adds, "Enslaved people. 



"Why do we say enslaved people 

 as opposed to just the word slaves?" 

 asks Redford. "Because they were 

 people; in fact, they were enslaved Af- 

 ricans." 



The first slave labor force at 

 Somerset was 40 

 American-born 

 slaves; they were 

 artisans such as 

 carpenters and 

 brick masons. 

 Collins brought the 

 second group of 

 slaves directly from 

 the west coast of 

 Africa in 1784. 

 Redford talks about 

 what these Africans 

 offered to 

 Somerset: experi- 

 ence in growing 

 their native okra, 

 yams, watermel- 

 ons, gourds, and — 

 most importantly 

 — rice. 



These slaves 

 bore the brunt of 

 the rice scheme. Caged as they worked, 

 expelling dirt and mud through the 

 bars, they labored two years through 

 swamp and forest to dig a canal 6 miles 

 long, 20 feet wide and 4 to 14 feet 

 deep. Malaria, injuries and exhaustion 

 claimed many lives. 



By 1816, Collins had bought out 

 his partners, and by the time his grand- 

 son, Josiah Collins HI, took over the 

 plantation in 1830, Somerset was one 

 of the largest farms in the Southeast. 

 The rice paddies were converted back 

 to fields for corn and wheat. Rice farm- 

 ing, its intensive labor and its malaria- 

 carrying mosquitoes took too great a 

 human and financial toll. The canal 

 emerged as an avenue of commerce for 



the grain that fed the plantation's grist- 

 mill and the cypress planks that rolled 

 through Somerset's sawmill. 



"Which gets to our focus today — 

 technology," says Redford, smiling at 

 the students still clutching their bits of 

 paper. 



Scotl D. Taylor 



An Elizabeth City high schooler 

 tries Colonial cooking. 



"Two things you learn immedi- 

 ately about the antebellum period; one 

 is your lack of choice. If you were liv- 

 ing here in 1786 you really wouldn't 

 have any choice about what you were 

 going to do," she says. "Another thing 

 you're going to understand is every- 

 thing came with a task and quantity to 

 be completed. Since some people will 

 be cooking and won't have time to be 

 cotton pickers or broommakers or 

 gourdmakers, you all are going to have 

 to make enough so that everybody will 

 have something to take home." 



Immediately, several of the stu- 

 dents raise their hands asking, "May I 

 be a cook?" 



Redford responds firmly: "Today, 

 you will do whatever I tell you 

 to do." 



Glancing around the room, she an- 

 nounces that every- 

 one holding yellow 

 slips of paper will 

 J I be a cotton picker. 



• The yellow people 

 m j groan. 



"Blue will be 

 broommakers, and 

 you may be candle 

 dippers, and you 

 may have to help 

 the cotton pickers," 

 she says. 



The ninth-grad- 

 ers disperse, while 

 Redford helps suit 

 up the cooks outside 

 the Colony House. 

 A.C. Robinson 

 preens and bats his 

 eyelashes as he dons 

 a long skirt and 

 apron. He and fel- 

 low cook Trey Boyce begin hauling 

 buckets of water to the kitchen for 

 cooking and dishwashing. 



Betty Pledger, dressed in a long 

 checked skirt and white bonnet, as- 

 sembles her people, who begin picking 

 the seeds and hulls from large tufts of 

 cotton. Later she will help them stitch 

 the picked cotton into pincushions. 



Spear directs the candlemakers, 

 who repeatedly circle the cauldron, al- 

 ternately dipping and drying their 

 wicks. 



In the shade, Jerry Raveling shows 

 his artisans how to peel the rough 

 pieces from stalks of broomsedge and 

 bind them together with fabric strips. 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 13 



