Tabby Ruins

Coming upon the slave cabin ruins at the Kingsley Plantation in Florida grabbed my attention completely:  the roughness of the tabby, the graceful arc of the arrangement of structures, the monolithic shapes of the worn-down walls.  Within months, I was working on a book of photos.  Here is the accompanying text:

The Tabby Ruins at the Kingsley Plantation

Backed up against a creek, 25 freestanding 

shapes stand in a half circle.  They appear 

as sculptures, abstracted forms in deeply 

weathered white tabby, ranging from 

two to six feet in height.  Each form 

is divided by an interior wall and 

marked by the remains of a brick chimney.  

Not sculptures, they are remnants of slave quarters.  

The ruins are a powerful sight. 

Their whiteness and rough textures 

call our attention.  

The even spacing in a curve intrigues.  

Together they are reminiscent, in a way, of the 

stone circles of England,  

a Stonehenge commemorating slavery.

To see them is to understand that 

the enslaved people trapped here

lived in mean, small houses, 

the thick oyster shell walls pointy, pokey 

and piercing.  The buildings afforded 

no comfort.  In the 1820’s, 32 cabins housed 

some 80 slaves, including children.  

Today 25 ruins remain.

These ruins, now shapes and textures, 

are monuments to those who suffered in bondage.  

Worn-down dwellings, 

made of oyster shells and sand,  

they are deteriorating, wearing away 

shell by shell.  Together they form a kind of 

cemetery, giant headstones reminding us 

that people suffered and died here.