Actress Harriot Lomax portrays 1770's house slave Lydia Broadnax at Colonial Williamsburg.

By 1770, there were a quarter-million African slaves in the 13 American colonies, concentrated in the Chesapeake region. In "Bought and Sold in Williamsburg," Alan visits a historic plantation, Carter's Grove, at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. A quarter-mile from the master's mansion stands a cluster of buildings built 12 years ago--an historically-accurate reconstruction of a typical slave quarter, which housed slaves nine to a room. The reconstructions were based on excavations by archeologist William Kelso in the 1970s, the first-ever of American slave dwellings and the start of a new understanding of slave life.

Only in the last several decades have archeologists turned their attention to uncovering and reconstructing slave quarters.

At another plantation site now being excavated nearby, Marley Brown, Colonial Williamsburg's Director of Archeology, and his colleagues have found what has become a classic sign of slave dwellings--sub-floor pits, probably used to protect hard-won belongings. The contents of sub-floor pits found all over the Chesapeake paint a portrait of slaves as poor people struggling to make the best of their harsh and oppressive circumstances.

In addition to personal items like West African beads and clay pipes adorned with West African decorations, sub-floor pits have also turned out to be rich in food remains. Written records document that the standard weekly ration for an adult slave provided slightly more than 2,000 calories a day--not enough to sustain a sunup-to-sundown day of hard, manual labor.

By separating out the tiniest pieces of seed and bone found in sub-floor pits, archeologists have been able to document the reliance of slaves on hunting and fishing to supplement the ration.

For more on this topic, see the web feature:
These American Lives
Slave Housing at Monticello