Historic Photo Print - Savannah - Slave houses on Hermitage plantation (2)

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The living quarters of the enslaved people who worked the Hermitage plantation, just outside Savannah, are the subject here, a focus that sets this view apart from scenes of the main house or the grounds. Hermitage was a Lowcountry estate on the Savannah River, and like many of its neighbors it depended on rice cultivation, a labor-intensive crop worked for generations by enslaved African men, women and children. Written records rarely described the homes of enslaved families in detail, so photographs of these dwellings are valuable historical evidence. The simple construction and the arrangement of the buildings are worth studying closely, as they reveal how plantation life was organized.

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