Post # 5: Barrow's Plantation
Over the years, the map of Barrow’s plantation has appeared in many textbooks, it portrays how a southern plantation evolved over time. The plantation first appeared in Scriber’s Monthly: An Illustrated Magazine for the People, Volume 21, Issue 5, in March of 1881. From recent satellite images you can see that Barrow’s plantation has not changed much since the Reconstruction. It has been able to keep the same shape for more than 186 years. To this day Barrow's plantation is still operating and providing cotton for society. From the aerial view of Barrow's plantation it is hard to tell, but Pope Barrow's house is still located on the plantation, however we can not tell if the other cabins are still there.
Barrow’s plantation is hard to locate. We had to start by finding information and maps about the county in which it is located, Oglethorpe County. From there we found that Barrow’s plantation is located off of Route 22, between Philomath, Georgia and Maxey's, Georgia. The plantations closest edge is located approximately 1.2 miles SW of Philomath and the farthest edge is about 2.25 miles SW of Philomath. We were unable to find the exact coordinates of Barrow’s Plantation, but we found the coordinates for Philomath, which is latitude 33.724162 and longitude -82.762010
The map in the textbooks, however, has some errors in it, the major error being its orientation. Having consulted many sources, mainly by looking at the position of the rivers, one can see that barrows plantation is not positioned correctly. Although this is the major error, there are other small ones as well. For example, there is no compass on the original map, so one cannot determine which is north. There is no scale, which every map must have.
The plantation seems to have increased in size, but the most compelling thing about it is that it is actually used and that it actually still exists. Although it has increased its size, for the most part the geographical layout coincides with the older maps. However, one is not able to see any houses with our current resources.
http://hist120miner.typepad.com/photos/barrows_plantation_photos/index.html This album includes the pictures associated with Barrow’s Plantation. The first picture is a satellite aerial view of the plantation. The next one is of the slave cabin located on the plantation. This photo was taken in 1899. The photo shows a slave cabin located on Pope Barrow's Plantation. The next picture related to the plantation is a picture of African-American children picking cotton in front of Pope Barrow's home. The Barrow's plantation was known for cotton production. The third photo associated with the plantation is a picture of Pope Barrow’s house, Pope Barrow's house is located between Athens and Lexington, Georgia and was built in 1820. And finally , the last photo is an aerial view of the plantation with its boundaries outlined. As you can see in this picture the boundaries are almost exactly the same as it was when the plantation first started.
Satellite images of the area show that the physiographic area of the plantation has not changed very much. The Master’s house seems to be located in the same place, the Gin house seems to have moved. If you look back at the photo of the slave cabin it shows that it has been moved because it does not seem to have a permanent foundation. Most of these changes came about after the Reconstruction since the Barrow’s sold small plots of land to non-relatives. The smaller houses may have changed locations as well. Many changes occurred over the history the almost 200 year history of Barrow’s plantation, nevertheless, the most astounding fact is that the plantation still exists and is still being used.
The introduction to the paper does explain the project, but it does not dive into any sort of thesis beyond the findings. A good amount of the paper should be spent on the answers, but an analysis or increased research should be used. There is also no quote in the introduction, which could make it more interesting. The paper does do a great job of explaining the answers, and has few to no gramatical errors. The middle of the paragraph seems to repeat itself about the error in Barrow's plantation. The orientation was the error, which was caused by the lack of a compass on the map. Barrow's platation is positioned correctl between the rivers, but is not facing the right direction according to the other maps. The conclusion falls to the same fate as the introduction. It does not go beyond one of the explanations told in class. The paper could include why the plantation lasted so long, or how the slaves cabins did change.
Posted by: Landon Michaels | November 07, 2006 at 06:00 PM
This post was fairly easy to follow as it included the answers to the questions but not in a “time line” manner. What I noticed when I started reading the post was there was no thesis statement bold or underlined. Therefore, it was difficult to see what this post was trying to prove. The post was very informative, however, I felt as if it was also very choppy. The introduction made it seem as though I was constantly jumping from one place to another as I was reading. I thought it would help your post if the focus wasn't mainly on the location of Barrow's Plantation and the actual physical state it is in today. There were sentences where it made me feel as if I've read it earlier in the post. Perhaps those sentences could have been combined and set focus onto something else.
Posted by: Daniel Phan | November 08, 2006 at 05:04 PM