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Eleanor Harris, Daniel Dotson, Judy [Surname not recorded], George Clark, and Ephraim Derricks lived in the North Slave Quarters.
The kitchen within this building would have made for a stifling heat in Virginia summers, keeping the heat and smells of cooking out of the main house.
Southern cooking is strongly influenced by African cuisine, with many cooking techniques, recipes, and flavors passed down among families and between friends. In the North Slave Quarters are preserved a mortar and pestle and some other cooking tools that would have been used by George Clark and others here.
George Clark and Ephraim Derricks were both married, though their wives were enslaved away from the estate. Family separations were a heart wrenching and frequent experience among enslaved communities, and it was a constant threat. There are multiple records of people being sold away from their family members if their acts of resistance were caught or their behavior was simply considered an offense.
We don’t know what the interactions between the six people who shared the North Slave Quarters were, but we can invite you to remember each of them in this space. Quarters were tight, and members of the enslaved community would often have known each other their entire lives.
The North and South Slave Quarters here, buildings closest to the main house, were visually maintained as part of cultivating the appearance of wealth. The enslaved people living here were in the main house frequently, and kept at close proximity to be called upon. Spaces in which people lived whom were enslaved and forced to work in in the fields of the plantation would not have had such appearance or permanence, and were not preserved on the landscape over time. 
Center Hall | Conservatory | Custis Bedchamber | Custis Guest Room | Dining Room | Family Parlor | Hunting Hall | Morning Room | Office | School Room | White Parlor | South Slave Quarters Museum Exhibit | Smokehouse | Selina Gray's Quarters | North Slave Quarters Museum Exhibit | Miss Judy's Quarters | George Clark's Room and Summer Kitchen | Museum Return to Virtual Tour Ready for the real thing? Plan Your Visit |
Last updated: June 17, 2021