Chopping through my cotton

Chopping through my cotton.

Can’t keep my hands out of the house long enough.

Graf(t)s, the hard things on the side…

The help is sick. The crops are not, except the summer oats; they’re like the help. Hope to stay on track, cause the season is underway.

As for the help…
Salby has a daughter
Aggy has a son
Joe’s as you left him
So’s Henderson
Tony’s got a hurt foot
Juber’s trying to go home
Jim, he’s hurt too, a runaway horse’ to blame.

At the landing, do I have everything? the oil? lamp?
and, patent balances?

The corn you sent’s chasing the corn I put, close race indeed.


Using a collection of letters written in the mid 1840s by individuals involved in the plantation operations of the Cameron family in North Carolina, my students at NC State are building a collection of creative interpretations of individual letters in the collection.

Chopping through my cotton, is my offering in this project. In my work, I am interpreting a letter written May 11, 1845 by Charles Lewellyn to Paul Cameron. Lewellyn was the overseer on a Greene County Alabama plantation owned by Paul Cameron's father, Duncan Cameron. The letter is available here - http://plantationletters.com/lewellyn/Charles_Lewellyn_1845_5_11.swf

Belwo is a more conventional analysis of the letter. This letter is part of a larger collection of letters available at http://plantationletters.com

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In this letter dated May 11, 1846, Charles Lewellyn wrote to Paul Cameron about conditions on the Cameron plantation in Green County, Alabama. Paul Cameron’s father Duncan Cameron owned the Alabama plantation. The younger Cameron was in charge of the daily operations. The Cameron’s lived in North Carolina, and as absentee landowners, relied on Lewellyn’s reports about the plantation operation.

Lewellyn offered Cameron information on number of topics, including the current status of the crops that were in the ground, the general conditions of his enslaved workforce, updates on individual slaves, and a brief accounting of materials received. The letter opened in an almost apologetic tone. After saying that he (or more accurately the salves) had been chopping the cotton, Lewellyn went on to complain that so many of the workers were sick or unavailable. Chopping cotton involves clearing weeds out from around young cotton plants to give them ample opportunities to grow. Too many weeds will choke the plants, denying them water and other nutrients, even sunlight. Lewellyn stated that they had been working in the cotton rows for nine days and should have been finished, but then complained he “can’t keep my hands out of the house long enough to do any work on the plantation.”

After his update on the crops, Lewellyn briefly updated Cameron on the physical conditions and some of the activities of specific slaves on the plantation. In all, he mentioned nine people. Lewellyn mentioned seven of these slaves by name. He reported that two women, Salby and Aggy both recently had children. Salby has a daughter, and Aggy a son. Lewellyn left us to wonder about these children, specifically their health and the fathers. Two of the other people mentioned by Lewellyn were nursing injuries, Tony who hurt his foot and Jim who had an accident and cut himself.