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On the side of a hill a few hundred feet up a hollow from the Civil War charcoal blast furnaces at Tannehill stand two rows of eight low stone piles, all that remains of sixteen houses where the slaves who worked the furnaces and their families lived during the war. Freed when Union Cavalry burned the ironworks in the spring of 1865, some of these men may have moved on to join the labor force that built the post war Birmingham Industrial District. Until now the story of their lives during the turmoil of war and the waning days of slavery has gone untold. The goal of the Slave Quarters Dig is to begin piecing that story together and presenting our findings to school groups and the general public.

We cleared the dense underbrush to create a small meadow around the first house site that we excavated.  When entered from a trail through the woods from the blast furnaces, this little meadow evokes emotions. It is as if something of the spirit of those who once lived here lingers still.  No one that I have ever seen enter the Quarters this way has failed to sense that it is an important memorial. We want to preserve that memorial and we hope that the evidence we recover in our digs will enable us to do so.

The summer 2007 dig site cleared to form a small meadow. The three Civil War blast furnaces stand a few hundred feet beyond the edge of the dense vegetation in the background. A narrow, overgrown road, down slope to the left and not visible in the photograph, was the path slaves followed to and from work at the furnaces and in the charcoal woods, ore mines and quarries. Their toil during the frenzied years of war became particularly hard and dangerous.  Many died.

Members of the University of Alabama’s Museum of Natural History Summer Field Expedition hard at work during the hot, dry summer 0f 2007.  They are digging around the chimney base of one of the houses in the Quarters. There are no written records so our initial questions were very basic. First we wanted to know if the house was occupied by single men or if it was the home of a family.  Furnace owners usually hired seasonal work gangs, nearly all males, but they also owned families of slaves who lived at the ironworks year round.  Secondly, we wanted to learn as much about architecture of the house as possible. 

Family was crucial to slaves, a key to survival in a system that often separated loved ones.  It provided stability and a means to pass on values and dreams of freedom to each new generation.  We want to know if families occupied the Quarters, but even as simple a question as this can be difficult to prove from archaeological evidence.

Beads discovered during our first dig may indicate that a woman lived in the house. Beads were important to many slave women. They could protect her family from illness and guard her home from harm. Studies suggest that blue beads in particular held these special powers.  Was the woman who lived here the mother of a family? Did these beads have special power to protect her loved ones?

 The doorway to freedom? Part of a hinge, the pintle shown above may have been attached to the front door post of the house. It was probably made by a slave blacksmith and attached to the door by slave carpenters.

Those who lived and worked at Tannehill between 1858 and 1865 had probably known slavery for many generations. But when the occupants of this house walked out it’s door on the morning of April 30 1865, they did so for the last time as human chattel. Yankee cavalry came through during the day and burned the ironworks. By nightfall, everyone who lived in the Quarters was free!