Name/Title
Portrait of General Wade Hampton IEntry/Object ID
1972.100.1Description
Crayon on paper portrait of a man's bust in side profile. The man, with white hair, is in a formal uniform. The image is framed behind an octagonal mat.Type of Drawing
CrayonArtwork Details
Subject Person
Wade Hampton IContext
Wade Hampton I (1751–1835), politician, planter, and soldier, was the son of Anthony (1715–1776) and Elizabeth Preston Hampton (1720–1776). Born in the Colony of Virginia and raised in North Carolina, Wade moved to South Carolina with his family in the early 1770s. In the years to follow, he represented South Carolina as both a soldier during the American Revolution and as a member of the House of Representatives. He also served in the military during the War of 1812 before resigning and returning to South Carolina. In 1823, he purchased what is now known as the Hampton-Preston Mansion—one of the many estates on which he enslaved men, women, and children—from Ainsley Hall (1783–1823).
Wade I married three times. His first wife, Martha Epps Goodwyn, died on May 22, 1784, approximately two years into their marriage. In 1786, he married Harriet Flud (1752–1794), and together Harriet and Wade I had two children: Wade Hampton II (1791–1858) and Francis "Frank" Hampton (1793–1816). After Harriet’s death in 1794, he married her stepsister, Mary Cantey (1779–1863). Mary—29 years his junior—would have been a child when they first met. She ultimately outlived Wade I, as well as five of their six biological children, and lived in the Hampton-Preston Mansion with their children and grandchildren for thirty years.
At the time of Wade I’s death, he purportedly enslaved over 3,000 people. According to Theodore Weld's "American Slavery as It Is" published in 1839, a witness overheard a dehumanizing dinner conversation in which Wade I explained "an experiment he had made in the feeding of his slaves on cotton seed" and in which he reported that the people he enslaved “died like rotten sheep!"
This portrait is likely a copy of another drawing which was destroyed in a fire. Both drawings were based on an engraving by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin (1770–1852), in which Wade Hampton I is depicted wearing a plumed hat. This copy, depicting Wade I as a Brigadier General around 1812, was donated to Historic Columbia by a descendant.Made/Created
Artist Information
Artist
Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-MéminAttribution
After a drawing byDate made
circa 1812Notes
Believed to be a copy of original by St. Memin. Varied slightly from this original portrait.Dimensions
Height
19-5/8 inWidth
14-3/4 in
