David 'Dave the Slave' Drake.
(American/South Carolina, 1800-After 1870)
High Gloss Alkaline Glaze Stoneware Two Handle Four Gallon Storage Jar.
1857.
Signed in script "Lm" for Lewis Miles and dated "March 12, 1857".
Two incised slash marks to left of initials; four incised punctuates (gallonage).
Made at Lewis Miles Factory, Edgefield District, South Carolina.
Storage Jar is 14"h x 40" circumference.

Condition, as described by SFPCS:

'Due to the unparalleled glaze application coupled with high heat of kiln this cataloguer states to date this example could rank among some of the premium glaze forms known. There are no inconsistencies from top to bottom. Deeply incised signature. Trademark spacious width of lug handles. Minor nicks to one handle. Bottom has a restored glossy finish coverage due to previous owner's choice. Society guarantees bottom not replaced, obvious from interior inspection.'

Provenance: Private Atlanta, Georgia Collection.Southern Folk Pottery Collectors Society Auction, 2002.
The Mike Dale Collection.
Est. $15,000-$25,000.
Ship: $200

David Drake is thought to have been born to slave parents in the first half of the year 1800 on a plantation in the Edgefield District of South Carolina, the property of Harvey Drake. The first legal record of David Drake is a description from June 13, 1818, describing "a boy about 17 years old country born who was mortgaged to Eldrid Simkins by Harvey Drake." The term "country born"referred to slaves born in the United States rather than Africa. Harvey Drake owned a large pottery business with his business partner Abner Landrum.

Landrum was also the publisher of a local newspaper called The Edgefield Hive. It is unclear how Dave learned to read and write. Scholars speculate he was taught by Landrum, who was known to be a religious man and may have taught Dave how to read the Bible. Others have speculated that Landrum taught Dave to read so he could assist with typesetting for his newspaper. Dave likely learned to make pottery under the tutelage of Harvey Drake and/or Abner Landrum in his teens and early twenties. By 1837, Dave was working for Lewis Miles, and in 1840, Dave began inscribing his name on his wares. Some historians have said that this was a brave act of rebellion on Dave's part, since during this time period it was a crime for enslaved people to be literate, especially in South Carolina. Most southern states in the early 1800s restricted black literacy, and in the 1830s laws were passes prohibiting the education of slaves.

In December of 1832, Harvey Drake died, and in 1833, Dave Drake was sold to Reuben Drake and Jasper Gibbs, partners in a pottery operation, for $400. Dave was then acquired by Abner Landrum, who is believed to have given Dave to Lewis Miles, who was married to Abner Landrum's daughter at the time. Sometime between 1840 and 1846, Dave was again traded or sold to Reverend John Landrum. During this time period, Lewis Miles' first wife had died, and he married Reverend John Landrum's daughter, Mary Sara Landrum, and went into business with his father-in-law in the pottery. When Reverend Landrum died, Dave was sold to Landrum's son, Benjamin Franklin Landrum, for $700. For a time after Reverend Landrum's death, Lewis Miles and B. F. Landrum operated the pottery as partners. From 1846 to 1848, Dave did not write his name, or even the date, on any of the wares he produced, wary of suffering harm if he wrote on the vessels. It was during this period that Dave was owned by B.F. Landrum, not a benevolent master, evidenced by the death of a slave named Ann who hung herself at his pottery. B.F. Landrum and Lewis Miles had a serious disagreement, possibly about the mistreatment of slaves, and their partnership was dissolved sometime before 1850. Both men established separate stoneware factories.

Another mystery about Dave Drake's life is his missing leg. At an unknown point in his life, one of his legs was amputated. One story, passed down for generations but now debated by experts, is that Dave lost his leg to a train after he passed out on the railroad tracks after drinking too much. Another hypothesis is that Dave was beaten so severely by one of his masters (B.F. Landrum) for signing his wares that the leg had to be amputated. It was a popular form of punishment at the time to take a slave's foot or leg as punishment for a serious infraction.

Dave was given to Mary Sara Miles, Lewis Miles' wife, as a portion of her father's estate some time after 1849, getting him out of the clutches of her brother B. F. Landrum, and Dave found himself once again making pottery at Lewis Miles Factory, and once again inscribing his name, dates, and sometimes, poems on his works.The High Gloss Alkaline Glaze Stoneware Two Handle Storage Jar offered here was made at the Lewis Miles Factory and is a wonderful example of Dave's skill as a master potter.It was created in 1857 at the height of his productivity. The ovoid form jar with two lug handles and a gorgeous olive-colored alkaline glaze described by SFPCS as "unparalleled" is in wonderful condition for a pottery object that is 165 years old.

Dave is believed to have produced alkaline-glazed stoneware jars and jugs between the 1820s and the 1870s, with known dated pieces from the 1830s to 1864.Dave's most highly valued works are inscribed with poetry, often using rhyming couplets, as well as his signature and the date. On August 6, 2021, a David Drake verse jar dated April 12, 1858, from the collection of folk pottery scholar and author Dr. John Burrison, achieved a world record auction price for a piece of American pottery when it sold in a Crocker Farm Auction, Sparks, MD, for the unbelievable price of $1.56 million.
$1.3 million plus a 20% buyer's premium).

Dave remained at the Lewis Miles Factory until the end of the Civil War, with his last known dated piece produced there on March 31, 1864.At the end of the Civil War, Drake was a free man and it is thought he took the surname "Drake"from his first owner Harvey Drake. The name "David Drake"is recorded in the 1870 United States Census as "David Drake, Turner."It is thought that Drake died in the 1870s, as the name "David Drake" does not appear in the 1880 census.

David Drake's work is in numerous collections, most notably the Southern Collection of the Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC; the Smithsonian Collection of the National Museum of American History, Washington, DC; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; and the McKissick Museum at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.The 1998 exhibition The Life and Works of the Enslaved African American Potter, Dave at the University of South Carolina's McKissick Museum was the first exhibition devoted solely to David Drake's pottery.