Reconstructions: The Material Culture of the Plantation, 1861-1877

The very word "plantation" conjures up images of processional landscapes leading to large houses with tall white columns, faithful workers, hoop skirts and outsized hospitality. These images are problematic, not because such elements were absent, but because they shroud the "peculiar institution" at the core of the plantation, slavery. Nowhere was this more evident than on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, one of the wealthiest regions of the United States, organized around a system of cotton plantations dominated by an elite planter class. The arrival of Federal troops in November 1861 marked the end of slavery for nearly 20,000 enslaved people on the Sea Islands of South Carolina. The plantation landscape was immediately transformed. Elite planters fled; in their wake, soldiers, and freedmen forged an uneasy alliance as they lived and worked together in the de-slaved space: the plantation was thus open for re-imaging.