“A Bit of Land, Which They Call Roça”: Slave Provision Grounds in the Bahian Recôncavo, 1780-1860

Abstract

The history of plantation slavery in the Americas has in recent years been enriched by a growing number of studies that focus on provision grounds and gardens– the small plots of land where, working in their “free” time, slaves grew food crops for their own use. Studies from the West Indies and the southern United States have shown that granting slaves access to land was a common practice in many areas of slave-based agriculture; indeed, slaves frequently gained by custom the “right” to gardens or provision grounds and to the time needed to work in them. Slaves in some regions not only obtained a large share of their daily diet from their provision grounds, but also managed to harvest sizable surpluses for sale in local markets. Even where planters relied chiefly on rations rather than on provision grounds to feed their bondsmen, slaves often succeeded in selling produce from their plots. Thus, in several plantation regions, provision grounds and gardens allowed slaves to develop an extensive and even impressive range of independent production and marketing activities.1