Slavery in Savannah | We Know Their Names
Slavery in the City of Savannah
A slave auction at the south / from an original sketch by Theodore R. Davis
The institution of slavery was as complicated as it was brutal. Instead of being a homogenous system, it differed from place to place and changed over time. In acknowledging the lives of the Davenports’ enslaved household members, we can explore one of the many and most commonly shared experiences of enslavement — the contrast between urban and rural slavery in early 19th century Lowcountry Georgia and South Carolina.
During the early 19th century, the great majority of enslaved people in the Lowcountry lived on plantations, toiling in agriculture, which included the cultivation of staple crops such as cotton and rice. Their lives, focused on the seasons, consisted of hard, manual labor often done under the blazing sun in humid conditions.
In Savannah, the work of the urban enslaved was divided by gender. Most women labored as domestics, attending to the constant round of household chores including cooking, washing, child-care and cleaning. However, there were also a number of enslaved women that sold foodstuffs in the city’s thriving marketplace. Their male counterparts served as draymen - driving goods such as cotton down to the waterfront; stevedores, working on the docks, or as waggoners or cart men. They brought produce in from the countryside. There was also a small sector of skilled laborers, called mechanics, which included carpenters, blacksmiths, and masons to name a few.
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Those enslaved on plantations slept in quarters set apart from their owner’s house. The physical separation allowed for the creation of a single race community where there was little interaction with the outside world. Housing was meager and crowded.In cities, the homes of the wealthy, (such as that of the Richardsons who lived on Oglethorpe Square in what is now the Owen-Thomas House and Slave Quarters), offered separate housing for their enslaved servants. Savannah was also home to separate communities of enslaved and free blacks who lived independently. In these cases, the enslaved were hired-out by their owners, and would pay them a portion of their wages. In most cases, however, the enslaved lived under the same roof with their owners. Ground floors served as work areas during the day and sleeping areas at night. The spaces were generally cramped, crude, and provided a total lack of privacy.The Lowcountry’s system of plantation labor was atypical in the antebellum south.
It was called the Task System, where an enslaved worker was given a daily task to do and once that was completed his/her time was their own. This meant that the scant food allotments, usually a peck of corn a week provided by the plantation, could be supplemented with vegetables planted in garden plots. When tasks were completed enslaved workers could hunt wild game and fish the waterways. While this system did not provide much, it offered the opportunity for variety in their diet. In fact, the edibles produced or foraged by enslaved people wound up in Savannah’s City Market and eventually on the tables of Savannahians throughout the era. What’s more, they were prepared by the enslaved cooks who created the fusion of cultures we now know as Gullah-Geechee or southern cooking.
The most profound contrast between the enslaved in urban and rural environments was the relative freedom of movement, diverse population, and exposure to a broader world offered in cities. Perhaps the best illustration of this is the way in which Savannah and other southern cities attracted a large number of freedom seekers, who were able to live informally free for long periods of time, if not permanently. The lanes in Savannah’s City Plan provided both an escape from the walled enclosure of their owner’s town lot, as well as contact with friends and peers. The enslaved and free people of color were required to have a pass to move about the city and were also under a curfew. Strict enforcement of the Black codes, however, only came about as a result of an emergency or provocation. Be it on the plantation or in cities, the brutal nature of the institution was the same. While punishment on plantations took place on the owner’s property, in cities it usually took place away from the owner’s property either at a guard house or in a jail. Although the constant threat of the lash kept the enslaved under their owner’s control, it was the possibility of being sold away from family and familiar surroundings that brought the most fearful expectations. The fact that Savannah had an active market dedicated to the sale of enslaved workers, (with people being regularly bought and sold both privately and at public auction), proved terrifying to both the free and the enslaved.
Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction, in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1769.
The Life of the Enslaved in the Davenport House
Setting out on a new life in the Georgia port city of Savannah, New England born carpenter Isaiah Davenport arrived in 1809. The twenty-five year old began his business, soon married, and started a family. Shortly after he wed Sarah Clark, tax records show he acquired two enslaved workers. We assume these were domestics to perform the array of tasks in and around their dwelling house on lot 14 in Columbia Ward. Today this space is occupied by the Museum’s garden. One of the enslaved individuals listed was most likely Nancy, as there is an 1812 runway advertisement in one of Savannah’s papers posted by Isaiah Davenport for his “wench named Nancy”.
Nancy was not the only enslaved worker of Davenport’s to take flight. He placed an ad in the Savannah Republican newspaper on June 14, 1821 offering a $100 reward for the capture of his enslaved worker, Dave (listed as Davy in the ad), who had been purchased from the estate of Isaiah's brother, Samuel. Both Dave and Nancy were recovered as they were listed for sale at the time of Davenport’s death.
Davenport’s success as an artisan builder can be gauged by the number of enslaved people in his household. Over the course of almost two decades, his inventory increased from two enslaved workers in 1810 to ten enslaved workers in 1827.
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The move to the spacious home on Lot 13, what we now call the Davenport House, provided a ground floor workspace for the enslaved domestic workers. The area bustled with the activity of preparing foods and entire meals, cleaning, washing, and moving materials into and out of store rooms. At the end of the day, this area was probably sleeping space; or, the enslaved could have slept in the Garret Room/attic. Another alternative sleeping arrangement for the enslaved might have been at the foot of the bed of their owner, or their owner’s children; or, above the carriage house located at the back of the property on the lane.
The adult enslaved female would have also spent time above stairs serving meals, cleaning, tending to the children of their owner. Their hours were long, beginning before dawn and lasting into the evening. Davenport also owned adult enslaved males. Dave was a waggoner. Others were listed as “mechanic,” who were most likely skilled laborers who used their trade in his business.
Today the Museum’s courtyard garden is a place of reflection and charm. During the time of the Davenport’s occupancy, however, the area was a utilitarian yard with a six foot wall. The enclosures hemmed in the lives of the enslaved workers and were a constant reminder of their condition.
The lane behind the Davenport’s property provided a route for communicating with the neighborhood and beyond. Though travel without a pass was prohibited - enforcement could be lax or strict - one never could be sure. As time passed, restrictions tightened, particularly following the news of the insurrection plot believed to have been led by Denmark Vesey in Charleston in the summer of 1822. Although the uprising was aborted, the event sent fear throughout the white population of the Lowcountry. As a city alderman Davenport was involved in the municipal response which tightened controls of the movement of both the enslaved and free people of color.
An inventory taken at the time of Davenport’s death in 1827 lists all of his property, including “nine negroes”, valued at $2,150. This translates to approximately $59,000 in 2021 dollar value. The next year, a newspaper advertisement listed enslaved household members as Ned, Dave, Bella and her children Jack, Jacob, Isaac, and Polly; as well as two other children named Peggy and Nancy. It announced their impending sale. Sarah continued to own Mary and Ann and re-purchased Bella and her children, Jack, Jacob, Isaac and Polly, along with the two children named Nancy and Peggy. So far research has not uncovered the fate of Ned. Records reveal that Dave and Isaac are both buried in Laurel Grove South Cemetery. Dave died of old age at 63 and Isaac died of dysentery at age 48. The final fate of the rest of the enslaved members of the Davenport household has yet to be discovered.
It took 36 more years for freedom to finally come to the enslaved-holding south. For Savannah, freedom was manifested when Union General William T. Sherman and his forces occupied the city in December 1864 and issued Special Field Order, No. 15, guaranteeing “forty acres and a mule” to the newly freed enslaved workers. The Order was read aloud to the public in Green Square, adjacent to the Second African Baptist Church and just two blocks from the Davenport House.