Of former slave dwellings in the united states. Her of former slave dwellings in the united states. Her work includes architectural documentation, photography, intprestation and preservation of slave history. Up next, on american art facts, we travel to southern virginia near the North Carolina border to visit the former Brandon Plantation and learn about her saving slave houses project. E is joined by several archeologists. And a team who came along to document the plantation with a laser scans. We are here to do laser scan yg and documentation of a slave house that is here. This is part of an independent project that i am laser doing t called saving slave houses which is a data base of all the known slave houses in the united states. It is a Central Depository of information and dock yiltation of slave houses in the united states. I have partnered with trim bl the company that makes the survey equipment that i use to do kind of the highest level documentation that is available to us today, which is 3d laser scanning. Its important to do this because, one, documentation is a type of preservation. Slave houses are buildings that the isappearing from landscape. So by documenting them thats one way of preserving them. Documenting them and through my data base is also a way to share the landscape. So by documenting them informat out there and learn from them. So this is a way for people to learn about these buildings and save them, and make them available to a wider audience without having to necessarily come out to the site, because a lot of these sites are hard to get to, and a lot of the sites are privately owned. Property owners dont necessarily want people constantly coming out to their sites to look at these structures. But the Property Owners have been very helpful wanting to work with me but at the same easier to have something thats available on line somewhere that you can get to. In total i have done survey work at about 150 sites, and about 120 to30 of those have been in virginia. Ive been focusing in virginia the last couple of years. I found this place through a quorker and mentor of mine who has coworker of mine who originally worked doing documentation, and now he is now works for nd a private architectural firm. But he knew about the site and told me that its one now works a that he knew i would want to check out. So hes here today. Can you tell us what the two of you are going to do . His name is mark winger. This site is special because it has a subfloor pit. A subfloor pit is a hole in the ground and you find them in enslaved spaces. They are in front of the fire place or heartsdz and they were both as root cellulars but also for storage of personal items that the enslaved people may have had. And they range in size and both but also for shape and theres a wide variety of them. Some are woodlined, some are bricklined, some are just holes, theres dirt, but so this one is special because this building is raised on peers, so this one is stonelined and part of it is above the ground because the building is raised on piers. So today, in addition to 3d laser scanning the building, we are also going to open the pit. To protect it, to to protect the pit the floor boards were nailed closed to deep things out of it so we are going to open it back up to look at it and also to scan it. Thats original. Framing . Mmhmm. How cut . The fact that the saw marks on this framing go straight up and down. Thats a reciprocal waterdriven framing . Saw. So that would sort of put it in the 19th century sometime. And they start circular sawing lumber close to the middle of the 19th century. So this would seem to be before that. So it was built at the time of construction . Probably. One thing i find interesting about these is that the opening is so large. Like i dont know why probably. One thing i you might necessarily such a large opening. Like this one looks like it was intentional, and was constructed at the same time as if building was constructed. So when they built the floor, they framed out to have this hole. They knew that they wanted this hole, this opening in the floor because they provided framing for it. And underneath it, because the building is on piers and raised off the ground, when you look to the edges theres stone. You can see that as lined with stone on the outside of it. So its protected from the outside. I cant tell kind of how deep goes into the ground in relation to the grade outside. It looks like it goes into the ground a little bit. But so this is basically a storage. I mean, a big hole that could be used for storage of things. Do you know where the kitchen would have been . No. I mean, unless they were using this space as a kitchen. So is this the original flooring . All that nailing looks pretty convincing. The floor is pine. It has texture, it has wear. Its got a lot of wear up by the heartsdz. So that has a lot more wear. Yeah. Its the same on the other side. So this looks like it may be the original floor. Yes. What would be in there . Im guessing primarily like a root cellar. Food items. So it would be a cooler space. But also, maybe personal items that they would have had. Its hard to say. Its hard to say without doing archeology. Thats why its really important to do archeology in these spaces because then you uld have a much better understanding. What have they found in these holes when they have done archeology . Well, pass it to an archeologist. Personal items. Buckles, buttons, beads. Fragments of ser amics. Ots of evidence that theyre keeping root vegetables in these root cellars. So that really helps understand the daily lives of these people when we get to excavate these hidden spaces. I run the field work at monticello. The ark logical field work. Today . Are you here she invited my colleague and i from the Archeology Department to come to the space that is shes surveying, and we really wanted to come to kind of experience the space, to feel what these cabance would have been like, to walk through, to live in, to walk up and down the steps. We often at monticello excavate a lot of these spaces once theyre not on the land scape any more. So to be able to be at one thats Still Standing, be at a slave cabance thats Still Standing is a different experience. We wanted to be here for that. When you reflect on what youve seen, what are your thoughts . Thats a good question. Its really humbling to be in these spaces for of these people that were slaves. You know, they were here, living and working. They didnt get a break. They werent paid for their services but they still eeked out an existence. So to try to navigate through those spaces today in the 21st century its humbling. I think i get a better sense of what the room would have felt like. Obviously theres nothing in it today. But to just feel the space and walk through it gives me a better idea of what it is that were looking forward thats not on the land scape any more. I think its really important to come to these spaces, to come to these plantations, record whats here, because one day this building may not be here. I think its important to record our past and to know what it is that makes us who we are today as a nation and as a people. Its important to remember these people that lived here, too. So to be able to document their experience and the building in which they lived, to compare this building with what we have at monticello, trying to get some understanding of the slave experience across time and across space. Think it really helps inform archeologists of sites like brandon. It can really help monticello and across the south and across the east coast. So i think its important to ocument these spaces for sure. This is the equipment that i use from trim billion and these produce gps coordinates of the building. So ive already collected it for the building and ive created a Digital Survey form that has the information im interested in, and i can fill it out and it links to that gps coordinates. So when i map these points out, when you click on that all the information that ive put in omes up to that point. This project started as part of my masters thesis project when i so im a licensed architect and i went back to school to get my masters degree in Historic Preservation after having been out in the real world practicing for a while i realized that the type of architect i wanted to do was historical preservation. So i went back to school. When i was in school for my masters thesis, i started doing research with the Historic American Building survey collection, which is wpa rogram that started in 1936 to get architects back to work. So a thousand architects were hired to go out and document significant Historic Structures all across the united states. And part of that documentation was slave houses. Not necessarily intentionally, but they did document slave houses and sometimes a lot of times it was just you got like one photograph or you would see that a slave house in the background of a picture behind the main house. So for my masters thesis, i looked at that collection and identified all of the sites that had a slave house in them. So like Historic American Building survey has 485 sites that have a documented slave house. Then i also looked at the wpa slave narrative that were done at the same time in the 1930s. Just kind of hoping that there would be some relationship between two although there was no coordination wean the two projects, you know, because the slave narrative was to get writers back to work and they were doing their own thing and the architects were doing their own thing. But in my mind there had to be some overlap if kind of by chance. So i also did research with the slave narratives and so there are about 3500 slave narratives. I went through all of those and identified the ones that described their house during slavey. So there are 1,010 slave narratives that describe their houses through slavery. I went through those. Of those and of the 48r5 documented slave houses there are five that overlap. So you have five slave narratives that describe a specific house documented slave house. So you have the actual words of People Living in these spaces describing these spaces, which is amazing. Thats the interpretation that we should be using when we interpret these spaces. And so from that, thats just, know, i know, i use i used slay narratives slave narratives to interpret and like, nd these spaces, and to guide me to what should i be looking for in these spaces and, you know, what were they how were they using them . And can i see any of that in these spaces now that im going back to look at. And my and to guide me to what should i be looking for in these going back you field work of and doing my own documentation of these buildings started when i was working on my project in school, i was a summer intern at summer architect. And that helped my research so i had access to their collection. And they asked me how many of these have you seen . I was like, none. Im in the archives doing research. Theyre like, oh, you should go out and see some of these. With i was interning the summer with them we went out and saw with them. And once we got started, with the i just didnt stop. I just kept going. Knowing that one, i really enjoyed it. Seeing these spaces in person is not the same as seeing the pictures although the documentation is amazing and the photographs are amazing. But its completely different to actually visit these structures and stand inside the space. Doing the kept work because its exciting. I enjoy it. And it also answers a lot of questions for me and others, like how many of these buildings stick exist . Thats an open question. And in order to further the preservation of these buildings we have to be able to answer those questions, you know, to get support from others you have to be able to answer. How many are we looking at . Im trying to answer that question. How many are still out there or at least provide a case study of so in you know 1936 there were this many in the state and w theres only this many left. So thats what im working on. And so to fund this, its left. So its funded by me. But i look for grants to do a lot of my survey work and things like that, that grants that goes to individuals and things like that. Usually theyre just smaller ones but i can make a small grant go a long way. Three feet, seven inches. Ok. Called a this is saddle bag plan or saddle bag partition wall. So theres two variations of a saddle back. But primarily it has a central chimney and room on either side and a backtoback fireplace. And so thats the plan type. This room that were standing in right now, because of the size of the opening of the fire place and also the location to the main house and the fact that theres a subfloor pit in the other side, and maybe this side, we think this might have functioned as a kitchen because of opening of the fireplace is larger on this side and but then that raises the question why would a root cellar be on the other side if this space was used as a kitchen. Maybe primarily a lot of cooking it would have been a lot hotter. If youre going to have a root cellar, the point is to keep things cool so they use the other space for the cooler side to have the root cellar and is is where a lot of the cooking may have taken place. How would you think this is also, that metal piece is a ing may have taken crane. But im guessing thats original. A lot of the pots are i wouldnt it wouldnt surprise me if theyre original, too. Theyre at least fairly old. A crane. But yeah, the crane is. Thats kind of part of the fireplace. So would people have lived in here . Absolutely. How would that work . Where would they is the upstairs original and they would have slep up there . The upstairs is original. But there are not heartsdzes in the upstairs. A lot of times in the loft ace you do find fire place openings, which is definite indicater that people were living up there. But this one does not have that. But that does not mean they werent living up there. They were living up there, which is why theres a partition wall up there and a door opening up there and a staircase, you know, an enclosed staircase leading up there. So that was living space upstairs. You can never really tell for sure without documentation of exactly where people were or how many people were living in these spaces. But for kitchen, theres always those are or how many people were living in these always als spaces, my understanding, because kitchenors kitchens were used. Once you lit the hearth in the kitchen it never went out just because it took so long to light back then the fire place and get it running and it took so long to do everything it was always running. You always had to have hot water whatever on hand that someone had to be there to watch that fire. And also, just from the slave narrative they always talk about their if they were the cook or their mother was the cook, they always say we lived in the kitchen. Like, my mother lived in the kitchen and she was the cook. So theres also evidence in the narrative that is support that kitchens were also living spaces. And the other room over there . Without knowing exactly how many people were being fed out of this kitchen, you know, its hard to you cant say what was being cooked or how often, and exactly how much you needed to be cooking at one time. But im guessing that was also probably just like a secondry kitchen or Cooking Space for them. Without all the modern technology they have today, theres no way i could do survey work on my own. So thats why im very thankful that we have all this, and that i have access to it. Otherwise even just the digital measuring device that i use, i cant hold the end of one tape measurer and walk the other. So otherwise even just the digital i use a laser measu measure things. So now i am taking some measurements of the room and the doors and the windows. I just finished measuring the fire place and ill do this for each of the different spaces in this building. And also, i took an overall dimension of the building, too. And thats part of my Digital Survey form that i have thats linked to the gis coordinates. So, again, when i map it, all this comes up. Im richard. I work at trimble as a market manager and ive been involved in the atlantic slave trade project which is a fill an thropic project that trim billion has been working on for three or four years now. As part of that project, she has asked us and help her document some of the slave houses in the virginia area. So but this particular house were trying to capture laser scans of the entire exterior and interior of the house. And when we laser scan we run our scanner on a tripe odd and then replace it with try pod and replace it with a camera that can take pan ramic slr images and we can map the color fror those images on to the laser scan, and that provides a point cloud of threedimensional point cloud we can use models or use our other Software Packages to pull measurements and other kinds of useful information out of it. How did trim billion get involved in doing trimble get involved . One of the Vice President is very passionate about africa and hes spent many years there. As part of that, he has the ability to kind of help trim billion choose which kinds of projects to do. And this was one that was very, very passionate about. So we got together with an organization in the past who documents World Heritage sites around the world digitally and started to work with them using our technology to document sites that were important to the atlantic slave trade. Weve hit some sites in mississippi, south carolina, the virgin islands. We did a Sugar Factory down there and we will continue to do that. Now, were building a relationship with both educators and academics to continued the project and find some cofunding through different kinds of grants working with the academic community. We have several historians who have been kind of tying in with us including unees cotalking to them to make sure we have ties with them to both help us get in to Different International locations but also to make sure that the projects we choose are of historical interest. Now, in the school trict in colorado weve been working with educators there to try to add some of this information into their curriculum, which theyve successfully done last year. So they have as part of their curriculum now some of the impacts on Education Organization there has managed to work with Boulder Valley to get this kind of material into their curriculum. Ake 29 south, get off on what kind of crops would talking about the 19th century. Probably tobacco at this point. Thats certainly what it is now. The tide water was big in the tobacco in the 18th creptry. Im not familiar with the agricultural history in this area in the antebellum period but i would guess tobacco was the mainstay. But you would also have grain, wheat and corn. Those would probably be the three main crops. How many is there any way to know how many slaves lived in here or how many they needed for that . That, i dont know. Im not sure how many that would be. But to have a house of that substance, you would have to have quite a bit of acreage under cultivation to make that possible. So this was a substantial house for the period even in the antebellum period this was pretty substantial place. So i actually dont know as much about this plantation as i do atother plantations. This is Brandon Plantation, and even today the current owner, she is part of the so brandon family, her last name is also brandon. Plantations ther same name. Theres an Upper Brandon and a lower Brandon Plantation also nearby. And those plantations have been more heavily studied and documented than this one. This one has not been as heavily studied or documents. I dont necessarily know why that is the case. But thats also another reason why i think its important same theres an Upper Brandon and a document this these structures, baw it hasnt been as heavily studied so there isnt existing documentation thats out there. So its important that someone like myself come along and document it because it didnt exist yet. Thats one of the reasons im excited about doing that today. I always have to remind myself and others that when you come back to sites, you always remember that youre missing a lot of the building. To paint a clear picture of what life was like, you have to be able to identify what buildings are missing. So here, i mean, usually always have the main house. To paint a picture of what life here we have the main house, this structure which was may have possibly been used as a kitchen, also living space for enslaved people. O like a kitchen corridor. We have a privy, we have a smoke house, we have a well. A smoke house and well being next to a building are often next to a kitchen. Theyre buildings that are kind of clustered together because of their function. So smoke house, dairy. Water. Kitchens rely on those things. And kitchens are also usually close to the main house because they service the main house at this house, also now across the roared are two tobacco barns that were also originally part of the original plantation. It look disconnected from now. It now. You know what i mean . So you have to just kind of in order to get a good picture and understand how people would have been moving around the sites and where the farm like where the crops would have you have to know where all those kind of buildings would have been. I just dont know where that would have been for this plantation. Its been divided. Theres roads cutting through a now, which aces you have to were definitely not there historicically. So its kind of hard to paint a good picture of what it would have been like. I also dont know how many people were even here, either like both at the main house or the enslaved community. So without knowing that, its hard to be able to really say i can paint an accurate picture. Because one of the questions always have when youre talking about slave houses, is how many people lived here. Thats what people always want to know because a lot of times, you know, these spaces were ore heavily populated than like what we think of today for a traditional family of like mother father, and like two to three children. Hats not what it was like for either enslaved families or slaveowning families. The families were larger and had more children. So families were just bigger back then. So if it was even like a Single Family or a multifamily housing there were just more People Living in it. So its just kind of automatically a different picture. But i just dont know exactly how many people were here so its hard to kind of paint that picture. The status of it now . Its status of it now is just i guess you could say its stabilized. But no one is living the main house is not used on a regular basis. Its used when i think the family comes out to do some hunting in the area. T no one is living in this structure. When the ow exactly last time people were actually living in the structure using the structure, but i am happy to say that the structure is not being used for storage. A lot of places, the out buildings are used just for storage. But storage of like furniture and just kind of big thing that is clutter the space and when that happens that accelerates the deterioration of the spaces, because when you have clutter, thats when animals and rodents stuff nest and live in there. It invites them in and when the last time people were actually living in the structure using the structure, but thats what starts to accelerate the detier yorwration. So luckily this one is nice and cleaned out. So you have cob webs and other things like that but otherwise its in really good shape. So i think thats really helped preserve the building is the fact that theres no clutter in it. So this is a long days work and its hot out here. When this is all done, what would this look like as far as your records go . Well have lots of photographs. There will be ill have coordinates and that i have to there will be data that needs to be processed. There will be a lot of data that needs to be processed. And it can then be kind of exported into different types of final products, both the information i have and the billion on that trim compiled. And that kind of really just varies and kind of whats what we kind of need and want. But 3d models would be generated with those dmp models theres different programs that can accept those so you can get different versions. These buildings and the people that lived and worked in these buildings are very important part of our history. So i think its important to tell their stories truthfully. And one way of doing that is through the architecture. And the architecture is part of the material culture that still survives today that you can visit, you can experience. And its kind of a vehicle to tell their stories. So thats why im using the architecture. But its also the work im doing is also important because like when i kind of started doing this research i found that there is information in books about these structures and these people but its kind of everywhere. And theres little bits of everywhere. So ive taken a lot of time, years, to compile it and get it in one place, and also to make it digital and its taken me a long time to do this. I would like to be able to share it with others. So not everyone has to go back and do what im doing because its taken me so long to do it that i want others to benefit from it and have access to it so they can move forward and do research with it, and then produce Meaningful Research studies from it and not have to spend a lot of time doing compiling and doing the research that im doing. Although i love it. I enjoy doing it but it does take a lot of time and energy to do. Every site i go to i learn something new. Ive met a lot of great people doing it. Visiting the structures and being inside of them is just a lot different than just seeing a picture of them. Im also for the private properties that im going to, recently im ive always discovered like interesting things about the buildings. But Property Owners are opening up to me and sharing things that they have with me. So, for example, i just went to site and the man there has coverlets, like blankets, from two of them from an enslaved woman that and theyre in really good condition. And theyre just amazing to see. So when i was there, he showed them to me and i never would have known about them unless i went out to the site, you know, spent the time with the Property Owner and talked to them. And thats why he shared them with me. And thats amazing. So to be able to see things like that, i never would have even known about or seen because theyre not in a museum. Theyre not anywhere that i would have known about publicly. Theyre just sitting in someones private home. So thats truly amazing, is that im getting to see things that private Property Owners have and are willing to share with me. You can learn more about the project at her website. Saving slave houses. Org. And you can view this and all other American History tv programs at cspan. Org history