While we're talking about Slave Privies, Let me try throwing out a related
question.  I'm working on an antebellum town site.  A county seat with
population estimated between 3,000 and 6,000 people (about 63% African
American).  I'm currently dealing with a house site built just prior to the
Civil War, and probably completed after War was declared.  Sixty-one feet
behind the Big House were two supposed slave quarters.  Both two story and
made of brick.  One appears to have 2 rooms down, 2 room  upstairs.  Each
room with a separate entrance facing the "Big House."  The other appears to
be the kitchen with Quarters above ( only one chimney, but it was larger
than the two located on the other outbuilding) and only 1 door upstairs, one
down.  Between the two quarters and a bit behind them was a hexangonal two
story brick structure.  Oral tradition says that it was a multi-holed brick
privy for the slaves.  The second story was a dovecote.    All buildings in
this complex are gone (at least the above ground remains) except the larger
slave quarters.  The question I would like to throw out to the group is:  If
I were to excavate the privy, what evidence would I look for to support the
idea that it was a privy used by enslaved laborers rather than by the white
residents of the main house, or by both?  (by the way, of course it may have
been used for a brief time after emancipation).  Or is it an dead-end line
of enquiry?

(p.s. - If my choice was a chamber pot, to be cleaned by servants or a visit
to creepy, smelly, bug invested old privy, I'd pick the chamber pot
everytime!)


Linda Derry ([log in to unmask])
Old Cahawba Archaeological Park
Alabama Historical Commission



> writes:
>
> << Michael-- if you find any, let me know. As I have stated on list
before, I
>  have never seen a single example in SC. Perhaps on some of the larger
>  plantations? Carl Steen
>   >>
>
> None that I have ever heard of.  I believe antebellum notions about
hygiene,
> privacy, disease theory, etc discouraged any sense of need for such
> specialized facilities, except in the most crowded urban settings.  The
> garden privies at places like Westover (Tidewater Virginia), Mount Vernon,
> Monticello, etc. were as much status symbols as necessities - kind of a
long
> walk from your room at night, especially when you had access to a chamber
pot
> or bucket in the corner.  Questions about privies and bathroom activity in
> general are extraordinarly frequent from visitors here at the Hermitage.
>                 Larry
>