Kith + Kin
Kith + Kin is a project that seeks to deepen and broaden public conceptions of people who endured enslavement within the United States. The Kinship Web exhibits the community of people enslaved by the Smith and McDowell families in relationship to with each other, rather than subjects of their captor. Within the records and manuscripts of specific sites of enslavement, the identities of enslaved people tend to slip out between the lines that are otherwise monetizinf their value as property. A close read of these documents can reveal interpersonal relationships, ages, trades, and smaller sub-communities of people who lived and worked closely.
For two generations the Smith and McDowell families maintained a commanding presence in the business community of antebellum Buncombe County. Between the two of them, these men enslaved well over one hundred people. Records of lives of these enslaved people exist in piecemeal mentions and references, in private manuscripts and public documents. The meticulous study of the Smith and McDowell family records has provided the personal and community information exhibited on this website.
Enslaved People
The Smith-McDowell House
The Smith-McDowell House was built in the 1840s by people enslaved by James McConnell Smith. It is situated just a few miles south of downtown Asheville, overlooking the confluence of the Swannanoa and the French Broad Rivers. It is said to be the oldest standing structure in Buncombe County. Smith and his family used it as a secondary vacation home until Smith died in 1856. John P. Smith inherited the property from his father, but died intestate shortly thereafter. In 1857, James Smith's daughter and son-in-law, Sarah and William Wallace McDowell, purchased the property at John Smith's estate auction and made it their primary residence. James McConnell Smith and William Wallace McDowell were among Buncombe County's most elite enslavers. Some of the people they enslaved lived and worked at the Buck House, and records show there were six cabins built to house enslaved people on the property. However, The Buck House was just one of several sites where these men and their extended families kept people they enslaved. Between the two of them, they also owned a tannery, livery stables, a hotel, shares in a mine, shares in the Buncombe Turnpike, a tavern, an orchard, storehouses, several lots near the center of Asheville, a general store, and over 30,000 acres of farmland in Buncombe County where they also compelled the people they owned to labor.
Their Enslavers
James McConnell Smith
Sarah Smith McDowell
Mary "Polly" Patton Smith
William Wallis McDowell