Black Potters in Antebellum SC: Tragedy and Triumph

Hear Me Now: the Black Pottery of Old Edgefield, South Carolina

 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Through July 9, 2023

 

 

 

Have you ever traveled to see a blockbuster show and found yourself blown away by a different exhibit? This happened to me last month when I went to the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston to see its featured exhibit on Japanese artist Hokusai, but was more deeply moved by a smaller display of earthenware pottery produced by black potters.

 

 

The leading light of Hear Me Now was David Drake (c. 1801- c.1870s), who took the surname of his first enslaver, Harvey Drake. Harvey Drake was the co-owner of a factory in an area near Edgefield, South Carolina that was dubbed Pottersville. “Dave the Potter,” as he was nicknamed, gained a reputation for utilitarian pots that were unique in several ways. First, though their purpose was functional, Dave’s works were exceptionally well crafted. Some were enormous; one is 29” x 85,” so it would have been done in two parts with the bottom part thrown on a wheel and then coiled to finalize it. The larger pots would have been used for storage of pork, lard, and beef; the smaller ones for liquids. “Face jugs” were also produced, and scholars presume that some of these represented actual individuals.

 

 

 More surprising, Dave inscribed many of his works in a state where a 1740 law made it illegal to teach slaves to read or write, and 1834 legislation prescribed 50 lashes for any enslaved person to teach another said skills. No one knows exactly how Dave became literate. Some have suggested that Abner Landrum, Harvey Drake’s business partner, may have taught him. This may be so; Landrum family members, including the Rev. John Landrum and then his son Franklin owned Dave from 1836-46. (Harvey Drake died in 1832 and Dave had two short-term owners before the Landrum family.) Maybe not though, as the particulars of Dave’s life remain more speculative than known. For instance, Dave lost a leg at some point. One tale holds it resulted from a vicious beating from Franklin, who was said to be both cruel and furious that Dave knew how to read and write. The opposing argument is that Dave’s literacy would have been well known by the time Franklin entered the picture.

 

In other words, legend and contemporary politics muddy the waters. We know that Dave inscribed his projects as early as 1834. Legend holds he did so as an act of defiance, but that theory presupposes that no one noticed writing that anyone attending the exhibit can clearly see. Dave liked to use couplets, some whimsical but others bearing lines that make the defiance thesis credible. In 1857 he wrote: I wonder where is all my relations/Friendship to all and every nation. This corresponds with the time of Franklin’s control of the pottery works, as did one from the next year: Nineteen days before Christmas Eve/Lots of people after its [sic] over/How they will grieve.

 

If Franklin was a nasty as some think, both of the above would have been risky. This is especially true of the second if you know that the end of the winter holidays ushered in slave sales and auctions. Dave was indeed sold in 1849 to Lewis Miles, who held Dave through the end of the Civil War, after which he obtained his freedom. What happened in Dave’s remaining years is clouded in mystery. We suspect he died in the 1870s, but thus far the historical record merely whispers.

 

 

 

What we can say is that Dave and numerous other black potters–there is a list of known enslaved artisans from the region displayed at MFA–inspired many artists of color in the future, including Woody De Othello, Theaster Gates, Simone Leigh, and Robert Pruitt. Work from such modern artists working in similar idioms rounds out the show. Call them living links to Dave the Potter and his contemporaries.

 

Catch this show if you can. I can guarantee you will never again look at pottery as just cleverly shaped lumps of clay. 

 

Rob Weir