Dave the Potter - Enslaved African-American Ceramic Artist

David Drake (1800–1874) was an influential African-American ceramic artist, born into slavery under the pottery-making families of Edgefield, South Carolina. Also known as Dave the Potter, Dave Pottery, Dave the Slave, or Dave of the Hive, he is known to have had several different owners during his lifetime, including Harvey Drake, Reuben Drake, Jasper Gibbs, and Lewis Miles. All of these men were in some way related to the ceramic entrepreneur and slaveholding brothers Reverend John Landrum and Dr. Abner Landrum. Key Takeaways: Dave the Potter Known For: Extraordinatly large signed ceramic vessels  Also known as: David Drake, Dave the Slave, Dave of the Hive, Dave PotteryBorn: ca 1800Parents: unknownDied: 1874Education: Taught to read and write; turned pots by Abner Landrum and/or Harvey DrakePublished Works: At least 100 signed pots, undoubtedly many more  Ã‚  Spouse: Lydia (?)  Children: two (?)  Notable Quote: I wonder where is all my relation \ friendship to all—and every nation Early Life What is known of Dave the Potters life is derived from census records and news stories. He was born about 1800, the child of a woman forced into slavery in South Carolina with seven other people by a Scotsman named Samuel Landrum. Dave was separated from his parents in early childhood, and nothing is known of his father, who may have been Samuel Landrum. Dave learned to read and write, and probably began working in the potteries in his late teens, learning his trade from the European-American potters. The earliest pottery vessels which bear attributes of Daves later pots date to the 1820s and were made in the Pottersville workshop. Edgefield Pottery In 1815, the Landrums established the Edgefield pottery-making district in west-central South Carolina, and by the mid-19th century, the district had grown to include 12 very large, innovative and influential ceramic stoneware factories. There, the Landrums and their families blended English, European, African, Native American, and Chinese ceramic styles, forms, and techniques to make durable, non-toxic alternatives to lead-based stonewares. It was in this environment that Dave became an important potter, or turner, eventually working in several of these factories. Dave also apparently worked for Abner Landrums newspaper The Edgefield Hive (sometimes listed as The Columbia Hive), a trade newspaper where some scholars believe he learned to read and write. Others believe it is more likely he learned from his owner Reuben Drake. Daves literacy had to have occurred before 1837 when it became illegal in South Carolina to teach slaves to read and write. Dave was owned for a time by Lewis Miles, Abners son-in-law, and he produced at least 100 pots for Miles between July 1834 and March 1864. Dave may well have produced many more, but only about 100 signed pots have survived from that period. He lived through the Civil War, and after the Emancipation, continued to work for the pottery, as David Drake, his new surname taken from one of his past masters. While that doesnt seem like very much information, Dave was one of 76 known enslaved African or African Americans who worked in the Edgefield District. We know far more about Dave the Potter than we do for the others who worked in the ceramic workshops of the Landrums because he signed and dated some of his ceramics, sometimes incising poetry, proverbs, and dedications into the clay surfaces. Marriage and Family No clear record of Daves marriage or family has been found, but when Harvey Drake died in December of 1832, his estate included four slaves: Dave, who would be sold to Reuben Drake and Jasper Gibbs for $400; and Lydia and her two children, sold to Sarah and Laura Drake for $600. In 1842, Reuben Drake, Jasper Gibbs and his wife Laura Drake, and Lydia and her children moved to Louisiana—but not Dave, who was at that time owned by Lewis Miles and working in Miles pottery. U.S. museum studies scholar Jill Beute Koverman (1969–2013) and others have speculated that Lydia and her children were Daves family, Lydia a wife or sister. Writing and Pottery Potters typically use makers marks to identify the potter, the pottery, the prospective owner, or manufacturing details: Dave added quatrains from the bible or his own eccentric poetry. One of the earliest of the poems attributed to Dave is from 1836. On a large jar made for the Pottersville foundry, Dave wrote: horses, mules and hogs / all our cows is in the bogs / there they shall ever stay / till the buzzards take them away. Burrison (2012) has interpreted this poem to refer to Daves owners selling of several of his co-workers to Louisiana. U.S. African and African American Studies professor Michael A. Chaney has connected decorative and symbolic markings on slave-produced forms of colonoware (a blend of African and Native American pottery made in the U.S.) to some marks made by Dave. Whether Daves poetry was intended as subversive, humorous or insightful is open to question: probably all three. In 2005, Koverman compiled a list of all Daves known poems. Style and Form Dave specialized in large storage jars with horizontal slab handles, used for large-scale plantation food preservation, and his pots are among the largest made during the period. At Edgefield, only Dave and Thomas Chandler made pots with such a large capacity. Some hold up to 40 gallons: and they were in high demand. Daves pots, like those of most of the Edgefield potters, were alkaline stonewares, but Daves had a rich streaky brown and green glaze, idiosyncratic to the potter. His inscriptions are the only ones known from American potters at the time, at Edgefield or away from it. Death and Legacy The last known jars made by Dave were made in January and March of 1864. The 1870 federal census lists David Drake as a 70-year-old man, born in South Carolina and a turner by trade. The next line on the census lists Mark Jones, also a potter—Jones was another potter owned by Lewis Miles, and at least one pot is signed Mark and Dave. There is no record for Dave in the 1880 census, and Koverman assumed he died before then.  Chaney (2011) lists a death date of 1874. The first jar inscribed by Dave was found in 1919, and Dave was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame in 2016. A considerable amount of scholarship on Daves inscriptions has been amassed over the past couple of decades. Chaney (2011) discusses the politically mute but commercially hypervisible status of Daves writings and focuses his attention on the poetic inscriptions, especially the somewhat subversive elements in Daves writing. American museum studies scholar Aaron DeGrofts 1988 article describes the protest contexts of Daves inscriptions; and folklorist John A. Burrison (2012) discusses the topics of Daves poetry, as part of a broader discussion of the Edgefield potteries. American archaeologist Christopher Fennell has direct archaeological investigations at the Edgefield potteries beginning in the 21st century. Perhaps the most focused research into Daves ceramics was by Jill Beute Koverman (1969–2013), who, as part of her extensive work on Edgefield pottery works cataloged and photographed well over 100 vessels marked by Dave or attributed to him. Kovermans nuanced discussion includes Daves artistic influences and training. Selected Sources Burrison, John A. South Carolinas Edgefield District: An Early International Crossroads of Clay. American Studies Journal 56 (2012).  Chaney, Michael A. The Concatenate Poetics of Slavery and the Articulate Material of Dave the Potter. African American Review 44.4 (2011): 607–18.  ---, ed. Where Is All My Relation?: The Poetics of Dave the Potter. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.  De Groft, Aaron. Eloquent Vessels/Poetics of Power: The Heroic Stoneware of Dave the Potter. Winterthur Portfolio 33.4 (1998): 249–60.  Fennell, Christopher C. Innovation, Industry, and African-American Heritage in Edgefield, South Carolina. Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage 6.2 (2017): 55–77.Goldberg, Arthur F., and Deborah A. Goldberg. The Expanding Legacy of the Enslaved Potter-Poet David Drake. Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage 6.3 (2017): 243–61.  Koverman, Jill Beute. Clay Connections: A Thousand-Mile Journey from South Carolina to Texas. American Material Culture and the Texas Experience: The David B. Warren Symposium. Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, 2009. 118–45.  ---. The Ceramic Works of David Drake, Aka, Dave the Potter or Dave the Slave of Edgefield, South Carolina. American Ceramic Circle Journal 13 (2005): 83.---, ed. I Made This Jar... Dave: The Life and Works of the Enslaved African-American Potter, Dave. McKissick Museum, University of South Carolina, 1998.  Todd, Leonard. Carolina Clay: The Life and Legend of the Slave Potter Dave. New York: WW Norton, 2008.