Timber-Framed Dwellings of the Enslaved and Freedmen in the South Carolina Lowcountry: Continuities and Innovations in Building Practices and Housing Standards

Abstract

abstract:This article examines how freed African Americans advanced the design and quality of their homes under varying degrees of White control in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. It uses slave houses at Magnolia and McLeod Plantations in Charleston and Hobcaw Barony in Georgetown as a starting point from which to compare houses built for African American phosphate miners on former plantations such as Drayton Hall and Middleton Place in Charleston, as well as houses built by successful freedmen who owned the land upon which they built their houses in Bluffton and on Edisto Island. This survey illustrates how White planters who ran phosphate mining endeavors on their properties continued to manipulate freed people through the design and condition of their houses. African Americans who built their own homes challenged White suppression by advancing the scale, framing techniques, ornamentation, and plans of their homes.