Slave Quarters

Hidden faces of the Owens-Thomas house were those of the enslaved people. For many years their stories went Untold unshared, and unchecked. There was an attempt to hide the gruesome past of Savannah, Georgia, for many years by showcasing its beauty. Now in more recent years, the stories of those hidden faces are being brought into the light. The slave quarters show the life of an enslaved man, woman, or child in Savannah, Georgia, during the 19th century. The slave quarters in the Owens-Thomas house were where the enslaved people on-site slept and live. They didn't spend much time here because they spent most of their waking hours working and managing the household. It was a daunting task to cook, clean, and serve the elite people of Savannah, Georgia, on a day-to-day basis. Life in Savannah for enslaved people in the 1800s was not easy.

Many modern-day slave stories focus on the lives of those who lived and worked in the fields and on the plantations, but not many have focused on those who worked in the homes of these plantation owners and what kind of life was to live. Work was 19-20 hours a day and didn't require you to sleep, eat, or feed your own children. As said before, the slave quarters were not often used because the slaves were working the entire time. There are stories of a woman named Emma Kattin, who was an enslaved black woman. She would spend many nights asleep on the floors of the workspaces and kitchens just so that she could be available to the Owens family at any given moment. That included caring for the adults as well as the infants and children in the home. There are stories about a woman named Diane and a man named Peter who ran the basement kitchen. She cooked for many years for the family as well as for many people such as President Polk. Peter ran the other Butlers and would stand by George Owens side and make sure that anything he needed he got. He and others were in charge of making sure the house remained pristine. If there was an event or dinner, there could be anywhere from six to 26 people in the Owens in the formal dining room that shows how daunting of a task it was to feed that many people at any given moment for multiple meals a day, possibly. Cooking was not like how it is in modern times when there is the use of ovens and microwaves to reheat food and store food for long periods. It was complicated to prepare large amounts of food on a daily basis with the lack of tools that the cooks had. Much of the home gets credited for being beautiful and having features like crown molding and indoor plumbing when that was very uncommon, even for people's most affluent. But most of that work is due to the enslaved men and women who had to maintain these beautiful homes. It is likely that those who had to work day and night to keep it as beautiful as it does not see the home as this beautiful and stately home.

In a New York Times article, the homes were called a beautiful prison, and those held captive and worked like an animal down to the bone and to their breaking point, and Beyond did not see these homes as such but as a prison, a beautiful prison. Slavery in Savannah during the 19th century was at an all-time high. 1-3 people living in Savannah in the 1800s were enslaved. If Savannah's white population was not equal to it, it was outnumbered by the number of black men, women, and children who lived there. Mentioned before in the Places that both homeowners of the now called Owens and Thomas House Museum we're very wealthy white men who made many of their fortunes from slavery. Between the two men, they had 400+ slaves in their possession at the time. Unfortunately, not much else is known about the slaves that lived in the Owens and Thomas house because, like in many cases, there was no documentation of them. They were not people; they were property. And while they may not have been out in the field picking cotton or handling rice as many did. Life as a slave in the house was no easy chore, and, in some cases, mistakes still cost people their lives.

Work Spaces