Talk:Plantation complexes in the Southern United States

Plantations in the Caribbean

Cardiff Hall, Saint Ann's Bay, Jamaica

I was trying to find somewhere to put Cardiff Hall. As many of these buildings were erected before the USA broke away from the British Empire it would be a shame not to reflect the deeper social relationship between these forms of architecture.Leutha (talk) 18:03, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I tried to a keep narrow focus on only those in the U.S. South in order to avoid the article becoming a hodge-podge for every possible variation of plantation type and its architecture found around the world. Although I know that there was a relationship between the development of plantations in the U.S. and the Caribbean, I have found little in my sources documenting exactly what that relationship was. There doesn't seem to be much scholarly work on the subject, at least not that I've been exposed to. The French and Spanish, rather than British, plantations in the Caribbean seem to have the best documented influence on plantations in the lower South. If you have sources, I would certainly welcome adding a section to address it. Altairisfar (talk) 18:47, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Need source/written with bias/don't know the guideline this poorly written sentance violates

A popular misconception, often perpetuated in print and film, that the typical plantation had a grand mansion and hundreds of slaves is undermined by reality. On the whole this article has lots of interesting verifiable information, but it's structure needs to be edited quite thoroughly. 72.39.222.96 (talk) 07:59, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd love to hear what someone has to say regarding books about life for the Planters and Southern Belles before the Civil War

75.83.240.192 (talk) 23:18, 8 April 2015 (UTC)History Lover 15

Indentured servants

Are these irrelevant? I thought they antedated mass slavery.

Were all the slaves African American? What about Native American slaves?

Put differently, I’m uncomfortable saying that a seventeenth-century plantation ran on slaves. But others know far more than I. deisenbe (talk) 12:41, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

@Deisenbe: Indentured servitude has its place on the Slavery article but is not appropriate here. Should it exist, be certain to cite reliable sources when detailing Native American enslavement on plantations. White men of the period considered Natives to have existed in a higher caste than Africans, and thus plantations in the United States were almost exclusively manned by African slaves. – Conservatrix (talk) 13:44, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

List

Does a list of all of these places exist anywhere on Wikipedia? -LumaNatic (talk) 16:23, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

• List of plantations in the United States
• List of plantations in North Carolina

User:G._Moore talk 21:26, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Construction Crews?

While the article gives some interesting insights on the design and architecture of these mansions and plantation complexes, I don't see any mention of who actually did the physical building of the structures.

One encounters a lot of hearsay to the effect that slave labor was used to build the mansions, but was it?

Were slaves who were generally brought in to work in the fields as farm laborers also trained as skilled carpenters, masons, glaziers, etc., that would have been utilized to construct the faux Greek temples many of these houses were designed to mimic? Or was white labor hired to construct the buildings, and slaves relegated to the fields?

This seems like an important point which ought to be at least mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.89.176.249 (talk) 01:52, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Merger

It looks to me like the shorter article, Plantations in the American South, could be merged into this article. Plantations and Plantation complexes are the same thing. Both articles are about the American South. The sections in Plantation sin the American South don't appear to be duplicated in this article, so it would be an easy cut and past.

G._Moore (talk · contribs) 15:52, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Sources for article expansion

Well-researched article at the MSA in Maryland, detailing private punishment of servants and slaves in colonial America. — LlywelynII 12:38, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Slaves

If there is a section on the Planter, shouldn't there be a section on Workers?

Shouldn't slaves be mentioned in the introduction? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.143.162.114 (talk) 22:10, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Postbellum era

How did the plantation system change after the USA freed the slaves? Were the large farms still considered to be "plantations" thereafter - and if not, what do we have to call them?

Particularly, is there anything unrealistic about the depiction of plantation life in Disney's Song of the South? Or is the film's chief problem that it seems to portray antebellum plantation life, due to its failure to specify the decade it's set in? --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:49, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

The plantation system transitioned to sharecropping during Reconstruction. After slaves were freed, the plantation owners did not have the cash to employ free laborers, so instead they leased out small plots of land to former slaves, and ensnared them in relations of debt bondage.

The Song of the South page indicates Disney intended the movie to take place during Reconstruction, and the page also lists the criticisms of the film with a wealth of sources for further review. I personally cannot possibly imagine that the relationship between a debt-burdened tenant farmer and his former owner, the latter of whom is likely engaging in or tacitly approving the white supremacist masked night riders or unmasked vigilantes terrorizing former slaves and their political allies, could be as idyllic and uncomplicated as presented in the film. Not to mention a male former slave would live in fear of being lynched after false accusation of a crime, or that a female former slave could essentially be raped without consequence. -Furicorn (talk) 23:46, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Removed 1884 lithgraph

The lithograph File:Cotton plantation on the Mississippi, 1884 (cropped).jpg does not depict a cotton plantation, it depicts the idea proponents of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy publicized about cotton plantations. Examples: Of the 7 enslaved people in the foreground at least 4 are idle, one of them lying on top of the load on the wagon, a classical image of idle happiness. The white couple gives the expression of civilized dignity. The husband would never sell a child away from the mother, would he ? There is no overseer, and the most important tool for cotton production is missing: The whip. --Rsk6400 (talk) 08:49, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Uncited content

I removed this content from the article as it is not cited and is perhaps original research. Is there a source for this information?

Planters maintained a record of the purchases, often adding exorbitant interest rates. A 1909 estimate by the Department of Agriculture concluded that the average sharecropper cleared only about $175 from his crops before settling his accounts at the plantation store. However, afterward the tenant farmer had to pay for the coming year's staples, thereby keeping himself permanently indebted to the plantation owner.

then, from the plantation owner section

The wealthiest planters, such as the Virginia elite with plantations near the James River, owned more land and slaves than other farmers. Tobacco was the major cash crop in the Upper South (in the original Chesapeake Bay Colonies of Virginia and Maryland, and in parts of the Carolinas).

The later development of cotton and sugar cultivation in the Deep South in the early 18th century led to the establishment of large plantations which had hundreds of slaves. The great majority of Southern farmers owned no slaves or owned fewer than five slaves. Slaves were much more expensive than land.

... a "planter" was generally a farmer who enslaved many persons. While most Southerners were not slave-owners, and while the majority of slaveholders held ten or fewer slaves, planters were those who held a significant number of slaves, mostly as agricultural labor. Planters are often spoken of as belonging to the planter elite or to the planter aristocracy in the antebellum South.

then, plantation crops section

Crops cultivated on antebellum plantations included cotton, tobacco, sugar, indigo, rice, and to a lesser extent okra, yam, sweet potato, peanuts, and watermelon. By the late 18th century, most planters in the Upper South had switched from exclusive tobacco cultivation to mixed-crop production.

In the Lowcountry of South Carolina, even before the American Revolution, planters typically owned hundreds of slaves. (In towns and cities, families held slaves to work as household servants.) The 19th-century development of the Deep South for cotton cultivation depended on large tracts of land with much more acreage than was typical of the Chesapeake Bay area, and for labor, planters held dozens, or sometimes hundreds, of slaves.

then, Plantation architecture and landscape section

Antebellum architecture can be seen in many extant "plantation houses", the large residences of planters and their families. Over time in each region of the plantation south a regional architecture emerged inspired by those who settled the area. Most early plantation architecture was constructed to mitigate the hot subtropical climate and provide natural cooling.

Some of earliest plantation architecture occurred in southern Louisiana by the French. Using styles and building concepts they had learned in the Caribbean, the French created many of the grand plantation homes around New Orleans. French Creole architecture began around 1699, and lasted well into the 1800s.

In the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia, the Dogtrot style house was built with a large center breezeway running through the house to mitigate the subtropical heat. The wealthiest planters in colonial Virginia constructed their manor houses in the Georgian style, e.g. the mansion of Shirley Plantation. In the 19th century, Greek Revival architecture also became popular on some of the plantation homes of the deep south.

Common plants and trees incorporated in the landscape of Southern plantation manors included Southern live oak and Southern magnolia. Both of these large trees are native to the Southern United States and were classic symbols of the old south. Southern live oaks, classically draped in Spanish moss, were planted along long paths or walkways leading to the plantation to create a grand, imposing, and majestic theme. Plantation landscapes were very well maintained and trimmed, usually, the landscape work was managed by the planter, with assistance from slaves or workers. Planters themselves also usually maintained a small flower or vegetable garden. Cash crops were not grown in these small garden plots, but rather garden plants and vegetables for enjoyment.

This would be lovely to return to the article if there are sources. Based on my running into ten-year-old citation needed tags lately, and the lack of interest by people to find sources, it seems the best way to go without tagging the article.–CaroleHenson (talk) 07:47, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Lack of neutrality

The lead and some other sections of this article lack neutrality. First of all, the "Personnel" section of the article does not mention indentured servants, hired managers and other paid employees (except for overseers), who voluntarily worked on plantations to obtain financial or other compensation.

Secondly, the lead states that African and African-American slaves were "forced to produce crops to create wealth for a white elite." That statement ignores the fact that large plantations, like smaller farms, were risky businesses that often strained the resources of their owners. Regardless of the sizes of the plantations, many plantation owners were not members of an "elite".

Importantly, some free African Americans owned plantations and slaves. If successful, they became part of an African American "elite". The article does not mention this fact.

The article lacks a "History" section. Such a section could contain information about the activities and events that created the conditions that the article describes.

For example, the article implies that plantation owners enslaved Africans and African Americans. In fact, it was Africans that engaged in wars and raids that captured, enslaved and converted free Africans to property in efforts to create profits and wealth for themselves. This process of enslavement began in Africa long before the first slaves came to England's American colonies and even longer before the establishment of the United States (see Slavery in Africa). A "History" section could describe such events in detail.

I have therefore edited parts of this article to decrease its racial biases and to increase its neutrality. Corker1 (talk) 22:41, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Regarding the "risky businesses" argument: It has been used in discussions between employers and employees for at least two centuries, but seems out of place here since employees (even 19th century factory workers) profit from their employment (compared to unemployment), while enslaved persons didn't profit. Moreover, if the owner failed, the enslaved workers lost more: They were sold, which very often meant that husbands were separated from wives, mothers from children.

Regarding the argument of Black enslavers: The existence of Black plantation owners is an established fact, but they were so few that no academic historian that I know of supports your judgment "importantly". americancivilwar.com fails WP:RS.

Your description of how Africans were enslaved by Africans is not utterly wrong, but over-simplified. You seem to forget that Black people born in the U.S. were certainly not enslaved by Africans. The use of "to enslave" and "enslaver" in the sense of "to hold as a slave" / "slaveholder" has become so widespread in recent years that I hold it to be correct English.

BTW: I think that edit summaries like "editorial changes" are neither meaningful nor helpful. I reverted to status quo. --Rsk6400 (talk) 05:14, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

The Merriam-Webster dictionary does not agree with you as to the meanings of the verb "enslave" and the noun "enslaver" That dictionary defines the transitive verb "enslave" as follows: "to reduce to or as if to slavery : SUBJUGATE". The dictionary shows that the noun "enslaver" has a similar meaning by giving examples of its use in sentences.

The dictionary gives no other definitions for those words. This is significant, because editors of dictionaries often update and add definitions as common uses of words change. Your definition is certainly not "correct English".

Wikipedia depends upon reliable sources. The Merriam-Webster dictionary is a reliable source. Your opinion is not.

Regarding African American plantation owners, you stated "they were so few that no academic historian that I know of supports your judgment." Perhaps you know few academic historians, or perhaps you know the wrong ones. Either way, you have not supported your statement with information from a reliable source.

The second paragraph in the article in AmericanCivilWar.com that I cited states: "The fact is large numbers of free Negroes owned black slaves; in fact, in numbers disproportionate to their representation in society at large. In 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves. .... " The article later states: "In 1860 there were at least six Negroes in Louisiana who owned 65 or more slaves. The largest number, 152 slaves, were owned by the widow C. Richards and her son P.C. Richards, who owned a large sugar cane plantation. Another Negro slave magnate in Louisiana, with over 100 slaves, was Antoine Dubuclet, a sugar planter whose estate was valued at (in 1860 dollars) $264,000 (3). That year, the mean wealth of southern white men was $3,978 (4)".

Black slave owners in the United States states: "Relatively few non-white slaveholders were substantial planters;....". However, because there were a large number of African American slaveholders, the "relatively few" African American slaveholders that were substantial planters could also be a large number.

The actual number of African American plantation owners within the U.S. is lost to history. However, based on the information cited above, there is no reason to expect that the number was small.

You stated: "americancivilwar.com fails WP:RS". You are wrong. The article in AmericanCivilWar.com that I cited is a reliable source, as it supports its statements with in-line citations to published works that are verifiable.

When you revert edits, you need to support your reversions with reliable sources. You have not done this, but have only provided your own subjective opinions on the matters involved. It is improper to claim in Wikipedia (as you did) that there were few African American plantation owners without providing any documentation for that claim.

You discussed the "risky business" argument out of context. I used the "risky business" argument to refute the following information in the article (which I removed): "... the lead states that African and African-American slaves were "forced to produce crops to create wealth for a white elite." My point was that the slaves were not always forced to produce crops to "create wealth for a white elite".

Slaves not only produced crops for slaveholders that were in a wealthy "white elite", but also produced crops for some that were in financial distress (including being heavily in debt) and some that were not white. I removed the statement because it exhibited a racial bias, as it was not neutral and only described a special case. The fact is that only a minority of plantation owners were in a "wealthy white elite". Some owners were not white, many were not wealthy, and some often struggled to pay their debts. As you recognized, some were in such dire straits that they needed to sell their slaves to make ends meet.

A well-known example of this is George Washington's Mount Vernon. Washington was able to use his management skills and his wife's inheritance to expand the estate and make a profit. His heirs lacked those skills and resources. The plantation house and other parts of the estate deteriorated under their ownership. The heirs had to sell their own slaves to pay their debts. One finally sold the estate to a historic preservation organization with enough funds and public support to maintain and restore it.

When I use the term "editorial change", I mean exactly that. The change involves grammar, clarity or sentence/paragraph structure. Nothing more.

I am therefore restoring my edits. If you disagree, you are welcome to request a third opinion in accordance with Wikipedia guidance. Corker1 (talk) 18:37, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

References

WP:NOCON says In discussions of proposals to add, modify, or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit. As of now, you don't have consensus for your changes. The words "create wealth for a white elite" have been part of the lede since before my first edit to this article on Dec 9, 2020. So I assume that I'm not the only editor favouring that wording. The same is true for "A few enslavers went even ..." (I didn't check the other instances of "enslavers", "to enslave"). Thanks for providing the Merriam-Webster source. I agree with you that it puts in doubt my explanation, but since "enslavers" / "to enslave" is used in many articles and by many Wikipedians, I don't think here is the right place to discuss that. Maybe start a RfC at the American history project ?

I think I have to explain my statement The existence of Black plantation owners is an established fact, but they were so few that no academic historian that I know of supports your judgment "importantly". americancivilwar.com fails WP:RS. What I meant is: Your judgment that the existence of African American plantation owners is "important" for the understanding of plantation economics is not supported by academic historians. americancivilwar.com is neither an academic publication nor peer reviewed, so it should not be used here according to If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources in topics such as history, medicine, and science. My error was to assume that that sentence is to be found at WP:RS. In reality, it's WP:SOURCE. The number of Black plantation owners is not "lost to history", since there is enough documentation to allow historians at least good estimates. The fact that antebellum South was a society built on the racist distinction between Whites and (in most cases) enslaved Blacks, the Whites being divided into a planter aristocracy ("planter class", "planter elite") and "poor Whites" is well known. The fact that some Whites had to struggle to keep their position within the elite or to gain such a position or that they lost it, doesn't contradict the existence of such an elite that was - seen as a group - wealthy. --Rsk6400 (talk) 05:47, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

The phrase "large numbers of enslaved Africans or African Americans were held captive and forced to produce crops to create wealth for a white elite" is in the lead section. The phrase lacks an inline citation to a reliable source. In addition, that phrase and others that I have discussed above are not neutral, as they contain racial biases.

MOS:LEADCITE states: "The verifiability policy advises that material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and direct quotations, should be supported by an inline citation." The phrase is likely to be challenged (and has been challenged). It is therefore subject to removal, regardless of the length of time that was in the article. I have removed the phrase for that reason and because it contains a racial bias.

If you wish to restore the phrase, please recognize that WP:BESTSOURCES states: "Good and unbiased research, based upon the best and most reputable authoritative sources available, helps prevent NPOV disagreements." Therefore, to prevent any further NPOV disagreements about that phrase, you should find the best and most reputable authoritative sources available. You may be able to find such sources in Black slave owners in the United States, which I have cited above.

You stated that there is a lack of consensus on this change. There is no consensus because only two people have participated in this dispute. Therefore, WP:NOCON does not apply to this dispute.

I have already advised you to seek a third opinion (WP:THIRD). This would help to build a consensus. I suggest that you follow the instructions in WP:THIRD to list the dispute. If you choose not to do this, the challenged phrase will remain removed, as it lacks inline citations that are based on the best and most reputable authoritative sources and contains a racial bias. Corker1 (talk) 16:30, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't see why NOCON should not apply, but I provided the reference you were asking for. --Rsk6400 (talk) 16:48, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Corker1 you should be allowed to expand this page with well sourced documentation. I don’t agree with everything you said especially your ideal that slavery was not profitable for most enslavers. Another category of slave owners that needs to be expanded on is Native Americans. We should use the talk pages and work cooperatively to include everything and not limit ourselves to learn biases on what really happened during this dark time in human history. BTW YES, Africans did sell other Africans into slavery in exchange for goods. This is well documented occurrence Robjwev (talk) 02:41, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

The plantation complex

I'm concerned by the 3rd sentence of the 1st paragraph in this section: "Although many Southern farmers did enslave people before emancipation in 1862, few enslaved more than five." This seems misleading, considering the last line of the same paragraph indicates that about half of plantations had more than 5 slaves: "Of the estimated 46,200 plantations existing in 1860, 20,700 had 20 to 30 enslaved people and 2,300 had a workforce of a hundred or more, with the rest somewhere in between." I think that saying "few" here is more of an opinion than facts, and the following sentence starts to sound like a defense of slavery in the South, rather than a factual account.

Original text: Although many Southern farmers did enslave people before emancipation in 1862, few enslaved more than five. These farmers tended to work the fields alongside the people they enslaved.[5] Of the estimated 46,200 plantations existing in 1860, 20,700 had 20 to 30 enslaved people and 2,300 had a workforce of a hundred or more, with the rest somewhere in between.

Suggested change: Although many Southern farmers did enslave people before emancipation in 1862, about half enslaved more than five. These farmers tended to work the fields alongside the people they enslaved.[5] Of the estimated 46,200 plantations existing in 1860, 20,700 (45%) had 20 to 30 enslaved people and 2,300 (5%) had a workforce of a hundred or more, with the remaining half somewhere in between.

Add "Forced Labor Camp" as descriptor of "Plantation" throughout the page

Re-sharing what I also shared on the Madame C.J. Walker talk page below. Today, I added "forced labor camp" as a descriptor of "plantation" on this page. An editor reverted the edit and told me to add to this Talk page for consensus for the edit. Here I am, thank you for reading:

• Plantations in the antebellum South of the United States were "forced labor camps". A wikilink to labor camp in the "See Also" section would add to the definition of this page's subject with an unredacted history, that tells a fuller history about the experience of the enslaved Black and Indigenous peoples at the plantations. The editor asked me to cite sources. I asked the editor that if I cite a source, if they would not revert the edit. I did not receive a response - instead they told me to start a Talk on this page and gain consensus. The sources: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/plantation-system/ and https://mountainx.com/opinion/letter-language-shift-will-change-perceptions/

• Are there other names to call the Nazi concentration camps of Germany? A brutal reality occurred at "plantations" as at concentration camps. Murder, rape of men, women, and children, lynching, psychological terrorism were common experiences of enslaved Black and Indigenous peoples at the "plantations". Why not call them by their true, historically accurate name - forced labor camps? Another source for this use of "forced labor camp" for plantations is the documentary film, 13th, by Ava DuVernay. The film draws a direct connection to present-day forced labor camps in the US South, i.e., prisons, to plantations. There is even a prison built on the site of a former plantation, featured in the film, Angola State Prison in Louisiana. Plantation denotes an idyllic place and they were anything but for everyone involved, especially those forced to work against their will for generations.

• It's great that Wikipedia Foundation has programs such as Wiki Unseen. From the program's website:

"A promise to show the world the people who have shaped the world, but were systematically erased from knowledge spaces. People whose images were taken out of the picture. With Wiki Unseen, our goal is to redraw those within the global majority — including Black people, people of color, and Indigenous peoples — back into history, one image at a time."

• It is not enough to "show the world the people who have shaped the world" - it is important to allow their whole history to be told, even, and especially the uncomfortable parts. Plantations were forced labor camps and Wikipedia should be responsible as a global resource in stating this description of them in its pages.

• However, at present, the Wikipedia pages tell a redacted history through the use of the passive voice, omitting White people in pages about slavery and plantations or using euphemisms for them, continuing to state "slaves" instead of returning humanity to the people who worked on the forced labor camps as "enslaved Black and Indigenous people", and not aptly describing "plantations" as forced labor camps". This redacted history does not abide by "Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view" from Wikipedia's Five Pillars. Wikipedia pages that tell a fuller, unredacted history would make the unseen, seen in our history even more.

Thank you kindly, Unredacthefacts (talk) 23:33, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

See WP:RGW. Though some good sources may use the term "labor camp", I don't believe that the term is uncontested, but I am more than happy to defer to those editors with greater expertise in the subject. I've linked the term where it currently appears in the text. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:30, 23 May 2022 (UTC)