Descendants obtain works of enslaved potter in landmark restitution deal

BOSTON– Inside the wide opening of a stoneware pot, Daisy Whitner’s fingertips found a slight rise in the clay — a mark she hoped was a mark left by her ancestor, an enslaved potter who fashioned the vessel nearly 175 years ago in South Carolina.

Standing in the gallery of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, last week, Whitner said she felt in that moment a quiet connection to her ancestor, David Drake.

“I would tell the kids, ‘Inside that jar, I’m sure I can feel his tears, the sweat running down his face, down his arms,'” said Whitner, 86, a Washington, D.C., resident and retired accounts executive for The Washington Post.

The pot is one of two returned to Drake’s family as part of a historic deal reached this month between Drake’s descendants and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, one of the institutions that holds pieces of his work.

The vessels are among hundreds of surviving works by “Dave the Potter,” an enslaved man who worked in the alkaline-glazed stoneware potteries of Edgefield, South Carolina, in the decades before and during the Civil War. Dave signed many of his pots – and inscribed some with rhyming couplets – an extraordinary and unprecedented assertion of his identity and authorship at a time when slave literacy was criminalized.

The agreement represents what experts say is the first major case of art restitution involving works created by a slave in the United States – a process traditionally associated with families seeking the return of artwork looted by the Nazis during World War II.

It is also rare: because slaves were denied legal personhood and documentation, it is often impossible to trace the ownership or lineage of their works.

Children’s author Yaba Baker, Dave’s 54-year-old fourth-generation grandson, called the return a “spiritual restoration.” Baker, whose first two children’s books explored black history, said the family felt a dual sense of pride and sorrow. Many black families, he noted, have difficulty tracing their ancestors back a few generations; getting Dave’s job back gave them a part of themselves back.

After the museum returned the pots to the family, they resold one so people could continue to learn about Dave’s legacy. The other is rented to the museum, at least temporarily. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Boston said it would not disclose the amount paid.

“We don’t want to hide them in our house. We want other people to be inspired by them,” Baker said. “We want people to know that this person, Dave the Potter, who was told he was just a tool to be used, realized he had humanity. He deserved his own name on his pots. He deserved to write poetry. He deserved to know who he was.”

Working in the pottery yards in the South Carolina heat, Dave carved his name next to the date – July 12, 1834 – on a clay pot that would be sold by its owner and used to store rations of pork and beef for slaves like himself across the region.

He also inscribed the couplet on the pot, which would likely end up on a cotton plantation in South Carolina:

“Put everything between / This pot will surely hold 14” to mark the 14 gallon capacity of the pot.

The vessel was the first of hundreds, if not thousands, of stoneware jugs and pots made by Dave alongside other enslaved potters over 50 years before and during the Civil War.

Much of Dave’s poetry followed Christian themes. As he grew older, he wrote more and explored themes related to his slavery. One of his most memorable poems was carved into a pot he produced in 1857, around the time researchers believe Dave and his family were separated after being sold to different slave owners.

“I wonder where all my relationships/friendships are with everyone – and with every nation”

Several Drake descendants said they felt particularly moved by Dave’s question about his relationships — and that their rendition made it seem like Dave’s question had finally been answered.

It is unknown what happened to the jars after Dave’s death. The MAE bought them in 1997 from an art dealer. Ethan Lasser, chair of MFA Boston’s Art of the Americas, said he thinks they survived mainly due to sheer “benign neglect” in South Carolina because they were large and difficult to transport or break.

The MFA has at least two Drake jars, a “Poem Jar” and a “Signed Jar”, both dating from 1857.

The pot that Drake’s descendants resold to the museum is similar to the 1857 pot that Dave asks about his connections because it uses first-person language that suggests ownership — which makes it particularly powerful, Lasser said.

“Think of it as an enslaved person, speaking in the first person and claiming paternity,” Lasser said.

In the poem, Dave writes:

“I made this Jar = cash – / although it’s called = lucre Trash”.

On more than one pot, Dave writes “and Mark” next to his own name, suggesting that he worked on the piece with another slave. Oral histories indicate that Dave was disabled after losing a leg, although it is not clear how, and that he may have required assistance with his ceramic work later in life.

His last surviving pot, made while the Civil War raged in 1862, reads: “I made this pot, all cross / If you do not repent, you will be lost.”

Researchers believe Drake died in the 1870s after gaining his freedom during the Civil War. He is counted in the 1870 census, but not in the 1880 census.

For Drake’s descendants, discovering Dave’s work was both moving and difficult – a shock of pride in his artistry and sorrow at the conditions in which he lived.

Yaba Baker, who has a 17-year-old daughter and a 13-year-old son, said the experience gave her family something they never had before: a traceable connection.

“I was able to turn to my son and say, ‘This is your lineage.’ Dave the Potter was not only a great artist: he resisted oppressive laws, even though he could have been killed for it,” he said. “That’s where you’re from. Before, we didn’t have that connection.”

Yaba Baker said he often thinks about the anguish Dave might have felt if, as some historians speculate, the poems about his pots were an attempt to signal to his family members that they had been sold — a common trauma of slavery.

“I can’t imagine not knowing where my own children are,” Baker said. “Coming full circle is very emotional for me. »

For his mother, Pauline Baker, discovering Dave’s story filled a void that many black families know intimately.

“If you’re not African-American, you don’t understand the missing links in your history,” she said. “When you find a connection, it becomes very personal.” She studies his life – the heat, the work, the loss of a limb – and wonders how he managed to display such precision and concentration. “He didn’t allow them to enslave his mind,” said Baker, 78, a retired speech pathologist who worked for three decades in Washington, D.C., public schools.

Since announcing the MFA deal, the family has heard from museums and private collectors who hold Dave’s work and also want to discuss what ethical restitution might look like for them.

Daisy Whitner said she felt her ancestor’s presence every time she slipped her hand into the jar.

“It broke my heart,” she said. “The exterior is beautiful, but when you think about what he endured – from sunrise to sunset, in that South Carolina heat, on one leg – this poor enslaved man had no say in working so hard for nothing. »