Post written by Maranda Christy
On Wednesday, February 21, the University Libraries held a screening of documentary Discovering Dave: Spirit Captured in Clay on Augusta University’s Summerville campus for Black History Month. The documentary explores the life of David Drake, an enslaved potter from Edgefield, South Carolina. Edgefield is world-renowned as a site of pottery production in the 19th century due to the unique composition of kaolin clay found in certain areas of the county. Kaolin clay is pure compared to other types of clay, so it requires little preparation and is ready to be molded once pulled from the ground.
As an enslaved man, David Drake was literate, which was very unusual for the time as most slaves were punished for learning how to read and write. He produced thousands of alkaline-glazed pots during his lifetime, the majority produced between 1840-1860, and engraved many of them with his name and bits of poetry he had written.
After the film ended, documentary maker George “Buddy” Wingard with the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program led a question-and-answer session. He brought with him one of the prized “Dave” jars that was found on the Savannah River Site during a routine compliance related archeological survey in 2006 and ever since has been used as an educational tool. Various museums across the Southeast display his jars and one even sold for over a million dollars at an auction in 2023.
If you would like to know more about Dave the Potter, there is an exhibit on the third floor of the library, pulling from materials held in Reese Library’s Special Collections & Institutional Archives. There is also a Black History Month Research Guide available (guides.augusta.edu/bhm/current) which contains links to the full documentary as well as related books, websites, and news articles
