Cotton Hoards in Southern Swamp, from "Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)"
Artist
Kara Walker
(b. 1969)
Date2005
MediumOffset lithography and silkscreen on Somerset Textured paper
DimensionsSheet Dimension: 39 × 53 in. (99.1 × 134.6 cm)
Frame Dimension: 41 × 55 × 1 3/4 in. (104.1 × 139.7 × 4.4 cm)
Frame Dimension: 41 × 55 × 1 3/4 in. (104.1 × 139.7 × 4.4 cm)
ClassificationsLithograph
Credit LineStephen B. Lawrence and Bette Batchelor Memorial Acquisition Funds
Terms
Object number2019.4.11
DescriptionFrom "Harper's Pictorial History of the Civil War (Annotated)"; AP 3/10 (edition of 35 + 10 AP)In the mid-1800s, the entire South was economically and politically dependent on cotton, as well as slave labor to plant, maintain, and harvest the crop. When the southern states seceded from the United States to form the Confederate States of America in 1861, they used cotton to provide revenue for its government, arms for its military, and the economic power for a diplomatic strategy for the fledgling Confederate nation.
Throughout the Civil War, Union troops were tasked with finding and confiscating cotton produced by Southern plantations. Confederates hid hoards of cotton bales in swamps along these waterways in an attempt to prevent Union troops from finding them, as depicted in this scene. Emerging from the swamp, Walker overlays a moss-covered figure, referring, perhaps, to run-away slaves who also took to hiding in swamps and marshlands during the Civil War.
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