African Americans and the Use of
Caves As Hidden Spaces in the Antebellum and Civil War South
Joseph C. Douglas
Department of History
Volunteer State Community College
Gallatin, TN 37066
The author undertook an examination of
historical sources to ascertain how African Americans in the American South
conceived of, and utilized, caves during the Antebellum (1815-1860) and Civil
War (1861-1865) periods, including literature on the Mammoth Cave, saltpeter
mining, and scattered 19th century cave references. Another important source
for this study, now on-line and searchable using keywords, is the Library of
Congress’s Born into Slavery: Slave Narratives of the Federal Writers Project, 1936-1938.
Combined, these sources give a broad view of the ways African Americans
interacted with the underground environment, elucidating an important part of
the history of American caves.
The results of this study reveal that
African Americans used caves in ways similar to Euro-Americans at the time, but
that their emphasis was different; caves were adjuncts to domestic economies,
providing shelter, water, and cold storage of foodstuffs; caves were industrial
spaces where African Americans worked as enslaved miners extracting saltpeter,
and African Americans played an important role in cave tourism, a
non-extractive industrial use of the environment. American blacks also
occasionally used caves as social spaces, and some saw caves as cultural
curiosities worthy of exploration and admiration, though these latter two uses
appear to be less common in the black population than in society as a whole. On
the other hand, the most important (and common) use of caves for enslaved
persons was as hidden spaces, which was not true of American culture overall.
Because of slavery, and their degraded
legal and social status, African Americans frequently turned to caves, both
natural and man-made, as hidden spaces both before and during the Civil War.
Runaway slaves used caves as they tried to hide from slave patrols, both as
they were trying to escape to the North and also in the more frequent cases
where they remained in the South, near family and friends. Enslaved persons
also hid their own property in caves, as did all Southerners, with the
breakdown of civil authority during the Civil War. Blacks were also hidden by
whites in caves (as a form of property), especially when the Union Army
approached. African Americans sometimes spent many years in caves, some staying
hidden until after emancipation in 1865. The use of caves as hidden shelter was
the most significant environmental interaction by the black population in the
South, spawning folktales, such as the repeated story of African American
children, born and raised in a cave and hidden from daylight, who later became blind
after they left the cave’s darkness.
The Presence of Floyd Collins in the
Mammoth Cave (KY) Area Today
John M. Benton, NSS 10689F
128 N 1000 E
Celestine, IN 47521
jbenton@fullnet.com
It has been over 80 years since the
tragedy at Sand Cave Kentucky, now inside Mammoth Cave National Park, that
eventually claimed the life of Floyd Collins. Recent happenings seem to have
Floyd Collins embedded in the history and culture of the Mammoth Cave area.
Probably the area’s most “famous son”, Collins’ presence is still apparent today.
Web sites about Collins on the internet, a recent reenactment video about his
ordeal targeted for sale and for the cable TV market, a Floyd Collins museum, a
possible Hollywood movie directed by Billy-Bob Thornton, and historical signs
around Sand Cave erected by the National Park Service are all visible. The
Floyd Collins story is often told to tourists throughout the Mammoth Cave
region, and historical exhibits are displayed at the American Cave Conservation
Museum in Horse Cave, Kentucky. Modern books about Floyd Collins by noted
cavers such as Roger Brucker and Wm. Halliday have added many insights to the
story. A play about Collins has made the national rounds. The town of nearby
Cave City has even sponsored “Floyd Collins Good Ole Days” as a community wide
event. Some remnants of the Collins saga are slowly disappearing and need to be
documented for future use and study. Many historians say that Mammoth Cave
would never have been designated a National Park if not for the publicity about
Collins in 1925.
Early Cave Visits by Women and the
Travel Accounts of Lady Elisabeth Craven to the Grotto of Antiparos (1786) and Johanna
Schopenhauer to Peaks Cavern (1803)
Stephan Kempe
Institute of Applied Geosciences
University of Technology Darmstadt
Schnittspahnstr. 964287 Darmstadt
Germany
Kempe@geo.tu-darmstadt.de
Christhild Ketz-Kempe
Am Schloss Stockau 2
64807 Dieburg
Germany
Erika Kempe
Eilbeker Weg 65a
22089 Hamburg
Germany
Even though men wrote the earliest
caving reports, women were also among early cave visitors. Two sisters-in-law,
both a Mrs. Meyer, were the first female cave visitors known by name to the
authors; they visited the Baumann’s Cave, Harz, on July 28, 1692. A few cave
inscriptions of the 18th century also document early female visitors. Education
in classical history and mythology -where caves and grottos played a prominent
role- was the rule in the 18th century. Wilhelmine of Bayreuth (1709–1758), inspired
by the novel “the Adventures of
Telemach” by Fenelon, created
the first baroque landscape garden in Sanspareil/Frankonia (completed in 1749)
that included numerous grottoes named after places in the novel. Wilhelmine
also had her portrait painted sitting in a grotto. The lack of academic
education for women in the 18th century is the reason why there are no early
scientifically oriented cave reports written by women. Nevertheless, the first
woman who ever obtained a PhD degree from a university, Dorothea von Schlozer
(August 25, 1787, University of Göttingen), studied natural sciences and
visited even the deepest mines in the Harz. The first reports of cave visits by
woman appeared in travel literature in the late 18th and early 19th century.
The oldest of these accounts are those of Elizabeth Craven (1750-1828), who visited
the Grotto of Antiparos, Greece, in May 1786, and of Johanna Schopenhauer
(1766–1838), who visited Peaks Cavern, Yorkshire, in the summer of 1803. Both
women belonged to the intellectual elite of their time and have very
interesting biographies.
The Myth of the American Cave Man
Greg Brick
Department of Geology and Geophysics
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
The cave man has long been a staple of
Western cultural history. In the Middle Ages, for example, there were stories
of “wild men” who shunned society, living in rocky retreats (FRIEDMAN, 1981;
CHAZAN, 1995). Beginning in the nineteenth century, however, the idea of a cave
man took on a new meaning in Europe, referring to human ancestors who
supposedly lived in caves in prehistoric times. In America, meanwhile, the
legendary Mound Builders made shift as an illusory sort of cave man until the
newer idea established itself.
In 1812, the French paleontologist
Georges Cuvier famously declared l’homme
fossile n’existe pas (fossil
man does not exist) (CHARLESWORTH, 1957; LYON, 1970). By 1823, human fossils
were being found in the caves of Europe, as by William Buckland at Paviland
Cave in Wales (NORTH, 1942). It was eventually concluded that there were cave
men among several species of hominids, including our own (Homo sapiens sapiens), and the American paleontologist
OSBORN (1930) went so far as to refer to “the Cave Period of Europe.” DUNBAR
(1949) presented three species of what he called cave men in his widely-used
textbook of historical geology. The underlying idea was that hominids became
cave dwellers as a result of climatic deterioration during the last Ice Age
(WHITNALL, 1926), a theory that was applied widely in biospeleology (e.g.,
VANDEL, 1965). Among other primates, the cave-dwelling trait apparently
extended to Australopithecus, in South Africa (KEMPE, 1988).
Artists, working to the conception of
French archeologist Marcellin Boule, provided a widely-influential caricature
of what a cave man supposedly looked like (MOSER, 1992). WHITNALL (1926),
however, elevated the status of the cave man almost to sainthood, making him
responsible for the development of family life and other social virtues,
creating a scientific version of the Noble Savage concept.
In recent times, a more skeptical attitude
has entered. The naturalist Ivan SANDERSON (1965) argued that “Hominids never
as a whole passed through a cavedwelling stage. For one thing, there are not
enough caves to go around, and those that are available are primarily in areas
where the surface rocks are limestones. These are comparatively limited in
extent, and the very nature of limestone itself constitutes a second-rate
botanical environment for the support of animal life. The notion that men did
‘pass through’ such a stage is probably due to the fact that the best and often
the only places where the remains of early man have been preserved are in
caves.”
Likewise, the geologist Derek AGER
(1992) directly attacked what he called “the myth of the cave man,” reiterating
Sanderson’s critique, adding that “I saw no caves in the Olduvai Gorge in
Tanzania, where early men lived for so long, and there could be no caves along
the shore of Lake Turkana in Kenya, with its famous hominoid fossils.”
Nonetheless, the cave man concept still
thrives in popular culture worldwide, appearing in cartoons, fiction, and
movies (e.g., GAMBLE, 1992; BERMAN, 1999; McCABE, 1999).
In nineteenth century America, before
the idea of a cave man in the European sense became widely known, there was a
parallel American cave man myth, involving a supposed lost prehistoric race of
Mound Builder Indians. According to archeologist R. Clark MALLAM (1976), “The
Mound Builder myth occupies a prominent position in American cultural history.
Its central thesis, that the earthen mounds of North America were constructed
by a superior vanished race unrelated to the Indians touched off a major
academic controversy that lasted throughout the nineteenth century.”
Ultimately, the Mound Builders turned out to be simply ancestors of the aboriginal
peoples (SILVERBERG, 1968).
When human mummies were found in the
Mammoth Cave region of Kentucky, USA, in the early nineteenth century, they
were attributed to this vanished race, as documented by speleohistorian Angelo
GEORGE (1994). The Mound Builders filled the vacuum until cave men in a modern,
scientific, European sense, were written into the landscape (e.g., as in
summary by MacCURDY, 1937).
The state of Minnesota,
USA, where the present author resides, provides another example. The most widely
publicized Minnesota cave hoax involved Chute’s Cave, under what is now the
city of Minneapolis, in the years 1866-67. While the cave actually exists, the
elaborate hoax story involved elements borrowed directly from Squier and
Davis’s Ancient Monuments
of the Mississippi Valley,
a classic work on the supposed Mound Builders, published by the Smithsonian
Institution in 1848. The authors of this anonymous hoax described the cave as
having been both constructed and inhabited by this vanished race (BRICK and
PETERSEN, 2004).
Human Use of Caves in Martinique and
Guadeloupe Islands, West Indies
Claude Mouret
La Tamanie
F- 87380 Magnac-Bourg
Martinique is made up mainly of volcanic
and andesitic rocks, including lavas and tephras, significant quantities of
volcano-sediments and some sedimentary rocks including limestone. Caves are
neither very numerous nor extensive. A number of them have been used by man,
for a variety of purposes. Caves here are: (1) mainly marine, either fossil or
still active (in a variety of rock formations, including those in limestone
with extensive maze caves), (2) gravity-related cracks, (3) empty fossil tree
trunks, vertical in the surrounding volcano-sedimentary deposits, (4) nearly
horizontal channels resulting from water flow in empty fossil tree branches,
(5) erosional caves along narrow valleys with sub-vertical walls, (6) submarine
caves in volcanic and volcano-sedimentary deposits and in barrier reefs, (7)
caves in limestone and (8) small caves dug by fauna.
There are many uses of these caves: (1)
Guano was mined to be used as fertilizer despite the presence of histoplasmosis.
(2) Some small caves and rock shelters were used for housing (Carrib people,
lonely artist, and present-day fishermen). (3) Larger caves were used for military
purposes, as in the early part of 19th Century, (4) Places for praying, often
to Saint-Mary the Virgin (both in natural and man-built caves). (5) Caves were
rarely a cause of alarm, but there was a case of guano burning in a cave that
generated a panic with heavy smoke filling the sky. (6) Caves are a place for
tourist visits (bat caves) and speleology. (7) Submarine caves are explored by
sea-divers. (8) Cave protection and conservation, are overall, well implemented.
Guadeloupe consists of two, geologically
very different, adjacent, islands: one is a plateau of mostly porous limestone,
with characteristic karst landscapes. The second is mountainous and largely
volcanic and andesitic. On the limestone island, the waste of a sugar factory
is discharged into a cave. The temperature in this cave is around 50° C. In the
active andesitic dome of Soufriere volcano, a cave was regularly visited during
the 18th Century. A large chamber was discovered in the dome of this cave in
1984. Shafts on the top of the volcano have been explored.
On arid Marie-Galante,
covered mainly with porous limestone, water was collected in a natural shaft. Another
cave, Grand Trou a Diable, might owe its name to histoplasmosis or simply as
being an entrance to the, supposedly evil, underground realm.
Josef Anton Nagel and His 1748
Manuscript About His Cave Expedition to Carniola (Slovenia) and Moravia (Czech
Republic )
Stephan Kempe
Institute of Applied Geosciences
University of Technology Darmstadt
Schnittspahnstr. 9
64287 Darmstadt
Germany
Kempe@geo.tu-darmstadt.de
Klaus Suckstorff
Rosenweg 42
21502 Geesthacht
Germany
Joseph Anton Nagel, a native German born
February 3rd, 1717, in Rietberg/Rittberg, Westphalia, was educated
as a mathematician at the “Hohe Schule von Paderborn.” Possibly on
recommendation by his country lord, Wenzel Anton Graf Kaunitz, Nagel was able
to continue his studies at the University of Vienna. He found employment at the
imperial-royal court where he worked in the administration, a position that did
not challenge his profound mathematical talent.
Franz I, the Emperor of the Holy Roman
Empire of German Nation (reigned 1745–65), ordered Nagel to study natural
curiosities. This task took Nagel traveling throughout the Empire, first within
Austria in 1747 and then for several week in the summer of 1748 to Slovenia and
Moravia. Nagel reported about his findings in a 1748 manuscript kept at the
National Library in Vienna entitled: “Beschreibung
deren auf allerhochsten Befehl Ihro Röm: Kayl: und Königl: Maytt: FRANCI SCI I
untersuchten, in dem Herzogthum Crain befindlichen Seltenheiten der Natur.” It has 98 double pages and was written
in Current, the German office handwriting, now out of use. In 17 chapters,
Nagel describes such important caves as the Adelsberger Grotte (Postojnska
jama), the caves near Planina, the Cave of Corniale (Vilenica), the cave at Lueg
(Predjama) in Slovenia, and the cave at Sloup and the Machocha abyss in
Moravia. It also contained 25 sketches on 22 plates. So far it has been transcribed
only once (in 1914) and has never been published in total (see Shaw, 1992). We
are now working on a complete transcription of this manuscript, a High- German
interpretation and an English translation. Slovene and Czech translations are
to follow. A book is planned with the Slovenian Academy of Sciences. This
manuscript was written in the spirit of the Period of Enlightenment and is
entirely devoted to reasoning. As the last course of things Nature instead of God
is assumed. In spite of a long preface devoting the manuscript to Franz I,
Nagel also dares to advise about the style of government by stating “God may preserve Your Majesty
throughout many years in the most highest delighted well-being: so that those
who love art and science can venerate a most gracious father in Your holy
person for a long time and that the community may continuously experience the
truth of the platonic sentence under your Majesty’s glorious government: Since
he (Plato) is calling such a republic the most fortunate that has a world-wise
for king.” It is the first
manuscript devoted to a systematic cave oriented expedition and is singular in
speleological history. It is also an example of the rise of scientific
thinking. In addition to the manuscript Nagel left inscriptions in Latin in the
investigated caves.
At around 1760 Nagel
became mathematician of the Habsburgian court and teacher of Erzherzog Karl Joseph
and traveled abroad to France, England, the Netherlands, Hungary and Tyrol. On
initiation by Maria Theresia he began to work on a map of the city of Vienna
(1770 and 1779) and its suburbs (published 1780/81). He served as the director
of the physical cabinet from 1770 until after 1790. In 1775 he was appointed
director of the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Vienna, a position
he held until his retirement at around 1790. Nagel died in Vienna either in
1800 or in 1804.
The Map of Ancient Underground
Aqueducts: A Nationwide Project by the Italian Speleological Society
Mario Parise1,2, Roberto Bixio1,3, Ezio Burri1,4,
Vittoria Caloi1,5, Sossio Del Prete1. Carla
Galeazzi1,5, Carlo Germani1,5, Paolo Guglia1,
Marco Meneghini, Mariangela Sammarco1,6
1Italian Speleological Society
2National Research Council of Italy, IRPI, Bari,
Italy (m.parise@ba.irpi.cnr.it)
3Centro Studi Sotterranei, Genova, Italy
4L’Aquila University, L’Aquila, Italy
5Centro Ricerche Sotterranee Egeria, Rome, Italy
6Salento University, Lecce, Italy
The project “The Map of
Ancient Underground Aqueducts of Italy”, started in 2003 by the Italian Speleological
Society (SSI), and entirely dedicated to the study and exploration of ancient
underground aqueducts, has allowed so far to collect a database of 125 ancient
underground aqueducts, distributed in all the Italian regions. Historically,
ancient aqueducts have been explored and studied by cavers. Their importance
derives from a number of historical, engineering, and environmental reasons.
These aqueducts represent a valuable documentation of the skill and engineering
techniques of the ancient communities, and due to the mostly underground
development, they have often been preserved intact for millennia. Main
objectives of the project are: (i) implementation of a detailed inventory of
the ancient aqueducts of the Italian territory; (ii) updating of the state of
the art on the matter; (iii) encouraging new studies and explorations, in
particular by cavers, regarding the ancient aqueducts; (iv) safeguarding and
exploitation of these unique works of historical and engineering hydraulic
importance.
Arch Spring and Cave
Jack H. Speece
American Spelean History Association
711 E. Atlantic Avenue
Altoona, PA 16602
Arch Spring has been a landmark in Blair
County, Pennsylvania since before Europeans first discovered the area around
1750. The spring is located between a sharp cutback of Brush (Bald Eagle)
Mountain, in one of William Penn’s Manors known as Sinking Valley. Although the
spring was not shown on William Scull’s 1770 map of Pennsylvania, it was
featured in a 1788 article in “Columbia Magazine.” The cave is next to Fort
Roberdreau, which was built during the Revolutionary War to provide protection for
the mining of lead. Early settler Jacob Isett, built a stone house and a mill
next to the Arch prior to 1805. The Pennsylvania Railroad described the site as
an attraction shortly after it built its line to Pittsburgh in 1847.
The site has been
reported in numerous historical and geological articles throughout the 1800’s.
Two attempts were made to commercialize the cave in 1947 and 1972. Each time,
floods destroyed the efforts. The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy finally
purchased this popular attraction in 1985. In 1988, Roberta Swicegood, an
experienced cave diver, died in an attempt to connect the spring with the cave.
Today the cave is open to the public under the supervision of the Huntingdon
County Cave Hunters of the National Speleological Society.
The National Speleological Society
Museum: History, Progress, and Future Directions
Amber J. Yuellig
Registrar, National Speleological Society Speleo-Museum
Horse Cave, KY 42749
Craig Hindman
Curator, National Speleological Society Speleo-Museum
Horse Cave, KY 42749
The National
Speleological Society (NSS) Speleo-Museum developed out of the necessity to
preserve the history of the NSS and caving in the United States. The
Speleo-Museum collection contains objects, archives, and photographs that
highlight the history and ingenuity of the NSS. It began in 1972 as an exhibit
for the annual National Speleological Society Convention. Since its inception,
the curators of the Speleo-Museum have sought out relevant collections that
exemplify the NSS’ rich history. With no formal facility, the Speleo-Museum has
been housed in various locations by NSS Members. In 2008, the Board of
Governors of the NSS passed three motions to promote the development of the Speleo-Museum.
These motions resulted in the Speleo-Museum’s relocation to a
climate-controlled facility and funding to document and archive the collection.
The archival process involves developing a formal collection management policy
for the Speleo-Museum, digitizing archival records utilizing Past Perfect
Museum Software, and cleaning and re-housing objects using standard archival
procedures. This presentation will highlight the history of the NSS Speleo-Museum
and report on the progress made archiving the collection in the Spring of 2009.
Emphasis is placed on the development of a collections management policy, items
in the Speleo-Museum, and future directions.
Visitor Inscriptions in the Old Passage of Postojnska jama (Adelsberger Grotte) Slovenia
Stephan Kempe
Institute of Applied Geosciences
University of Technology Darmstadt
Schnittspahnstr. 9
64287 Darmstadt
Germany
Kempe@geo.tu-darmstadt.de
Hans-Peter Hubrich
Institute of Applied Geosciences
University of Technology Darmstadt
Schnittspahnstr. 9
64287 Darmstadt
Germany
Hubrich@geo.tu-darmstadt.de
Postojnska jama,
Slovenia, was known for centuries as “Adelsberger Grotte”. Until 1818, when the
access to the present day tourist cave was discovered, only a small part was
known, including Imenski rov, the “Name Cave”. There we documented ca. 400
inscriptions and another ca. 250 in the historic part of Predjama (Lueger Höhle);
twenty of them are correlated with independently historically known persons. Johann
Melchior Ott(o) left his name in 1642, the oldest signature of a historic
person as yet documented in a cave. He was a painter in the service of Johann
Anton zu Eggenberg (1610-1649) the owner of the Castle of Adelsberg. The second
oldest is that of Josef Anton Nagel 1748, a German mathematician in service of
Emperor Franz I. who also left also an elaborate signature in Latin in Predjama
and in Sloup Cavern, Moravia. All other inscriptions of historic persons date
after 1800. Among them are those of three personalities that shaped the history
of the first decades of Postojnska jama as a show cave: Franz Graf von
Hohenwart, Joseph Petsch Ritter von Lowengreif and Alois Schaffenrath (who also
singed in Predjama). They signed several times in Imenski rov and elsewhere in
the cave. The historically known and “noteworthy persons” represent people of
the nobility and/or were state employed. Overall, the signatures shed light on
the section of society that was able to travel and interested in natural
sciences.
The Oldest Printed Cave Maps in the
World
Massimo Mancini
Associazione Speleologi Molisani
maxman@unimol.it
Paolo Forti
Italian Institute of Speleology
University of Bologna via Zamboni
67 Bologna, 40125 Italy
paolo.forti@unibo.it
For ages men were impressed
by cavern environment that is frequently represented in or is the background of
various art crafts made during Centuries, such as petrogliphs within caves, a
bronze plate of an Assyrian King throne, Roman mosaic floorings, Maia
manuscripts, a Tibetan ivory sculpture, etc. Only a few centuries ago, men
became interested in the true form of the underground cavities. Therefore the
first cave maps were printed only in the XVI-XVII centuries. Until now, it was
generally accepted that the first map of an artificial cave was printed in 1546
by Georg Agricola in his “De
natura eorum quae effluent e terra. De ortu e causis subterraneorum”, while the first map of a natural cave
was edited more than hundred years later by Robert Southwell in his “A description and draught of Pen Park
Hole in Gloucestershire” (1683).
Two years ago, while cataloguing the engravings owned by to the “Franco Anelli”
Spelological Documentation Centre in Bologna, Italy, two small cave maps were
found. They were clearly cut off from a book, but they completely lacked
captions. As a consequence, it was impossible to define both name and location
of the caves as well as the year in which the maps were made. Later, by
comparing these maps with several other engravings of the same collection, it
was possible to attribute one of the two maps to the cave of St Rosalia on Mt
Pellegrino (Palermo, Sicily). In the XVII century, this small natural cave was transformed
into a church dedicated to the worship of the young lady, Rosalia Sinibaldi (St
Rosalia), who spent most of her life therein. In order to identify the second
cave, the book from which the two engravings had been removed, and to date the
maps, a further and challenging bibliographical search was carried out. This
search was very complex and difficult because all the bibliographic material
regarding the caves was contained in holy books, which were printed in few
copies scattered in small libraries often lacking any kind of catalogue. The
search was successful and enabled us to establish that the two maps had been
removed from a book printed in 1627 by the biographer of St Rosalia Giordano
Cascini, while the engravings were made by the Belgian artist Odon Van
Maelcote. It was also possible to ascertain that the second engraving
represents the map of the first cave in which Rosalia Sinibaldi started her
“troglodytic” life: the St Rosalia cave at Quisquinia, Sicily. These findings
represent the proof that the most ancient print maps of natural cavities were
made in Italy, and date 56 years earlier than known insofar.
-- end of abstracts --