Episodes Around: 18470708

  1. "Weather" or not a slave was treated well.
    date September, 1845 to December, 1847map GREENE, Alabama, ORANGE, North Carolinatags Slavery, plantation, Weather, Slaves

    When we learn about slavery and the slaves’ masters we often get a picture of an evil cold hearted man, who would whip and torment slaves, while they worked in weather conditions that made it impossible to get any work done. We also often assume that their (the slaves) masters would force them to work whether they were sick or even near death. Using the plantation letters from the Cameron Family...

  2. Death of a Slave's Child... and a Mule
    date November 18, 1845 to December 5, 1847map GREENE, Alabamatags plantation, health, overseers, slaves

    Slavery in today’s world has been deemed an injustice, no matter the circumstance.  Due to this, most people would disagree with the notion of a benevolent overseer in the deep American South in the first half of the nineteenth century.  To suggest otherwise would be a major untruth, with today’s logic.  I am however, suggesting that there were a wide range of systems and methods practiced...

  3. Cameron Family Concern for Slave Health
    date October, 1846 to December, 1847map GREENE, North Carolinatags Slavery, Cameron family, Medicine/Health

    The good health of a slave was essential to a plantation owner. Without healthy slaves, there would be no successful plantation, and in turn no successful owner. This idea was only further confirmed after continued research into the Cameron family letters. From the information gathered it seems that the Cameron family genuinely wished for their slaves to remain healthy. The jury is out on whether...

  4. Wanted, An Overseer
    date 1847map COLUMBIA, Floridatags Race-Relations, Slavery, Urban-Life/Boosterism, Women

    As George Gillet Keen would have told you himself, he was a man of few words. He wanted niggers. In particular, he wanted the ability to hire an overseer, to raise himself to a higher class distinction. Some of his hunting buddies had overseers, and their constant dialogue about plantation life left Keen on the outside. He wanted nothing more in life than a plantation of niggers so I could talk...

  5. Greene County Goes Yellow with Fever
    date January, 1847 to December, 1847map ORANGE, North Carolina, GREENE, Alabamatags Plague, Cameron family, alabama, Slavery, Yellow Fever

    In 1847 inhabitants of the Mississippi River basin  had to deal with an outbreak of Yellow Fever.  Transmitted by mosquitoes, Yellow Fever caused symptoms including fevers, chills, headaches and nausea.  In the later months of 1847 the letters that overseer Charles Lewellyn sent to Paul Cameron about the condition of his plantation were fraught with the names of slave that were ill, recovering...

  6. Louisiana's Involvement in the Mexican War
    date July 8, 1847map ORLEANS, Louisianatags Politics, Urban-Life/Boosterism, War

    By the summer of 1847, the Mexican War had been going on for just over a year. Newspapers kept citizens up to date with daily progress by their American troops south of the border, including lists of the casualties as well as those enlisting. New Orleans residents opened up their Times Picayunes the morning of July 8 to read a familiar notice, entitled Departure of Troops. It announced...