MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Impressive Greek Revival mansions found on the upcountry Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina plantations are a vestige of a bygone era. Yet, in the early 19th century, they stood as pillars within the community, as did their owners. With prosperity generated from cotton cultivation, these upcountry planters sought to differentiate themselves from the previous generation and used their Greek Revival houses a lasting legacy to their power and societal status. However, there is a mythology that surrounds these homes. The beauty of these homes was an illusion that masked the cruelty of slaveryThe intrinsic union of this architectural style and slave ownership was ever present. Built to be lasting legacies of the greatness of the slave-owning cotton planter, the Greek Revival plantation house stood as perpetual reminders of the antebellum era. Though the men died and slavery was abolished, these houses survived in either reality or in story, enabling them to share the legacies of these men. Each upcountry Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina Greek Revival plantation house was a symbol of this generation’s planter class who earned their money from slaves and cotton. The house, its contents and the overall design stood as representations of the men who owned them. Though the root of their wealth, which had been generated by slave labor, became defunct, the status that each man painstakingly tried to preserve was, in the end, attained. The illusion of grandeur displayed in these homes masked the reality of how they were built and maintained; it was on the backs of slaves. The beauty of these homes and their representations of the power of the planter however are forever marred by the stain of slavery.