In the nineteenth century, the Edgefield District in South Carolina was a center for the production of alkaline-glazed stoneware, enabled by ample sources of raw materials and large-scale industrial slavery. Dave Drake is one of the few enslaved potters whose work can be identified, as he signed or inscribed many of his pots. His vessels are also unusually robust, indicating his strength and skill at the potter’s wheel. Drake was taught to read and write by Harvey Drake, the first person to keep him as an enslaved person, and he worked as a typesetter at a local newspaper before being sold to Lewis Miles, the owner of the Stony Bluff Manufactory. In 1834 the South Carolina General Assembly made it illegal to teach enslaved people to read or write. Drake’s inscriptions can be interpreted as demonstrations of personal pride in his craft as well as subversions of the state’s racist legislation.