Visiting a Southern Plantation

Saturday, September 24^th: After having been invited to a great typical southern breakfast, we drove to the town of Eastover. There, we visited Kensignton Plantation. We had a tour of the mansion that has been renovated and is now open for visitors. Matthew Richard Singleton completed Kensington Mansion in 1854 and lived there with his family. He became a wealthy cotton planter and owned approximately 200-500 slaves. The slaves lived in cabins that were ca. 1 mile away from the mansion. They were mostly involved in cotton picking, some were, however, also house slaves and worked for the Singleton family as servants. Unfortunately, we were not able to visit the last existing slave cabin as it is too far off from the actual plantation.  Instead, we got a tour of the mansion and learned a lot about its history and its architecture.
The Singleton  family sold their mansion to Robert Pickett Hamer in 1910 whose son lived there with his family until 1941. In 1981, the company International Paper (IP) purchased the Kensigton plantation and restored the, by now, dilapidated house to its former glory. By 1996, all the rooms of the mansion were  furnished  with mostly 19th century furniture. Some of the furniture has been original to the house while others have not been.
While visiting the plantation, we got a glimpse of how plantation life could have been. The mansion and the land that surround it were very impressive to us. The heat, the mosquitoes, and the huge cockroaches make us quickly realize that life on a plantation must not have been as pleasant as it has been presented in film and literature. Although we found the mansion and its history very interesting, we would have liked to hear more about the role of African slaves and their life on the plantation. 
Here is a video of the plantation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJRaMmK-g3s


Katharina