The Slave Dump

[waskey]

I decided to make my digs at the local dump we call the "slave dump" a thread because i figured there are plenty more good bottles I will find at this place. First of all the reason it is called the slave dump is because there were once slaves that worked on the property of the old house in the 1800s and the remaints of the old slave houses are still visable but are now just foundations. This is the reason we call this place "the slave dump". Clearly this dump site is much newer than when they had slaves but its still a fun dump to dig and has produced a couple nice local bottles. I will continue to add to this thread with each dig and hopefully i remember to take my camera tommorrow for some action shots. Here is a pic of todays finds.
The finds include-
-2 different shaped Geo. Gunther beer bottles from Baltimore-common but i didnt have either variation.
-3 nice blown in mold aqua beers with AB embossed on the base(either American bottling co. or Anheuser Busch-always have liked these bottles)
-1 large sized screw top Bromo Seltzer bottle from Baltimore.
-1 large Walker's Whiskey square quart sized bottle.
-1 California Syrup bottle

 

[madman]

hey waskey did ya ever probe for cisterns and or toilet pits on that that site????? nice bottles! the bottle with the g is one of the bottles ive seen in shops down here but in amber and bim.....................

 

[waskey]

No I havent yet, im getting my probe soon though and hopefully i can find a few good pits and privies, The Gunther beer bottles are very cool and come in many variations as well but most are fairly common.

 

[downeastdigger]

That could be an historically interesting site. I wonder if in a site like that, if the slave houses would have had privies with bottles in them. Like were they "allowed" to buy there own groceries or bitters or alcohol or medicine etc. As a Mainer, I'm not too educated about the life style of slaves back in the 1800s. Pretty hard concept to fathom, to tell you the truth, but that's why history is so important.
I have read about excavations of slave quarters at sites down south, but they usually contained primitive items and pottery shards etc. Imagine someone digging a slave privy, and finding some sort of expensive colored pontiled Wild Root Herb Bitters bottle or something. Imagine the story of how that bottle wound up there. Not many hobbies have the potential for bringing you back to the day to day lives of the people from our history. Not the famous people, but the "people" people.

 

[RedGinger]

Bram, do you remember the story of the slave cemetery found under Court street in Portsmouth?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5228067

 

[swizzle]

When I lived in Kentucky there was a few places that still use a form of slavery. I believe its called carpetbagging. The farmer give the worker and his family a place to stay and takes "rental" fees for using his tools to do work on his land. The one guy I did hear about down there living in this type of arrangement was only making $25 after paying rent and all the rental fees for the tools and anything else the farmer could think of to charge him for. I can almost imagine that if you did find anything good in a slave privy it would have been stolen or some kind of gift from the land owner to his slaves. I suppose there was varying degrees of slavery as well. So I guess you really wouldn't know unless you dug one out. You might find the remains of a slave collar or shackles or something like that. I know I'd like to see what's in a few of them. It'd be really interesting to see. Swiz

 

[bostaurus]

Sharecropping..Carpetbaggers were the name of the northern con men that came down south to take advantage of the political, social, and economic turmoil left after the Civil War.

 

[swizzle]

Sharecropping was the term I was looking for. Racism is still quite strong in Kentucky. Less then a mile from my house a new black family had moved in and in less then a month a bunch of men were standing around a flaming cross in their front yard.

I imagine the newer privies would have more of interest then the older privies. Its tough to say. I think the finds in a slave privy would most likely vary from state to state as well. Swiz

 

[RedGinger]

That's horrible. I can't believe that still goes on.

Here is a link. This plantation has been kept in its original condition on the inside, which is fascinating. They didn't put up antique looking wallpaper, or furniture, just kept it in its original state.

http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/nanseaj/4/1258856905/11_drayton-hall.jpg/tpod.html (slave privy pictures)

http://www.draytonhall.org/

 

[swizzle]

Wow that was fancy. I would have expected that to be their quarters not just the privy. That looks like its at least a 4 holer. Swiz