African-American Gardens - Design and Development: Part 2

How did African Americans shape and form their domestic space as their relationships to the land changed from

• being slaves;
• to tenancy;
• to land ownership?

Richard Westmacott in a talk at a Cultural Resources Diversity Program organized by the National Park Service defines garden as a place where vegetables are grown. Yard means other places around the cabin or house used for pleasure and ornament. He also states, Many slaves were not permitted to have their own gardens, and those that had plots were pressured to use plantation or European practices..

For many African American slaves who were permitted to have garden plots, the garden patch was often their most important possession. They had some control and choice over what they grew to supplement their meals. There is also evidence that slaves grew plants similar to those from Africa or the Caribbean. A second benefit to keeping a garden was that often enslaved men and women could sell surplus produce from their plots to earn cash in city and village markets. A third benefit was the ability to cultivate medicinal herbs. Native African customs and knowledge probably blended over time with those of Native Americans and even Europeans. Eighteenth century documents show that African medical practitioners were not only valued within their communities but also by whites needing care.

Yards outside slave quarters were usually hard dirt kept clean by vigorous sweeping with brooms. Why? One reason, other than tradition, might be that cabins were small, often one room, and dark. Therefore, slaves did most of their chores outside - cooking, repairing tools, and sewing clothes. Often there were vertical board or stick fences around these yards, a common feature in some West African cultures.

Freedom and reconstruction in the South, 1865 to 1877 - after the War Between the States, was to many former slaves worse than bondage itself. Changes in society and lifestyle came about quickly and often harshly for former slaves. There was frequent violence toward them. The mutual farm and plantation dependencies collapsed. As a result, cash was short for both whites and blacks. Laborers began renting land or sharecropping, usually paying property owners with crops because everyone was still so strapped for cash.

Landowners provided some land and a house to both sharecroppers and renters. Under sharecropping, property owners also supplied tools and livestock and were paid in return a percentage (often disproportionately huge) of the harvests. Renter systems required tenants to provide their own animals and equipment and to pay a set amount to property owners each year as rent.

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