David Drake ("Dave the Potter")
(American, born ca. 1800)

Storage jar, 1858
Made at the Lewis J. Miles Factory, Edgefield District, South Carolina
Stoneware with alkaline (ash) glaze
Lent by a private collection

This large stoneware jar was made by a South Carolina slave who is known today as "Dave the Potter." Upon emancipation in the 1860s Dave took a last name Drake after a former owner. His ceramic work is often adorned with short poems and is one of the few instances where a nineteenth-century African-American craftsman was able to record his or her own thoughts and opinions. Yet Dave’s pottery also is notable for its fine quality and impressive scale. Great skill and strength was necessary to successfully turn such large clay vessels, some of which are several feet tall and weigh as much as a hundred pounds.

Dave’s ambitions as a writer undoubtedly stem from his work as a typesetter in the office of The South Carolina Republican, a newspaper published by his owner, Abner Landrum. Surviving examples of Dave’s pottery reveal a wide range of creatively rhymed couplets such as "This noble jar will hold 20 [gallons]/fill it with silver then you will have plenty." Another example speaks to his personal situation as a slave: "Dave belongs to Mr. Miles/where the oven bakes and the post biles [boils]." This particular example bears the lines: "When you fill this jar with pork or beef/Scot will be there to get a piece." On the back side of the pot, which apparently was meant as a gift, is the dedication "This jar is to Mr. Segler who keeps the bar in Orangeburg/ for Mr. Edwards a Gentleman who fmrly [formerly] kept Mr. Thos [Thomas] Bacon’s horses."