Carolina Clay: The Life and Legend of the Slave Potter Dave

by Leonard Todd

He is known today, as he was then, only as Dave. His pots and storage jars were everyday items, but because of their beauty and massive size, and because Dave signed and inscribed many with poems, they now fetch six figures at auction. We know of no other slave artist who dared to put his name on his work, a dangerous advertisement of literacy.Fascinated by the man and by this troubling family history, Leonard Todd moved from Manhattan to Edgefield,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393058565
• ISBN13: 9780393058567
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

A Legend

CAROLINA CLAY: The Life and Legend of the Slave Potter Dave is about a noble slave potter esteemed as, `Dave the Slave.' Leonard Todd has researched the life of this African-American and confirms Dave the Slave was a true artisan, contributing to America without fail. In this determined effort, Mr. Todd aspires to give Dave the Slave national reverence. Dave the Slave was a master clay artisan who secretly learned to read and write, then courageously inscribed the pottery he made. These "inscriptions" revealed a brighter side of slave life, showing that the splendid Dave the Slave loved to make his signature pottery, making his work, and now this book, a collector's gem! What readers will immediately glean from CAROLINA CLAY: The Life and Legend of the Slave Potter Dave is Dave the Slave emerged as the master of the booming clay industry. His perfect clay jugs were ideal for storing foods, etc. His poetic couplets inscribed on his work uniquely reflects the normal events of slavery unfolding. The book takes you inside the liberal slave-owning Landrum family kiln. You will learn how the slave system's economic affects included selling slaves, involuntary slave migrations, the civil war, fancy girls, and mulatto kids. You will wonder with strong interest if another Phyllis Wheatley story is unfolding and you will discover Dave the Slave's couplet messages on his pottery are timeless press releases of love, faith, history, gossip, and humor. CAROLINA CLAY: The Life and Legend of the Slave Potter Dave provides slave history in a lighter way without minimizing the fears, pains, and sorrows of a slave. You will enjoy the beautiful photos and will better understand historical events including Dave the Slave's five-year silence when anti-literacy laws were strictly enforced. The genius of Dave the Slave as a historian in his own rite is evidenced in his messages such as: "Dave belongs to Mr. Miles/ wher (sic) the oven bakes & the pot biles=" This indicates who his master was. Other messages reveal the bible's influence on Dave the Slave through challenging times such as the civil war. "I, made this Jar, all of cross If, you don't repent, you will be, lost=" Through investigations, travels, and interviews, the story lures readers into the mystifying excitement over Stony Bluff, and inspires a will Dave's-real-wife-please-stand nostalgia, and appreciates the dignity of Strom Thurmond's mulatto daughter. What ultimately develops is a great story about a great slave who made a significant contribution in a simple way, but two-fold. While the slave journey is always an emotional one for African-Americans, you find a sense of pride nonetheless through the poetic accomplishments of Dave the Slave. At last, the South is forever bound to the Union and a freed Dave writes no more. CAROLINA CLAY: The Life and Legend of the Slave Potter Dave brings the noble Dave the Slave completely and intelligently into the 21st century! Revie

Carolina Clay

This is a fine book; easy to read and informative. For any who have seen these beautiful pots on Antique Road Show or in museums, it is fascinating to learn about the way they came to be, and the times Dave lived in. I would recommend it to anyone interested in history or biography. When I finished it, I donated it to the local library, so others could enjoy it.

Great read! A positive story in a dreadful time

A well researched look into the life and time of the slave potter named Dave. I enjoyed this book because it was a personal account of a man who lived under the terrible conditions of slavery and somehow managed to provide us all with his gift to history. A must read!

Rich in character and history

Carolina Clay is a wonderful book. Leonard Todd has done an amazing job of researching the world in which Dave lived. That world is upstate South Carolina in the 1800s. The biography of Dave is embedded in a rich background of cultural details and regional history. When information on Dave becomes thin, we still come to understand what both his physical and emotional worlds must have been like. This book is a terrific read and a remarkable achievement.

New insight on Dave, the potter

Carolina Clay by Leonard Todd is a must for anyone wishing to learn of the great enslaved potter, Dave Drake. The material is presented in chronological order starting with Dave's first master Reuben Drake and his early years at Pottersville after Dr. Abner Landrum became his owner. Todd uses family records as well as public archives to present a well-rounded sketch of Dave, period politics and the antebellum Old Edgefield District of South Carolina. Several exciting, previously unknown facts are presented about Dave which, before now, were not found in the record of entries about Dave. Todd's research sheds new light on several exciting propositions in which scholars, historians and collectors have long debated concerning Dave's life and family relationships. The amazing stoneware manufacturers from the Old Edgefield District started a tradition of pottery making in the southern USA unlike any other known in this country. As more and more people discover alkaline glazed stoneware, the prices of the old pottery sky rockets! Dave's pots are at the pinnacle of both rarity and price. This book will become the necessary bible on Dave and a "must have" companion book to the several other publications on southern alkaline glazed pottery.