African American Quilts: Plantation Archeology
I find the best things on the Internet when I am looking for something else. Today I landed on a site on historic Camden County. I was on on quite another quest and in the process found an article on archeology, Black History by the Shovel Full. It turns out that in excavating early plantation sites they have found pipes made by early slaves. These pipes have designs on them like designs found in Africa showing that slaves did bring such cultural art with them. This is something that has been questioned by historians including those in quilt study. It made me wonder if perhaps these same slaves made quilts using designs from African textiles. We will probably never know for sure as quilts do not survive the years like a pottery pipe would. It's interesting to think about this possibility in relation to African American Quilts.