Brick made by an enslaved person

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A brick, made by an enslaved person, from an unknown architectural structure in Charleston, South Carolina. It is a solid style, brick composed of crushed aggregate with red clay, heavy deposits of grayish-white mortar, and a red terracotta fragment. The rectangular brick is dark reddish brown in color with worn surfaces, edges, and corners. The Old Slave Mart Museum catalog number, [R161], is handwritten in black ink over a small rectangular patch of white paint in the bottom left corner of a stretcher side. There is a thick layer of mortar on the top face of this brick and a thick chunk of it is adhered to the stretcher side with the catalog number. Attached to the top of the thick chunk of mortar is a red terracotta fragment. There is thick layer of mortar on the other face and green paint splatters on one of the brick’s headers.

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