Three cemeteries are on the Friendfield grounds. And unlike the CNN crew, the slaves were not free to leave.Įven in death, the slaves stayed. Workers on the rice plantation - and Friendfield was one of the largest in these parts - faced all these elements, plus the threat of disease, including malaria and yellow fever. And on the day CNN visited, the skies opened up in a violent rainstorm.Īdd up all of these factors and you begin to get a picture of what life probably was, and was not, for the slaves on Friendfield Plantation. There was also the oppressive heat and humidity of South Carolina. Then, consider the dangers of the alligators and snakes. The shacks probably weren't much refuge from the vicious clouds of mosquitoes, chiggers and other pests that still impinge on a person's every move on the plantation. And when they added on, got a bit more wealthy, they just kept adding on more slaves, more cabins." Watch Obama's recent comments on slavery » "There was some on the other street that were about probably 1820s. "The older the plantation got, they kept adding on more cabins. "Anywhere between 200 to 500 at different times," said Ed Carter, the property manager. The place he probably called home was a little white shack smaller than - by comparison - a Secret Service security shed on the grounds of the executive mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.Īll told, hundreds of people lived like this, on this one plantation alone. But long before Michelle Obama was born, her great-great grandfather, Jim Robinson, likely toiled in the fields here six days a week, from sunup to sundown. The White House is some 472 miles from Georgetown, South Carolina. They would have been crowded: probably one or two families living in a space smaller than a modern-day garage. It would have been hot and humid in summer, and most certainly cold in winter, although the shacks had fireplaces. The wooden walls are paper thin in places. The houses are nothing special - no plumbing, of course. About 350 slaves lived here during the 19th century. Six white-washed little shacks are all that remain of the slave quarters, even though rows of these houses once stood on the property. Stroll across the plantation with CNN's Joe Johns » It's just private land, still with shadows of its past.įriendfield's most distinctive historical feature, perhaps, is the dirt road known as Slave Street. It's the symbol of something that's never happened before, one important segment of an American family's journey from the humiliation of slavery to the very top of the nation's ruling class.ĬNN recently was the first television network allowed to visit the plantation and shoot video. It makes Friendfield Plantation a symbol of something more than servitude. It's not exactly "Gone With the Wind," but what makes this overgrown 3,300 acres of marsh and pine trees stand out is this: The family of first lady Michelle Obama believes her great-great grandfather was held as a slave here and labored in the mosquito-infested rice fields.
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