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Plantation complexes in the Southern United States article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
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I was trying to find somewhere to put Cardiff Hall. As many of these buildings were erected before the USA broke away from the British Empire it would be a shame not to reflect the deeper social relationship between these forms of architecture. Leutha ( talk) 18:03, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
A popular misconception, often perpetuated in print and film, that the typical plantation had a grand mansion and hundreds of slaves is undermined by reality. On the whole this article has lots of interesting verifiable information, but it's structure needs to be edited quite thoroughly. 72.39.222.96 ( talk) 07:59, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
75.83.240.192 ( talk) 23:18, 8 April 2015 (UTC)History Lover 15
Are these irrelevant? I thought they antedated mass slavery.
Were all the slaves African American? What about Native American slaves?
Put differently, I’m uncomfortable saying that a seventeenth-century plantation ran on slaves. But others know far more than I. deisenbe ( talk) 12:41, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
Does a list of all of these places exist anywhere on Wikipedia? - LumaNatic ( talk) 16:23, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
User:G._Moore talk 21:26, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
While the article gives some interesting insights on the design and architecture of these mansions and plantation complexes, I don't see any mention of who actually did the physical building of the structures.
One encounters a lot of hearsay to the effect that slave labor was used to build the mansions, but was it?
Were slaves who were generally brought in to work in the fields as farm laborers also trained as skilled carpenters, masons, glaziers, etc., that would have been utilized to construct the faux Greek temples many of these houses were designed to mimic? Or was white labor hired to construct the buildings, and slaves relegated to the fields?
This seems like an important point which ought to be at least mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.89.176.249 ( talk) 01:52, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
It looks to me like the shorter article, Plantations in the American South, could be merged into this article. Plantations and Plantation complexes are the same thing. Both articles are about the American South. The sections in Plantation sin the American South don't appear to be duplicated in this article, so it would be an easy cut and past.
G._Moore ( talk · contribs) 15:52, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
Well-researched article at the MSA in Maryland, detailing private punishment of servants and slaves in colonial America. — LlywelynII 12:38, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
If there is a section on the Planter, shouldn't there be a section on Workers?
Shouldn't slaves be mentioned in the introduction? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.143.162.114 ( talk) 22:10, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
How did the plantation system change after the USA freed the slaves? Were the large farms still considered to be "plantations" thereafter - and if not, what do we have to call them?
Particularly, is there anything unrealistic about the depiction of plantation life in Disney's Song of the South? Or is the film's chief problem that it seems to portray antebellum plantation life, due to its failure to specify the decade it's set in? -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 17:49, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
The lithograph File:Cotton plantation on the Mississippi, 1884 (cropped).jpg does not depict a cotton plantation, it depicts the idea proponents of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy publicized about cotton plantations. Examples: Of the 7 enslaved people in the foreground at least 4 are idle, one of them lying on top of the load on the wagon, a classical image of idle happiness. The white couple gives the expression of civilized dignity. The husband would never sell a child away from the mother, would he ? There is no overseer, and the most important tool for cotton production is missing: The whip. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 08:49, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
I removed this content from the article as it is not cited and is perhaps original research. Is there a source for this information?
then, from the plantation owner section
then, plantation crops section
then, Plantation architecture and landscape section
This would be lovely to return to the article if there are sources. Based on my running into ten-year-old citation needed tags lately, and the lack of interest by people to find sources, it seems the best way to go without tagging the article.– CaroleHenson ( talk) 07:47, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
The lead and some other sections of this article lack neutrality. First of all, the "Personnel" section of the article does not mention indentured servants, hired managers and other paid employees (except for overseers), who voluntarily worked on plantations to obtain financial or other compensation.
Secondly, the lead states that African and African-American slaves were "forced to produce crops to create wealth for a white elite." That statement ignores the fact that large plantations, like smaller farms, were risky businesses that often strained the resources of their owners. Regardless of the sizes of the plantations, many plantation owners were not members of an "elite".
Importantly, some free African Americans owned plantations and slaves. [1] If successful, they became part of an African American "elite". The article does not mention this fact.
The article lacks a "History" section. Such a section could contain information about the activities and events that created the conditions that the article describes.
For example, the article implies that plantation owners enslaved Africans and African Americans. In fact, it was Africans that engaged in wars and raids that captured, enslaved and converted free Africans to property in efforts to create profits and wealth for themselves. This process of enslavement began in Africa long before the first slaves came to England's American colonies and even longer before the establishment of the United States (see Slavery in Africa). A "History" section could describe such events in detail.
I have therefore edited parts of this article to decrease its racial biases and to increase its neutrality. Corker1 ( talk) 22:41, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
References
References
In discussions of proposals to add, modify, or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit.As of now, you don't have consensus for your changes. The words "create wealth for a white elite" have been part of the lede since before my first edit to this article on Dec 9, 2020. So I assume that I'm not the only editor favouring that wording. The same is true for "A few enslavers went even ..." (I didn't check the other instances of "enslavers", "to enslave"). Thanks for providing the Merriam-Webster source. I agree with you that it puts in doubt my explanation, but since "enslavers" / "to enslave" is used in many articles and by many Wikipedians, I don't think here is the right place to discuss that. Maybe start a RfC at the American history project ?
The existence of Black plantation owners is an established fact, but they were so few that no academic historian that I know of supports your judgment "importantly". americancivilwar.com fails WP:RS.What I meant is: Your judgment that the existence of African American plantation owners is "important" for the understanding of plantation economics is not supported by academic historians. americancivilwar.com is neither an academic publication nor peer reviewed, so it should not be used here according to
If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources in topics such as history, medicine, and science.My error was to assume that that sentence is to be found at WP:RS. In reality, it's WP:SOURCE. The number of Black plantation owners is not "lost to history", since there is enough documentation to allow historians at least good estimates. The fact that antebellum South was a society built on the racist distinction between Whites and (in most cases) enslaved Blacks, the Whites being divided into a planter aristocracy ("planter class", "planter elite") and "poor Whites" is well known. The fact that some Whites had to struggle to keep their position within the elite or to gain such a position or that they lost it, doesn't contradict the existence of such an elite that was - seen as a group - wealthy. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 05:47, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Corker1 you should be allowed to expand this page with well sourced documentation. I don’t agree with everything you said especially your ideal that slavery was not profitable for most enslavers. Another category of slave owners that needs to be expanded on is Native Americans. We should use the talk pages and work cooperatively to include everything and not limit ourselves to learn biases on what really happened during this dark time in human history. BTW YES, Africans did sell other Africans into slavery in exchange for goods. This is well documented occurrence Robjwev ( talk) 02:41, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm concerned by the 3rd sentence of the 1st paragraph in this section: "Although many Southern farmers did enslave people before emancipation in 1862, few enslaved more than five." This seems misleading, considering the last line of the same paragraph indicates that about half of plantations had more than 5 slaves: "Of the estimated 46,200 plantations existing in 1860, 20,700 had 20 to 30 enslaved people and 2,300 had a workforce of a hundred or more, with the rest somewhere in between." I think that saying "few" here is more of an opinion than facts, and the following sentence starts to sound like a defense of slavery in the South, rather than a factual account.
Original text: Although many Southern farmers did enslave people before emancipation in 1862, few enslaved more than five. These farmers tended to work the fields alongside the people they enslaved.[5] Of the estimated 46,200 plantations existing in 1860, 20,700 had 20 to 30 enslaved people and 2,300 had a workforce of a hundred or more, with the rest somewhere in between.
Suggested change: Although many Southern farmers did enslave people before emancipation in 1862, about half enslaved more than five. These farmers tended to work the fields alongside the people they enslaved.[5] Of the estimated 46,200 plantations existing in 1860, 20,700 (45%) had 20 to 30 enslaved people and 2,300 (5%) had a workforce of a hundred or more, with the remaining half somewhere in between.
Re-sharing what I also shared on the Madame C.J. Walker talk page below. Today, I added "forced labor camp" as a descriptor of "plantation" on this page. An editor reverted the edit and told me to add to this Talk page for consensus for the edit. Here I am, thank you for reading:
"A promise to show the world the people who have shaped the world, but were systematically erased from knowledge spaces. People whose images were taken out of the picture. With Wiki Unseen, our goal is to redraw those within the global majority — including Black people, people of color, and Indigenous peoples — back into history, one image at a time."
Thank you kindly, Unredacthefacts ( talk) 23:33, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Plantation complexes in the Southern United States article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I was trying to find somewhere to put Cardiff Hall. As many of these buildings were erected before the USA broke away from the British Empire it would be a shame not to reflect the deeper social relationship between these forms of architecture. Leutha ( talk) 18:03, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
A popular misconception, often perpetuated in print and film, that the typical plantation had a grand mansion and hundreds of slaves is undermined by reality. On the whole this article has lots of interesting verifiable information, but it's structure needs to be edited quite thoroughly. 72.39.222.96 ( talk) 07:59, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
75.83.240.192 ( talk) 23:18, 8 April 2015 (UTC)History Lover 15
Are these irrelevant? I thought they antedated mass slavery.
Were all the slaves African American? What about Native American slaves?
Put differently, I’m uncomfortable saying that a seventeenth-century plantation ran on slaves. But others know far more than I. deisenbe ( talk) 12:41, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
Does a list of all of these places exist anywhere on Wikipedia? - LumaNatic ( talk) 16:23, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
User:G._Moore talk 21:26, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
While the article gives some interesting insights on the design and architecture of these mansions and plantation complexes, I don't see any mention of who actually did the physical building of the structures.
One encounters a lot of hearsay to the effect that slave labor was used to build the mansions, but was it?
Were slaves who were generally brought in to work in the fields as farm laborers also trained as skilled carpenters, masons, glaziers, etc., that would have been utilized to construct the faux Greek temples many of these houses were designed to mimic? Or was white labor hired to construct the buildings, and slaves relegated to the fields?
This seems like an important point which ought to be at least mentioned. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.89.176.249 ( talk) 01:52, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
It looks to me like the shorter article, Plantations in the American South, could be merged into this article. Plantations and Plantation complexes are the same thing. Both articles are about the American South. The sections in Plantation sin the American South don't appear to be duplicated in this article, so it would be an easy cut and past.
G._Moore ( talk · contribs) 15:52, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
Well-researched article at the MSA in Maryland, detailing private punishment of servants and slaves in colonial America. — LlywelynII 12:38, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
If there is a section on the Planter, shouldn't there be a section on Workers?
Shouldn't slaves be mentioned in the introduction? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.143.162.114 ( talk) 22:10, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
How did the plantation system change after the USA freed the slaves? Were the large farms still considered to be "plantations" thereafter - and if not, what do we have to call them?
Particularly, is there anything unrealistic about the depiction of plantation life in Disney's Song of the South? Or is the film's chief problem that it seems to portray antebellum plantation life, due to its failure to specify the decade it's set in? -- Uncle Ed ( talk) 17:49, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
The lithograph File:Cotton plantation on the Mississippi, 1884 (cropped).jpg does not depict a cotton plantation, it depicts the idea proponents of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy publicized about cotton plantations. Examples: Of the 7 enslaved people in the foreground at least 4 are idle, one of them lying on top of the load on the wagon, a classical image of idle happiness. The white couple gives the expression of civilized dignity. The husband would never sell a child away from the mother, would he ? There is no overseer, and the most important tool for cotton production is missing: The whip. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 08:49, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
I removed this content from the article as it is not cited and is perhaps original research. Is there a source for this information?
then, from the plantation owner section
then, plantation crops section
then, Plantation architecture and landscape section
This would be lovely to return to the article if there are sources. Based on my running into ten-year-old citation needed tags lately, and the lack of interest by people to find sources, it seems the best way to go without tagging the article.– CaroleHenson ( talk) 07:47, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
The lead and some other sections of this article lack neutrality. First of all, the "Personnel" section of the article does not mention indentured servants, hired managers and other paid employees (except for overseers), who voluntarily worked on plantations to obtain financial or other compensation.
Secondly, the lead states that African and African-American slaves were "forced to produce crops to create wealth for a white elite." That statement ignores the fact that large plantations, like smaller farms, were risky businesses that often strained the resources of their owners. Regardless of the sizes of the plantations, many plantation owners were not members of an "elite".
Importantly, some free African Americans owned plantations and slaves. [1] If successful, they became part of an African American "elite". The article does not mention this fact.
The article lacks a "History" section. Such a section could contain information about the activities and events that created the conditions that the article describes.
For example, the article implies that plantation owners enslaved Africans and African Americans. In fact, it was Africans that engaged in wars and raids that captured, enslaved and converted free Africans to property in efforts to create profits and wealth for themselves. This process of enslavement began in Africa long before the first slaves came to England's American colonies and even longer before the establishment of the United States (see Slavery in Africa). A "History" section could describe such events in detail.
I have therefore edited parts of this article to decrease its racial biases and to increase its neutrality. Corker1 ( talk) 22:41, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
References
References
In discussions of proposals to add, modify, or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit.As of now, you don't have consensus for your changes. The words "create wealth for a white elite" have been part of the lede since before my first edit to this article on Dec 9, 2020. So I assume that I'm not the only editor favouring that wording. The same is true for "A few enslavers went even ..." (I didn't check the other instances of "enslavers", "to enslave"). Thanks for providing the Merriam-Webster source. I agree with you that it puts in doubt my explanation, but since "enslavers" / "to enslave" is used in many articles and by many Wikipedians, I don't think here is the right place to discuss that. Maybe start a RfC at the American history project ?
The existence of Black plantation owners is an established fact, but they were so few that no academic historian that I know of supports your judgment "importantly". americancivilwar.com fails WP:RS.What I meant is: Your judgment that the existence of African American plantation owners is "important" for the understanding of plantation economics is not supported by academic historians. americancivilwar.com is neither an academic publication nor peer reviewed, so it should not be used here according to
If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources in topics such as history, medicine, and science.My error was to assume that that sentence is to be found at WP:RS. In reality, it's WP:SOURCE. The number of Black plantation owners is not "lost to history", since there is enough documentation to allow historians at least good estimates. The fact that antebellum South was a society built on the racist distinction between Whites and (in most cases) enslaved Blacks, the Whites being divided into a planter aristocracy ("planter class", "planter elite") and "poor Whites" is well known. The fact that some Whites had to struggle to keep their position within the elite or to gain such a position or that they lost it, doesn't contradict the existence of such an elite that was - seen as a group - wealthy. -- Rsk6400 ( talk) 05:47, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
I agree with Corker1 you should be allowed to expand this page with well sourced documentation. I don’t agree with everything you said especially your ideal that slavery was not profitable for most enslavers. Another category of slave owners that needs to be expanded on is Native Americans. We should use the talk pages and work cooperatively to include everything and not limit ourselves to learn biases on what really happened during this dark time in human history. BTW YES, Africans did sell other Africans into slavery in exchange for goods. This is well documented occurrence Robjwev ( talk) 02:41, 28 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm concerned by the 3rd sentence of the 1st paragraph in this section: "Although many Southern farmers did enslave people before emancipation in 1862, few enslaved more than five." This seems misleading, considering the last line of the same paragraph indicates that about half of plantations had more than 5 slaves: "Of the estimated 46,200 plantations existing in 1860, 20,700 had 20 to 30 enslaved people and 2,300 had a workforce of a hundred or more, with the rest somewhere in between." I think that saying "few" here is more of an opinion than facts, and the following sentence starts to sound like a defense of slavery in the South, rather than a factual account.
Original text: Although many Southern farmers did enslave people before emancipation in 1862, few enslaved more than five. These farmers tended to work the fields alongside the people they enslaved.[5] Of the estimated 46,200 plantations existing in 1860, 20,700 had 20 to 30 enslaved people and 2,300 had a workforce of a hundred or more, with the rest somewhere in between.
Suggested change: Although many Southern farmers did enslave people before emancipation in 1862, about half enslaved more than five. These farmers tended to work the fields alongside the people they enslaved.[5] Of the estimated 46,200 plantations existing in 1860, 20,700 (45%) had 20 to 30 enslaved people and 2,300 (5%) had a workforce of a hundred or more, with the remaining half somewhere in between.
Re-sharing what I also shared on the Madame C.J. Walker talk page below. Today, I added "forced labor camp" as a descriptor of "plantation" on this page. An editor reverted the edit and told me to add to this Talk page for consensus for the edit. Here I am, thank you for reading:
"A promise to show the world the people who have shaped the world, but were systematically erased from knowledge spaces. People whose images were taken out of the picture. With Wiki Unseen, our goal is to redraw those within the global majority — including Black people, people of color, and Indigenous peoples — back into history, one image at a time."
Thank you kindly, Unredacthefacts ( talk) 23:33, 21 May 2022 (UTC)