Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1985 - 53

The Millwood Plantation washerwomen
are shown at work in this photograph
dating to around 1879.

ducted by The History Group in Atlanta, we were able to piece together
a more complete and personal history of Structure 17.
Born on the Millwood estate in
1892 about one mile from Calhoun's
former residence, our informant
stated that she was married in 1910
to the youngest son of Calhoun's
former slave brickmason. She and
her husband lived on the Calhoun
estate until 1925, at which time they
moved to a nearby town. In 1946
she moved to Harlem in New York
City, and returned to South Carolina
in 1968 to live with her daughter.
This remarkable woman, 89
years old when interviewed, provided numerous lucid comments
about tenant life on the Calhoun
estate in the early twentieth century.
In addition, she offered important
comments about her life in Structure 17.
Speaking of this home, she
stated that after her marriage in
1910, she set up housekeeping "on a
little piece of ground near the Savannah River." Her home, she said, had
a "weather board" exterior and a
"fireplace in the middle." There were
three rooms in the house, "two bed-

rooms and a kitchen," but it still
"wasn't fine inside as the white
people's house" (probably the plantation manager). Nonetheless, it
was "built like the white people's
house in Millwood," and was not as
bad as the houses of those who had
to start "off with logs."
She also noted that she and her
husband raised hogs and chickens
on the farm and occasionally purchased "some plows" and "all kinds
of things: rakes, harrows, and all
kinds of good tools to farm with."
Her husband also worked part of
the year in a nearby large town, and
that may be why many of the artifacts represent an affluence not typical of the black tenant farmer. Her
further statements about sharecropping and renting present a rich picture of the early twentieth- century
rural southern black agriculturalist.
Her additional comments offer
a rare opportunity to understand
why this first home was abandoned.
Millwood Plantation, she said, was
frequently visited by local teenagers
and young adults for fishing and
picnics. The still-standing homes of
former tenants, who had since moved
off the property, were often used by
these campers. With time, a friction
developed between the people who
continued to call Millwood home
and those who used the property for
recreation. She had a particular
problem keeping campers from raid-

ing one of her family's most important sources of food- the garden.
While this continuous problem made
them want to move from their house,
it was not until "we got burned out
down there in the flat" that moving
to higher ground near the plantation spring was made possible. This
fire occurred sometime between
1910, the date of her marriage, and
1925, the date she moved off the
estate- a date range fairly consistent with the dates of the artifacts
found in Structure 17, given that
there was probably some time lag
between an artifact's date of manufacture and its purchase by these
tenants, and that these tenants may
have used objects that were already
fairly old.
What emerges is a picture of the
life, housing and material possessions of a black tenant farmer during the first decades of the twentieth
century. This picture would only be
an outline sketch without the full
integration of all available information. When used alone, the archeological data would make it possible
to develop some idea of how the site
had been used, and of course, would
allow us to date the house reasonably well. Nonetheless, we would not
have been able to discern the tworoom construction on the one end of
the house noted by the informant.
Similarly, although the information
presented by the informant would
stand as an interesting and important body of direct data about a
time and place now gone, it would
stand alone as a one-dimensioal
view. Only when we marshal all of
our data and examine the burned
floor boards, the charred doll parts,
and the badly tarnished locket do
the words "we got burned out down
there in the flat" take on a personal
meaning.
The archaeology of the black
tenant farmer may not at first seem
like something archaeologists should
study. But archaeology can provide
information on southern tenancy
that can come from no other source.
Just as archaeologists can learn
from the excavation of a Greek
temple so too can they profitably
study the life of the black tenant
farmer in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries. This study,
now in its infancy, is quickly coming
to maturity as historical archaeologists continue to investigate the
life of the tenant farmer.
1985
July/August

Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1985

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - July/August 1985