Placentia Plantation was a

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

founded in the 18th century near colonial

Savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

Province of Georgia The Province of Georgia (also Georgia Colony) was one of the Southern Colonies in colonial-era British America. In 1775 it was the last of the Thirteen Colonies to support the American Revolution. The original land grant of the Province of G ...

, around southeast of the city and a short distance west of the Wilmington River. Until

emancipation Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure Economic, social and cultural rights, economic and social rights, civil and political rights, po ...

, the plantation was worked by black slaves. Josiah Tattnall Jr., son of founding father of Savannah Josiah Tattnall Sr., inherited the plantation in 1781. He was born at nearby

Bonaventure Plantation Bonaventure Plantation was a plantation founded in colonial Savannah, Province of Georgia, on land now occupied by Greenwich and Bonaventure cemeteries. The site was , including a plantation house and private cemetery, located on the Wilmingto ...

. In 1786, Tattnall sold of Plancentia to John McQueen. William Hughes, after surveying the land, divided the property into twelve equal parcels, each containing . The plots ran from Skidaway Road to the marshes at the Wilmington River. Since 1891,

Savannah State University Savannah State University (SSU) is a Public university, public Historically black colleges and universities, historically black university in Savannah, Georgia, United States. It is the oldest historically black public university in the state. Th ...

has stood partly on the plantation's colored cemetery, a burial site containing many unmarked graves. In the early 19th century, John Postell Williamson began cultivating the land for rice, cotton and corn. In 2018, construction on a memorial garden for the colored graveyard was begun at Savannah State University. Placentia Canal flows north through the area and empties into the Wilmington River across from Richardson Creek. It was constructed between 1877 and 1887.

In popular culture

The plantation is mentioned in ''Big Auntie's Pearls'', a 2021 novel by Hope Gregory.

References

African-American history in Savannah, Georgia Plantations in Georgia (U.S. state) Province of Georgia 18th-century establishments in the Thirteen Colonies {{GeorgiaUS-plantation-stub