Vegetable Gardens Have Deep Roots in the Antebellum South

Slave Houses on a Rice Plantation, U.S. South, 1859

A travel account I found while doing research for my book Hog and Hominy http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy/webFeatures illustrates the centrality of gardening in the lives of enslaved Africans during the antebellum period. Speaking of a rice plantation near Charleston, South Carolina, Adam Hodgson writes “We visited the little dwellings of the Negroes. These generally grouped together round something like a farm – yard; and behind each of them was a little garden, which they cultivate on their own account,” he writes in 1820 in his travel account Remarks During a Journey Through North America In the Years 1819, 1820, and 1821 in a Series of Letters. Hodgson goes on to say, “I was told their provisions were prepared for them, and that twice every day they had as much as they asked for of Indian corn, sweet potato, and broth, with the occasional addition of a little meat. Besides this, they frequently prepare for themselves a little supper from the produce of their garden." In my research I found that throughout the Americas most masters gave their slaves rations in niggardly amounts as a way of reducing their labor cost. Thus without gardening many slaves would have suffered various malnutrition related maladies. Even today nutritionist encourage the savvy to drink at least eight glasses of water per day and eat fresh fruit and or vegetables with every meal.