Etched in Clay Read online

  Etched in Clay is true to the known facts of Dave’s life, although there are some discrepancies among sources about dates and details. The story is a narrative biography, told in verse, with some imagined scenes, people, thoughts, and dialogue. These parts of the story are dramatic extensions of historically documented events and interactions. While the language used by both white characters and enslaved African American characters in nineteenth-century South Carolina has been standardized for modern readers, Dave’s inscriptions are included in their original form.

  Dave’s inscriptions from CAROLINA CLAY: THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF THE SLAVE POTTER DAVE by Leonard Todd. Copyright © 2008 by Leonard Todd. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

  Text and illustrations copyright © 2013 by Andrea Cheng

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  LEE & LOW BOOKS Inc., 95 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

  leeandlow.com

  Manufactured in the United States of America by Worzalla Publishing Company, November 2012

  Book design by Christy Hale

  Book production by The Kids at Our House

  The text is set in Book Antigua

  The illustrations are rendered as woodcuts

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First Edition

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cheng, Andrea.

  Etched in clay : the life of Dave, enslaved potter and poet / Andrea Cheng ; woodcuts by the author. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: “The life of Dave, an enslaved potter who inscribed his works with sayings and poems in spite of South Carolina’s slave anti-literacy laws in the years leading up to the Civil War. Includes afterword, author’s note, and sources”—Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-60060-451-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-60060-893-3 (e-book)

  1. Dave, fl. 1834-1864—Juvenile literature. 2. African American potters—Biography—Juvenile literature. 3. African American poet—Biography—Juvenile literature. 4. Slaves—South Carolina—Biography—Juvenile literature. [1. Dave, fl. 1834-1864. 2. African American potters. 3. African American poets. 4. Slaves—South Carolina.] I. Title.

  NK4210.D247C54 2012

  738.092—dc23 [B] 2012027280

  To Ann

  Contents

  Map

  Introduction

  Main Narrators and Characters

  Pottersville Stoneware Manufactory

  Pottersville Partners

  Augusta Auction

  Another Name

  Clay and Hope

  Pottery Lesson

  Dangerous Talent

  Jumping the Broomstick

  You Should Be Grateful

  My Eliza

  That Man Is Mine

  I Beg You

  Departure

  Brilliant Glazes

  Loading the Furnace

  Firing Time

  What’s Gotten into That Boy?

  That’s My Jar

  The Scriptures

  Our Conscience

  The Blue Back Speller

  Tell the World

  The Edgefield Hive

  Real Paper, Real Ink

  Education

  A New Husband

  Submissionists

  Speaking Out

  Words and Verses

  Death of Harvey Drake

  Lord, Help Us

  Purchase

  Missing Dave

  Second Nature

  Nat Turner

  End Slave Literacy

  Etched in Clay

  A Poem!

  Anti-Literacy Law

  Stop That Foolishness

  Delivery

  On the Train Tracks

  Turning, Turning

  Letter to Dave

  Home Again

  On to Louisiana

  Why?

  A Helper

  Carving Words

  Our Legacy

  Horse Creek

  A Loan

  Luck Is Here

  I Made This Jar

  A Master Potter

  This Jar Is Bare

  To Lewis Miles

  Write No More

  The Choice Is Mine

  Stubborn

  Silence

  My Father’s Death

  For Sale

  Sold Again

  A High Price

  Get to Work!

  Wait for Night

  Stony Bluff

  Homecoming

  A Joke

  Good Times

  Where Is My Family?

  Our Fortune

  Jar of Riches

  Great and Noble Jar

  War

  Repentance

  The End Is Near

  Black in Blue

  What Did I Expect?

  A New Name

  To a Friend

  Little David

  Afterword

  Edgefield Pottery

  Dave’s Inscriptions

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Sources

  Map

  This map shows the relative locations of places important in Dave’s life. Stony Bluff, which was in the vicinity of Pottersville and Horse Creek, is not indicated. Its location is known only to a few researchers, and the precise spot has not been revealed.

  Introduction

  Historical records show that the first documentation of ownership of an enslaved young man known as Dave is a mortgage agreement dated June 13, 1818. This agreement indicates that Dave was about seventeen years old and was owned by Harvey Drake. Most likely, Drake purchased Dave at a slave auction in Augusta, Georgia, prior to 1818 and took him to Pottersville, a village outside Edgefield, South Carolina, where Drake and his uncles—the Landrum brothers—had a stoneware pottery business. Eventually Dave was taught how to make pots, jugs, and jars on a potter’s wheel; fire them; and glaze them using the Landrums’ famous alkaline glazes. Soon Dave became one of the best potters in the Edgefield district. Here is his inspiring story.

  Main Narrators and Characters

  DR. ABNER LANDRUM (1785–1859)

  Around 1810, with his brother Amos, founded Pottersville Stoneware Manufactory, a pottery works located outside the town of Edgefield, South Carolina; founder of a newspaper called The Edgefield Hive.

  HARVEY DRAKE (1796–1832)

  Nephew of Dr. Abner Landrum and partner in Pottersville Stoneware Manufactory; first known owner of Dave, from sometime before 1818 until 1832.

  DAVE (LATER NAMED DAVID DRAKE) (1801–LATE 1870S)

  Enslaved man, country born (born in the United States); by age seventeen owned by Harvey Drake; later sold several times to various members of Drake’s extended family over the next fifty years.

  ELIZA (1799–DEATH DATE UNKNOWN)

  Enslaved woman, possibly Dave’s first wife.

  SARAH DRAKE (BIRTH AND DEATH DATES UNKNOWN)

  Wife of Harvey Drake; deeply spiritual member of the Edgefield Village Baptist Church.

  LYDIA (BIRTH AND DEATH DATES UNKNOWN)

  Enslaved woman, possibly Dave’s second wife; mother of two boys, John and George.

  NULLIFIER />
  Person who opposed the Union (the United States government) and felt that each state had the right to nullify, or veto, any measure that the U.S. government tried to impose on it.

  REUBEN DRAKE (1800–SOMETIME IN THE 1850S)

  Brother of Harvey Drake; purchased Dave after Harvey’s death and owned Dave in Pottersville until about 1836.

  HENRY SIMKINS (BIRTH AND DEATH DATES UNKNOWN)

  Enslaved man who worked with Dave at the pottery works in Pottersville, Horse Creek, and Stony Bluff.

  REV. JOHN LANDRUM (1765–1846)

  Brother of Dr. Abner Landrum and Amos Landrum; purchased Dave to work at his pottery works in Horse Creek; owned Dave from about 1836 until 1846.

  BENJAMIN FRANKLIN LANDRUM (1811–1880)

  Son of Rev. John Landrum and brother of Mary Landrum Miles; built his own pottery works in another part of Horse Creek and owned Dave from 1847 until about 1849.

  MARY LANDRUM MILES (1812–1877)

  Daughter of Rev. John Landrum and wife of Lewis Miles.

  LEWIS MILES (1808–1869)

  Son-in-law of Rev. John Landrum and husband of Mary Landrum Miles; Rev. Landrum lent him Dave to work at his own pottery works in Horse Creek; later built a pottery works in Stony Bluff and owned Dave from about 1849 until the end of the Civil War in 1865.

  Pottersville Stoneware Manufactory

  DR. ABNER LANDRUM, 1810

  Near Edgefield I found

  the perfect place.

  The forest is thick

  with maples and oaks.

  Streams run like veins

  through the South Carolina clay,

  smooth and deep red

  with pockets of white.

  Someday soon

  our slaves will stand

  knee-deep in the water,

  digging clay

  from the banks

  while the wagon drivers wait.

  We’ll have one strong mule

  at the mill

  to turn the post

  and grind the clay,

  and a turning house

  with potter’s wheels.

  We’ll stoke up the fire

  in our furnace

  and bake our pots hot

  to melt the glaze.

  Should we call ourselves

  Landrum Brothers Pottery?

  No, too ordinary

  for the finest jugs and jars

  in all the land!

  Allow me to introduce

  our soon-to-be

  world-famous

  Pottersville Stoneware Manufactory.

  Pottersville Partners

  DR. ABNER LANDRUM, 1814

  My older brother Amos

  is a salesman

  through and through,

  but his love of drink

  and the ladies

  distracts him from

  our business.

  Let me also ask my nephew

  Harvey Drake

  to lend a hand.

  Weak of body

  but sound of mind,

  he is a thoughtful man,

  and prudent too.

  Augusta Auction

  HARVEY DRAKE, 1815

  My uncle did not send me to the market

  for peaches or green beans or squash.

  I make my way to the auction block

  crowded with people,

  watching.

  The Negro mothers wail

  while their children cling to them

  like melons to their vines.

  One slave stands alone,

  young but not a child,

  strong enough to haul the clay

  up the slippery, steep banks

  of the stream.

  “See here, Young Master,”

  shouts the auctioneer.

  “He’s only six hundred dollars,

  country born,

  good teeth,

  straight back.

  Come see for yourself.”

  I could get two for that price,

  three hundred each.

  “Can you work, boy?” I ask.

  “Yes, Master,

  I sure can work.”

  There’s intelligence in those eyes,

  considering.

  “Four hundred is all I have,”

  I tell the auctioneer.

  “Five hundred firm,” he insists.

  Others are watching

  to see what I’ll do.

  That boy stares at me,

  waiting

  in the Georgia sun

  while our clay is washing downstream

  fast as water runs.

  “Boy,” I say,

  “you come with me.”

  Another Name

  DAVE, 1815

  Master says, “Dave—

  that suits you.

  That’s your name.”

  He can call me

  whatever he pleases,

  Tom or John or Will or Dave,

  no matter.

  I had another name once.

  I can’t remember the sound of it;

  but I know the voice,

  smooth and soft,

  that whispered it

  close to my ear

  in the still night.

  And then

  my mother was gone.

  Clay and Hope

  DAVE, 1817

  The water’s cold;

  my hands are ice,

  even in spring.

  “Dig it out now, Dave.

  You can carry more clay

  than that,”

  Master Drake says.

  Every day I dig,

  I lift,

  I haul,

  I hope

  for something else

  tomorrow.

  Pottery Lesson

  DAVE, 1819

  I sit by the door

  of the turning house

  and watch Master Drake

  form our clay

  into a jar,

  wide in the middle,

  narrow on top,

  his hands steady

  while he kicks the wheel

  at the bottom,

  making the upper wheel turn

  faster and faster.

  He adds water,

  then pulls up the sides

  of the jar,

  shaping and trimming—

  like magic.

  “Are you staring at me, Dave?”

  “No, Master,” I say.

  “Do you want to learn

  to turn a pot?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Get up here, boy.”

  “Right now?” I ask.

  “I’m waiting,” he says.

  I scramble to my feet.

  “Balance your weight,

  now kick the bottom wheel

  and center the mound.

  Keep that wheel spinning.

  You got it, boy.

  Put your thumb in the middle

  and squeeze.”

  In my hands

  the clay comes to life,

  growing so quick,

  like a weed in the rain.

  Master Drake is watching.

  Then he says,

  “Looks like

  you may have talent, Dave.”

  My heart starts beating so fast

  I can hardly breathe.

  Slow and steady,

  I draw that jar right up.

  Dangerous Talent

  HARVEY DRAKE, 1820

 
; Others take six months

  to learn to center

  a mound on the wheel,

  but in just two weeks,

  Dave gets the feel

  of the clay.

  He pins his elbows

  to his sides,

  then cups his hands

  to hold the clay.

  Knuckle on the outside,

  he brings up the walls

  of a gallon jar

  with the lip turned out

  just right.

  Then I show him

  how to roll thick handles

  and mount them

  on the sides.

  Dave is smiling

  like I gave him gold.

  And I wonder,

  Is there danger in teaching

  this slave boy so much?

  Will he forget his place?

  Jumping the Broomstick

  ELIZA, 1820

  “What’s the matter, Eliza?”

  Master Drake asks.

  “Our Dave isn’t good enough

  for you to marry?”

  He’s younger than I like,

  only nineteen,

  and skinny too;

  but with that wheel,

  he can turn out a jar

  faster than I can wash it.

  He’s kind too,

  except on rare occasions,

  when he drinks.

  I put on my dress,

  blue as the sky,

  with white dots like cotton

  ripe in the fields.

  Dave is standing there

  in black pants

  and white shirt.

  We jump the broomstick,

  and the minister says

  we’ll be together

  “till death or distance

  do you part.”

  “Sweet Eliza,”

  Dave whispers.

  He kisses me

  on the cheek,

  and I take his hand.

  You Should Be Grateful

  HARVEY DRAKE, 1821

  She ought to be glad