Lessons from Savannah

The rope bed slept three and the mattress was stuffed with pine needles. The children would have slept on the floor. At least six slaves lived in the basement of the Davenport house. Two more lived up in the attic, but since they were men, they wouldn’t mix with the women who ran the house, did the laundry for all 18 residents. When Isaiah Davenport died, his widow Sarah was faced with a difficult choice. If she married she would lose control of all her property and her surviving children. But if she stayed single, she could try to make it on her own. But to do that, she would need standing in society, which meant continuing to own slaves. She used them as collateral to build a business of boarding houses of her own.

We’ve come full circle from the slave forts of Africa just weeks ago to Savannah, Georgia where African slaves ended up in the field or houses. But what is interesting is that it wasn’t just the wealthy who participated. The upward-inclined working class justified their own enslavment practices so they could get loans and to signal status to prospective clients.

Thanks to Cornelia Groves and the Savannah Foundation for preserving this first home, and hundreds more. Because of their efforts, we future generations can learn our own history and the stories of those who built our nation. We learn the stories of those who never experienced freedom, like Mary and her daughter Anne.

Our minds and hearts full, we continued on to study the Temperance movement at the Prohibition Museum and speakeasy. Full of unintended consequences, the 18th amendment led to the loss of countless jobs, loss of tax revenue for states and the Federal government, and the rise of organized crime. It’s ironic that Carrie Nation used destruction of property as a means to justify turning what people drink into a crime. Certainly it’s a slippery slope legislating what people drink, or sell, or buy. We applied our learning immediately by continuing onto several watering holes, including the glorious Peacock Lounge. Harrison outdid himself with cocoa washed-Campari Mezcal Negronis.Read more