Assessing the Sweet Briar Slave Cabin

Isis Balico

!9^th Century American Economics

10/9/12

Professor Rianville

Assessing the Sweet Briar Salve Cabin

              Sweet Briar College is very fortunate to be able to claim to hold a piece of American history on its very own grounds. The piece of history I am referring to is the slave cabin right behind the Sweet Briar House. This cabin is not only a testament to the history of Sweet Briar, which was originally a plantation, but also to a crucial time period in American history, that later became a scar on this country. To understand the history of this cabin is to also gain insight into this crucial time period in American history  (slavery), and also the people who were the main subjects of this time period, the slave themselves.

                I am not very proud to admit this, but before I arrived to Sweet Briar I didn’t know much about the slave cabin on campus. My knowledge of slave cabins was limited, and what a slave cabin looked like in my mind was that which fit my schema of a slave cabin, a schema formed at a young age from watching educational children’s programs like Liberty Kids. I was aware however that Sweet Briar was a former plantation and that a slave cabin still remained on campus, though to be honest I thought that there was more than one. As a person with a great interest in Archeology, while researching the major and the courses offered here at Sweet Briar I did learn that the slave cabins were integrated in the lessons of the Archeology class and that it was still being excavated, though not vigorously. This was about the extent of my knowledge of the slave cabin on campus.

              Now having gained some knowledge about the slave cabin since arriving on campus I now have a broader spectrum of thought concerning the cabin. In terms of the college I now believe the slave cabins make Sweet Briar truly unique.  Sweet Briar being the only college in the world to have a former slave cabin on campus (Alumnae Magazine), sets SBC apart from other colleges and universities, giving it a distinction other colleges can’t claim to have. The slave cabin is not only unique but a integral part of the college’s history. The cabin reminds us of the origins of this school as a plantation, and serves as a reminder and a testament to the people who worked this land with their own bare hands.

           The slave cabin though also brings up many questions too, questions I hope some day to receive answers to, if not at the very least speculations. Whenever I think of the slave cabin, and the other twenty-seven that originally stood along the one that still remains, my mind always jumps to thoughts of the slaves that had once occupied them. I begin to speculate and wonder on a broad spectrum of questions particularly pertaining to the slaves’ thoughts, feelings, and their attitudes. What was their way of surviving bondage; was Indiana Fletch Williams a good, fair owner; did they like her; were they constantly afraid of being separated and sold, never to see each other again, or was Indiana not the type of person to separate mother and daughter or son? These questions persist in my mind, and I would appreciate receiving answers to them, though I’m aware that this would be very difficult because most answers to questions like these are found in journals of some kind, and most if not all the slave on this plantation were illiterate.

                 There is information however that we do have at our disposal that is definitely worth sharing. For being so small the slave cabin is a large monument in terms of meaning and representation of not only the history of Sweet Briar but also of broader American history. This cabin stand as a representative of a defining period in American history; a time period that we now look back on and learn from, to be kind, fair and to treat each other equally. This being said, the idea of the cabin being a representative of the a period in time, is a concept that would greatly attract students into learning more about the cabin and paying a visit to this homage of history. An exhibit displaying this concept in my opinion would be very popular indeed.

                 Though the cabin saw a time of American history where human inequality unjustly prevailed, it has also seen the changes in society and the righting of this injustice. The slave cabin is apart of Sweet Briar history; it is a journal of the hardships faced by slaves, a journal of the changes in society since this time of oppression, and a monument of the roots of this college.

 Work Cited     

Whitley, Ann M. "Recycling a Campus Relic." Alumnae Magazine (n.d.): n. pag. Print.