The Kitchen Quarter

The Kitchen Quarter. The Banks House. The building before you is a rare example of an original slave quarter. Milled lumber and the exclusive use of cut nails suggests that it was built around 1840 to provide two slave families with a workroom and an overhead loft for storage or sleeping. The Banks House quarter featured a weather-proof shingle roof and a tight plank floor, and was elevated for ventilation and ease of cleaning underneath. Two windows incorporated into each apartment allowed for sufficient air and light., While the standard of slave housing increased considerably during the nineteenth century, masters typically reserved well-built frame quarters for higher-status slaves like domestics and artisans. The presence of a large cooking hearth in the western room and the proximity of the quarter to the Banks House demonstrate that it served as the plantation kitchen as well as providing housing for slaves. Following the Civil War, a section of the partition between the two apartments was removed to adapt the house for single-family occupancy. The sparse furnishings depict the lifestyle of African-American tenant farmers in the years immediately following the Civil War.