Old Plantation Days: Being Recollections of Southern Life Before the Civil War

Abstract

Nancy Bostick De Saussure wrote Old Plantation Days: Being Recollections of the Days Before the Civil War (1909) in the form of a letter to her granddaughter, Dorothy. In this memoir, De Saussure describes her plantation childhood, her marriage, parenthood, and role as family leader during the war and Reconstruction. De Saussure admits that her mother owned slaves and strongly defends slavery as she witnessed it. She argues that although they were sometimes cruel, most slaveholders were concerned about their slaves' well being and considered them part of the household.