Scenes on a Cotton Plantation
Description
This series of images was based on sketches mainly taken upon the Buena Vista plantation, Clarke County, Alabama. The four illustrations in the center show the principal operations of cotton culture; others show the cotton gin, the cotton press (which compresses the ginned cotton into bales). According to the article, "the morning-call, performed on a cow-horn; weekly distribution of rations, the weekend dance; also the plantation burying-ground. . . [where] the defunct negroes are buried, a rail-fence being raised above the graves to keep off marauding hogs, calves, etc. It is customary. . . to place upon each new-made grave a mattock and a spade. . . to remain fourteen days from the date of the burial, a safeguard against the premature resurrection of the corpse" (p. 71). The article also contains a detailed description of cotton cultivation and the economics of cotton production. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization was an American political magazine based in New York City and published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916. It featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects and humor, alongside illustrations. It covered the American Civil War extensively, including many illustrations of events from the war.
Source
Harper's Weekly, (Feb. 2, 1867), p. 72-73.
Language
English
Rights
Image is in the public domain. Metadata is available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International.
Identifier
HW0053
Spatial Coverage
North America--Alabama
Item sets
Citation
" Scenes on a Cotton Plantation", Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora, accessed November 30, 2023, http://slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/1079
![This series of images was based on sketches mainly taken upon the Buena Vista plantation, Clarke County, Alabama. The four illustrations in the center show the principal operations of cotton culture; others show the cotton gin, the cotton press (which compresses the ginned cotton into bales). According to the article, "the morning-call, performed on a cow-horn; weekly distribution of rations, the weekend dance; also the plantation burying-ground. . . [where] the defunct negroes are buried, a rail-fence being raised above the graves to keep off marauding hogs, calves, etc. It is customary. . . to place upon each new-made grave a mattock and a spade. . . to remain fourteen days from the date of the burial, a safeguard against the premature resurrection of the corpse" (p. 71). The article also contains a detailed description of cotton cultivation and the economics of cotton production. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization was an American political magazine based in New York City and published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916. It featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects and humor, alongside illustrations. It covered the American Civil War extensively, including many illustrations of events from the war.](http://slaveryimages.org/files/large/58675f3c132ad837e12cb5ba386cc2531b0d2b6b.jpg)
