The study of slave housing is complex because many variables must be taken into account, such as region, size, structure, and layout. Yet, one common trait most often found across the United States was that throughout the eighteenth century slave houses were built with logs, straw, and mud. It was rare for a house to be built of planks, and rarer still to find one made of stones or bricks. Slaves, who brought their skills from Africa, exhibited excellent brick and stone masonry in building those dwellings. Late nineteenth-century evidence suggests substantial improvements in the general quality of slave dwellings, such as the inclusion of windows with glass panes and elements of insulation.
Separate Slave Housing
Separate housing among slaves in America began in the late seventeenth century, after more than 250,000 Africans had been imported to America and sold into a life of servitude. As the slave population on plantations grew, planters established separate housing for their slaves-field and domestic. Slaves who worked in the fields lived in houses commonly called slave quarters or slave cabins. Domestic slaves or servants often lived in lofts above the kitchens, in designated quarters within the "Big House" (the name given to the plantation's main house), or in dependencies (house servants' quarters attached to the main houses). The quality of slave houses varied and was not always determined simply by wealth. Archaeological evidence shows exceptionally well-built frame, brick, or stone slave houses on wealthy plantations, and basic, low quality log houses as well.
Types of Slave Houses
Some interviews with ex-slaves from Maryland describe standard one-level, single-unit log cabins with two rooms and dirt floors. The cabins usually measured sixteen by eighteen or twenty feet. Chimneys were typically made of mud, straw, and wood, which often caught fire. If the quarters had windows, they had no panes. Some slaves hung wood shutters with makeshift hinges at the windows to keep harsh weather out but permit light to enter. The dirt floors became clammy and unbearable when it rained. Up to eight slaves shared a single unit, which sometimes had a loft upstairs where the children slept. Otherwise, children slept on the floor in one downstairs room. Adults shared the other, which also served as the kitchen. A few examples of two-story, double quarters (two identical single units on either side of a central chimney construction) also existed in Maryland. Two families occupied each unit, similar to duplexes today.
Other slave housing was called "slave row." Slave row comprised several rows of long, log cabins. Slaves also referred to them as "shotguns," because the cabins had three rooms, one behind the other in a row like the barrel of a shotgun: children at one end, adults at the other, with the kitchen in the middle. Sometimes these rows were made of stones or bricks. Some slaves in Southern Maryland also lived in frame dwellings-though rarely. While frame constructed dwellings typically had only one room, there was more floor space and they provided more comfortable living conditions than log houses.
Slaves as Skilled Builders
Slaves customarily constructed their own houses with whatever materials were at hand. By the last half of the eighteenth century, slaves in Maryland had blended their traditional building skills with those learned in America. As a result, housing was more secure and habitable and commodious. Slaves covered their houses with gable roofs of thatch, boards, or shingles. Evidence shows that stone houses were erected in Maryland whenever quarries (strip mines full of natural stones) were nearby. In such cases, acquisition of the stones placed no financial burden upon the plantation owners, just slave labor. Slaves also made the furniture and utensils they used. In addition, some slaves made flower and vegetable gardens in front of their homes.
—Shelhea C. Owens
Howard Community College
Further Reading
Berlin, Ira, Marc Favreau, and Steven Miller, eds. Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk about Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and Freedom. New York: The New Press in association with the Library of Congress, 1998.
Blassingame, John W. The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Ante-Bellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.
Fields, Barbara Jeanne. Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland During the Nineteenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
Howell, Donna W. I Was a Slave: True Stories Told by Former American Slaves in the 1930's. Washington: American Legacy Books, 1995.
Lester, Julius. To Be a Slave. New York: The Dial Press, 1968.
