonoware use was reserved for the slave population.

Below are examples of contemporary Catawba Pottery. This is a highly collectible product that is different than the Colonoware produced for trade
.
Figure 2. Contemporary Catawba Ware

Contemporary Catawba Pottery

Because Colonoware was a low fired product it was delicate, not unlike porcelain.  But unlike porcelain, this porous and unglazed product  stained easily and would have retained flavors from previous  use.  It  would not have been uniformly sanitary after cleaning and would have been a breeding ground for microbes. It seems that its major advantage was low cost.  I suspect that, in its own way,it was a  symbol of repression. Colonoware was an inferior product, a fact perhaps not noted by the 18^th century enslaved population , but certainly by nineteenth century enslaved, observing the expansion of ceramic and tin options. As food preparation and serving vessels improved with the introduction of  tin and stoneware, colonoware continued as the Master's choice for the slave street.

This premise is proven by the distribution of Colonoware shards at dig sites all throughout the southeast from Florida to Alabama to Virginia. Shards are commonly found interspersed among other shards in archaeological digs. Present in both eighteenth and nineteenth century digs, it is far more predominant in earlier sites than later. It is interesting to note that it is virtually nonexistent at post civil war sites.

It would seem that freed African Americans in post civil war society left colonoware behind when allowed to choose their own vessels.

This is perhaps the first recorded instance of enslaved persons actively taking the opportunity to leave their lives of enslavement behind!

 DASH TO FREEDOM --CELEBRATE  Black History Month!

“The first sunbeams glowed upon … the blossoming hedges along the rectangular dikes. What were those black dots which everywhere appeared? Those moist meadows had become alive with human heads, and along each narrow path came a straggling file of men and women, all on a run for the river-side”

 February is Black History Month!

 I present some excerpts from the book, Army Life in A Black Regiment  by Thomas Wenworth Higginson. (1869).  I recommend this book to anyone wanting to understand the mindset of newly liberated freedmen and women.. During the Civil War, he served as colonel of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, the first federally authorized Black regiment, from 1862–1864. This regiment was comprised entirely of Black soldiers freed from slavery. While the Emancipation Proclamation allowed for Black soldiers to serve, the Army still required White officers to command them. Higginson addressed this in his Civil War memoir, stating:

"We, their officers, did not go there to teach lessons, but to receive them. There were more than a hundred men in the ranks who had voluntarily met more dangers in their escape from slavery than any of my young captains had incurred in all their lives."

He was an  American Unitarian minister, author, abolitionist, and soldier. He was active in the American Abolitionist movement during the 1840s and 1850s, identifying himself with disunion and militant abolitionism. He was a member of the Secret Six who supported John Brown. Following the war, Higginson devoted much of the rest of his life to fighting for the rights of freed people, women and other disfranchised peoples.(Wikipedia)

It is notable that his account is largely missing denigrating commentary commonly found in accounts of Blacks by Whites, and deeper reading of the book provides insites into the  thought processes, the habits and the Faith of his men who he clearly considers equal to any white soldier. His assessments provide a clear first person account as commander of the unit, a unit that went up rivers in Florida , Georgia and South Carolina to destroy rail lines.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson as Commander

 

First, from the opening preface to the book, a description of the 1^st South Carolina Regiment:  

"These pages record some of the adventures of the First South Carolina Volunteers, the first slave regiment mustered into the service of the United States during the late civil war. It was, indeed, the first colored regiment of any kind so mustered, except a portion of the troops raised by Major-General Butler at New Orleans.

The First South Carolina contained scarcely a freeman, had not one mulatto in ten, and a far smaller proportion who could read or write when enlisted. The only contemporary regiment of a similar character was the "First Kansas Colored," which began recruiting a little earlier. These were the only colored regiments recruited during the year 1862. The Second South Carolina and the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts followed early in 1863."

 

Next, he describes how he came to be their Commander:

This is the way in which I came to the command of this regiment. One day in November, 1862, I was sitting at dinner with my lieutenants, John Goodell and Luther Bigelow, in the barracks of the Fifty-First Massachusetts, Colonel Sprague, when the following letter was put into my hands:

BEAUFORT, S. C., November 5, 1862.

MY DEAR SIR.

I am organizing the First Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers, with every prospect of success. Your name has been spoken of, in connection with the command of this regiment, by some friends in whose judgment I have confidence. I take great pleasure in offering you the position of Colonel in it, and hope that you may be induced to accept. I shall not fill the place until I hear from you, or sufficient time shall have passed for me to receive your reply. Should you accept, I enclose a pass for Port Royal, of which I trust you will feel disposed to avail yourself at once. I am, with sincere regard, yours truly,

R. SAXTON, Brig.-Genl, Mil. Gov.

 

He then goes on to describe various raids and campaigns, but then he recalls a scene as his ships made their way up the Edisto River   in which enslaved persons made their Dash to Freedom! 

 

“The battery…met us with a promptness that proved very shortlived. After three shots it was silent... The bluff was wooded, and we could see but little. The only course was to land, under cover of the guns. As the firing ceased and the smoke cleared away, I looked across the rice-fields ... The first sunbeams glowed upon … the blossoming hedges along the rectangular dikes. What were those black dots which everywhere appeared? Those moist meadows had become alive with human heads, and along each narrow path came a straggling file of men and women, all on a run for the river-side. I went ashore with a boat-load of troops at once. The landing was difficult and marshy. The astonished negroes tugged us up the bank, and gazed on us as if we had been Cortez and Columbus. They kept arriving by land much faster than we could come by water; every moment increased the crowd, the jostling, the mutual clinging, on that miry foothold. What a scene it was! With the wild faces, eager figures, strange garments, it seemed, as one of the poor things reverently suggested, "like notin' but de judgment day." Presently they began to come from the houses also, with their little bundles on their heads; then with larger bundles. Old women, trotting on the narrow paths, would kneel to pray a little prayer, still balancing the bundle; and then would suddenly spring up, urged by the accumulating procession behind, and would move on till irresistibly compelled by thankfulness to dip down for another invocation.

Reaching us, every human being must grasp our hands, amid exclamations of "Bress you, mas'r," and "Bress de Lord," at the rate of four of the latter ascriptions to one of the former.

Women brought children on their shoulders; small black boys leaned on their black little brothers equally inky, and, gravely depositing them, shook hands. Never had I seen human beings so clad, or rather so unclad, in such amazing squalid-ness....

Perhaps the most important thing in Higgins tome is that he relates a rare first person account by an elderly freedman recalling his personal Dash To Freedom! Says Higginson:

" I wish that it were possible to present all this scene from the point of view of the slaves themselves. It can be most nearly done, perhaps, by quoting the description given of a similar scene on the Combahee River, by a very aged man, who had been brought down on the previous raid, already mentioned. I wrote it down in tent, long after, while the old man recited the tale, with much gesticulation, at the door; and it is by far the best glimpse I have ever had, through a negro's eyes, at these wonderful birthdays of freedom:

 "De people was all a hoein', mas'r," said the old man. "Dey was a hoein' in the ricefield, when de gunboats come. Den ebry man drap dem hoe, and leff de rice. De mas'r he stand and call, 'Run to de wood for hide! Yankee come, sell you to Cuba! run for hide!' Ebry man he run, and, my God! run all toder way! "Mas'r stand in de wood, peep, peep, faid for truss [afraid to trust]. He say, 'Run to de wood!' and ebry man run by him, straight to de boat. "De brack sojer so presumptious, dey come right ashore, hold up dere head. Fus' ting I know, dere was a barn, ten tousand bushel rough rice, all in a blaze, den mas'r's great house, all cracklin' up de roof. Didn't I keer for see 'em blaze? Lor, mas'r, didn't care notin' at all, was gwine to de boat." 

Dore's Don Quixote could not surpass the sublime absorption in which the gaunt old man, with arm uplifted, described this stage of affairs, till he ended in a shrewd chuckle, worthy of Sancho Panza. Then he resumed. "De brack sojers so presumptious!" This he repeated three times, slowly shaking his head in an ecstasy of admiration. It flashed upon me that the apparition of a black soldier must amaze those still in bondage, much as a butterfly just from the chrysalis might astound his fellow-grubs. I inwardly vowed that my soldiers, at least, should be as "presumptious" as I could make them. Then he went on.

  "Ole woman and I go down to de boat; den dey say behind us, 'Rebels comin'l Rebels comin'!' Ole woman say, 'Come ahead, come plenty ahead!' I hab notin' on but my shirt and pantaloon; ole woman one single frock he hab on, and one handkerchief on he head; I leff all-two my blanket and run for de Rebel come, and den dey didn't come, didn't truss for come. "Ise eighty-eight year old, mas'r. My ole Mas'r Lowndes keep all de ages in a big book, and when we come to age ob sense we mark em down ebry year, so I know. Too ole for come? Mas'r joking. Neber too ole for leave de land o' bondage. I old, but great good for chil'en, gib to us and tank ebry day. Young people can go through, force [forcibly], mas'r, but de ole folk mus' go slow." 

And so, there you have it. First person excerpts of witnesses to the Dash to Freedom! Happy Black History Month! 

Charleston Old Walled City Tours does public and private history tours. We strive to present true and authentic history by seeking out first person sources and interpreting history within the context of the culture and politics of the time, all done in an engaging and entertaining Small Group Format. To join us go to www.walledcitytours.com