48 LAKE OCONEE LIVING| SUMMER 2022
Women of Achievement in 2009, a play was
written about her work, and there is a current
movement to have a postage stamp made in
her honor.
Both of these artists’ creative paths
can be traced to their African roots.
rough their work, they oer
a community a way to see how
dierent voices can add to and
strengthen it. ese artists
also demonstrate how voices
change when art is recognized
as being something to
keep and revere.
ey are no longer just a potter
and a quilter, but artists that
have left a legacy to admire.
DAVID DRAKE THE
POTTER
Born into enslavement, David
Drake had no options.
He grew up in the Pottersville
area of Edgeeld,
SC (1800-1870) and was
known only as “Dave.”
Somewhere in his early
years he learned to turn a
pot. Drake worked in the
pottery industry developed
by all of his enslavers.
e South’s agricultural
system required pots
large enough to hold food
products produced on the
plantations. Drake made these
big pots, some holding 40
gallons. His pots became well
known. And though Drake was
enslaved, he did not relinquish his
identity. e pots he made had his
markings – illegal or not: signature,
dates, poems, a horse-shoe symbol, a
slash mark, and LM for Lewis Miles,
Drake’s last owner.
Drake was part of industrial slavery,
which took place in the manufacturing
of domestic goods; however, the talents of
these industries often were overlooked or
disregarded by those who recorded history.
Historian Robert Starobin in the Harvard
produced Business History Review, describes
industrial slaves as those living in rural, smalltowns,