Waccamaw Slave Life

Topic: Early Versions - Waccamaw Neck
The quality of life of slaves on the Waccamaw Neck depended, in part, on the prosperity of their masters.  They were more likely to be sold when their owners died or were in debt.  Indebtedness, in turn, was related to both personal character and international markets.  Men had problems when prices for rice fell.

According to Peter Coclanis, prices were relatively stable from the late 1810s through the early 1830s, with a severe dip in the middle 1830s. [1]  Planters had limited resources: the supply of available land was limited by the action of the tides.  Once individuals had converted all their swamps into rice fields, there was no more.  Likewise, once the trans-Atlantic slave trade closed, the only source for new labor was internal increases.

The one element planters could control was the quality of their seed.  As mentioned in the post for 6 August 2023, Joshua John Ward planted 400 acres of his Carolina Gold in 1842, and all his fields in 1843.  The larger grains gave him an edge over his neighbors, until 1844 when he made the seed available to them.  From that time, the prices paid for South Carolina rice rose according to Coclanis.

Rather than invest his profits in a grander house or social life in Charleston, as many of his contemporaries did, Ward purchased their plantations.  By 1850, he owned six along the Waccamaw River: his original Brook Green; Prospect Hill [2] and Alderly [3] which he acquired from the family of Benjamin Huger; Orzanita which came from John Izard Middleton, Jr.; [4] Longwood [5] and Springfield. [6]

Little has been published about Ward, beyond his ownership of plantations and the fact his estate owned 1,130 slaves in 1860. [7]  It is not known how many slaves came with each plantation, or how many were on any one.  Ward owned other land that would have used captive labor.

What we do know about slave life on Ward’s land comes from Ben Horry, [8] whose father was a driver at Brook Green.  He was born in 1854, [9] a year after Ward died [10] and his son, Joshua Ward, inherited the plantation.

The Wards used the standard form of labor organization on their plantations with drivers answerable to overseers.  Joshua John was using an overseer at Brook Green even before he began buying plantations. [11]  One reason his son used overseers was he spent his summers on the French Broad in the mountains to avoid malaria. [12]

Horry had few good words for the overseers.  He described them as the “worst kind of ‘White trash’—respected less by negroes than by whites.” [13]

Apart from class, he attributed their behavior to economic insecurity.  “White oberseer a little different for one reason!  White obersheer want to hols hid job.  Nigger obersheer don’t care too much.  He know he going stay on plantation anyhow.” [14]  He added, “Them things different when my father been make the head man.” [15]

While slaves lived in quarters on particular plantations, Horry suggested the younger Ward moved slaves from place to place as needed.  Horry recalled: “Left Brookgreen go Watsaw; left Watsaw done Longwood.  Plant ALL DEM plantation.  I work there.  Cut rice there.” [16]  This did not disrupt families, and contributed to the culture that shared along the Waccamaw that was suggested in the post for 3 September 2023.

Horry told Genevieve Willcox Chandler about three tasks he remembered.  Depending on the season, he was expected to break up or mash half an acre in a day, dig ten compasses, or cut rice on half an acre. [17]  These all were jobs that required physical strength, rather than special knowledge.  He also recalled the way some drivers manipulated the task system.  “If one them driver want you [. . .] they give you task you CAN’T DO.  You getting this beating not for you task—for you flesh.” [18]

No one was spared.  Horry’s mother was a nurse.  He remembered seeing a long gash on her. [19]  “I stay there look wid DESE HERE (eyes)!  Want to know one thing—MY OWN DADDY DERE couldn’t move!  Couldn’t venture dat over-sheer!  (Colored overseer)  Everybody can’t go to boss folks! [. . .]  Some kin talk it to Miss Bess.  Everybody don’t see Miss Bess.” [20]

Some of Horry’s father’s status on Brook Green came from his musical talents.  He and his two brothers “were Colonel Ward’s musicanier.  Make music for his dater and the white folks to dance.  Great fiddlers, drummers.  Each one could play fiddle, beat drum, blow fife.  All three were treat with the same education.” [21]

It sometimes is difficult to place Horry’s memories into a chronological framework.  Joshua John was called the Colonel, and so Horry would not have known about the dance first hand.  Georgie, who appears to have been Horry’s sister, echoed what became family tradition.  She recalled her Daddy “wuz a kind of musicianer for the Ward fambly. [22]

What is clear from Horry’s recollections is that slave children not only were taught to work at a young age, but to perform.  Joshua and Bess Ward returned from their summer in the mountains with fabric for new clothes for the slaves.

“Sund’y come we have to go to the Big House for Marse Josh to see how the clothes fit.  And him and Miss Bess made us run races to see who run the fastest.  That the happiest time I members when I wuz a boy to Brookgreen.” [23]

End Notes
1.  Peter A. Coclanis.  “Distant Thunder: The Creation of a World Market in Rice and the Transformations It Wrought.”  The American Historical Review 98(4):1050–1078:October 1993.  Charts on pages 1073 and 1075.

2.  “Prospect Hill Plantation – Georgetown – Georgetown County.”  South Carolina Plantations website.

3.  “Alderly Plantation – Georgetown – Georgetown County.”  South Carolina Plantations website.

4.  “Oryzantia Plantation – Georgetown – Georgetown County.”  South Carolina Plantations website.

5.  “Longwood Plantation – Murrells Inlet – Horry County.”  South Carolina Plantations website.

6.  Description of “Journal of Joshua John Ward plantations, 1831-1869.”  South Carolina Historical Society website.

7.  Tom Blake.  “Georgetown County, South Carolina: Largest Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census Schedules and Surname Matches for African Americans on 1870 Census.”  Ancestry website.

8.  Ben Horry, interviewed by Genevieve Willcox Chandler.  219–236 in Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves – South Carolina Narratives.  Compiled by The Library of Congress from interviews by the Works Projects Administration, Federal Writers’ Project.  Washington: Library of Congress, 1941.  2:226.

9.  Coming Through: Voices of a South Carolina Gullah Community from WPA Oral Histories Collected by Genevieve W. Chandler, edited by Kincaid Mills, Genevieve C. Peterkin, and Aaron McCollough.  Columbia: The University of South Carolina Press, 2008.  88.

10.  Patti Yourko Burns.  “Col Joshua John Ward.”  Find a Grave website, 27 March 2009; last updated by Daniel L.

11.  See post for 6 August 2023 on the role of his overseer in selecting Carolina Gold rice.

12.  Horry, interviewed by Chandler.  2:224.
13.  Horry, interviewed by Chandler.  2:224.
14.  Horry, interviewed by Chandler.  2:224.
15.  Horry, interviewed by Chandler.  2:228.

16.  Horry, interviewed by Chandler.  2:223.  Wacheshaw and Longwood were enough north that the rice may have ripened a few days later than on plantations farther south along the river.

17.  Horry, interviewed by Chandler.  2:223.
18.  Horry, interviewed by Chandler.  2:223.
19.  Horry, interviewed by Chandler.  2:223.

20.  Horry, interviewed by Chandler.  2:224.  Joshua Ward was married to Elizabeth Ryan Mortimer. [24]

21.  Horry, interviewed by Chandler.  2:226.  The post for 6 August 2023 includes a description of a dance sponsored by Joshua John Ward where the elder Horry may have played.

22.  Georgie.  2:236–238 in Slave Narratives.  2:237.  Provided by Ben Horry.
23.  Horry, interviewed by Chandler.  2:227.
24.  “Joshua Ward.”  Mormon’s Family Search website.