Philipsburg Manor Garden Reflects Lives of Enslaved Africans

In the past, the garden at Philipsburg Manor was planted and interpreted as a kitchen garden for the Philipse family or for the Philipses' European tenant farmers. Now the garden has been planted to reflect key aspects of enslavement in the north and the lives of African captives who worked such gardens in the 18th century. Its design and planting plan is conjectural, based on research into general practices of the day, and reflects a possible garden large enough for one or two people-say, a husband and wife. The garden is an exciting feature of the museum landscape because it is a work in progress that will change and grow as more research is done.

The fenced garden contains raised beds separated by paths of oyster shells. The raised beds, found in northern European kitchen gardens but not in West African gardens, represent adjustments for climatic differences that African gardeners in northern colonies might make. Raised beds are warmer in the early part of the season, giving plants a head start in colder climates. Additionally, they provide improved drainage where soils are dense.

It was common practice in rural areas of the American north and South to allocate garden plots to enslaved men and women so they could supplement their limited food ration by their own labor. This additional labor added to the work of individual African captives, but also had benefits.

First, enslaved people who had little control over many aspects of their daily lives could and did exercise choice in the foods they preferred to eat. These may have been foods most similar to their diet in Africa or the Caribbean, with major adjustments for the different climates.

Slaves often received only meager rations of food and therefore took steps to ward off hunger and diversify their nutrition. According to analysis of skeletal remains at the African Burial Ground in lower Manhattan, the diet of many New York City slaves was nutritionally deficient, no doubt due to a serious lack of variety of foods. Both quantitative and qualitative evidence indicates that caloric intake was also insufficient for many slaves in the north.

In plots allotted to them, enslaved men and women worked to supplement their diets by growing their own, preferred foods. Plants grown in the Philipsburg Manor garden that reflect this purpose include root crops such as white and sweet potatoes, as well as beans, black-eyed peas, cayenne pepper, winter squash, and various greens.

In addition to Jacob's cattle beans and scarlet runner beans, the garden includes red kidney beans ( Phaseolus vulgaris ) which would have been familiar to many Africans, Europeans, and Native Americans in the eighteenth century. An 18th century botanist described kidney beans as "of great use for feeding Negroes, being strong hearty food." Kidney beans, like corn and cassava, were probably introduced to West Africa from the Americas during the earliest years of the transatlantic trade, and would have been well-established in West Africa by 1750.

New to the garden are black-eyed peas ( Vigna unguiculata ), also known as cow-peas, field peas, or calavances. Black-eyed peas are thought to have been introduced to the Americas from Africa as a result of the slave trade. An 18th century writer noted that the black-eyed pea "is a hardy fruitful plant, and thrives in almost every soil. The seeds serve to feed the negroes; and are frequently used by the poorer sort of white people: they are observed to be a hearty wholesome food."

The usefulness of the sweet potato, indigenous to the New World, as a basic starch crop (a function filled by the yam in many West African cultures) may have boosted its popularity among African captives. According to accounts written by an 18th-century historian, sweet potatoes were "cultivated all over America, and supply the negroes and poorer sort of people with a great part of their food in many places." Of the sweet potato, an 18th-century traveler noted that ".in all our colonies of America, as well Islands as Continent, these roots are in great esteem and use: the common white people, as well as the negro slaves, subsisting much on them."

These kinds of choices in the garden are now interpreted to help visitors understand that enslaved Africans were not without agency: they acted independently to shape their environment as much as possible.

A second benefit to keeping a garden was that enslaved men and women could sell surplus produce from their plots to earn cash. New York City's population created a market for fruits and vegetables, and in Westchester County a market was held weekly at the shire town of West Chester (now part of the Bronx). Access to small amounts of cash meant a greater ability to affect one's own circumstances. Marketable plants represented in Philipsburg Manor's garden include cabbage, carrots, peas, parsnips, gherkins, leeks, onions, radishes, and other vegetables that would have found favor at a Euro-American settler's table.

Though many people today assume that all of a slave's labor, and all the fruits of that labor, belonged unquestionably to the slaveholder, in practice the situation was more complex than that. During the 18th century, slaves could be leased out to other whites, or might hire themselves out, in a revenue-sharing arrangement that profited both the slave and the slaveholder. Slaves kept any income earned by work done during their "free" time (such as Sundays or at night) through de facto practice, not by law.

This economic complexity is important to understanding that enslaved individuals were constantly negotiating to improve their circumstances. Money could be saved to purchase one's own freedom and/or that of family members or it could be used to improve the quality of life through the purchase of food or material goods. It was a tool that allowed for personal choice to be exercised. Did Sampson or Flip or Abigal or Sue from Philipsburg Manor engage in this economy by bringing country produce to market? Philipsburg's historians don't know all the answers, but the patterns of 18th-century practice suggest it was possible. It is true that New York's slave laws tightened in the middle of the 18th century to include restricting slaves from trading independently and the imposition of fines on free people who traded with slaves. In particular, slaves from Long Island and New Jersey were not permitted to sell oysters or vegetables according to laws of 1715 and 1740; but it was common for slaves (and slaveholders) to disregard the law.

A third benefit to keeping a garden was that a garden could be a source of cultivated medicinal herbs. Africans at home and in the countries to which they dispersed practiced medicine based on an intimate knowledge of plants and other natural materials. In America their knowledge may have blended with that of Native Americans and Europeans. Documents of the 18th century reveal that African medical practitioners were often valued not only within the black community but also by whites in need of care. The medicinal herb section of Philipsburg Manor's garden is under research, and, like the garden as a whole, can be viewed as a historical work in progress.

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