Their Ancestor Was an Enslaved Potter. They Are Battling to Recover His Legacy.

The descendants of David Drake learned who he was just 10 years ago. They now see his iconic jars as his artistic and spiritual inheritance—and their own: Whitner sat between her younger sister Pauline and older sister Priscilla on a small sofa, with an open Bible and a pale speckled jar—a replica of Drake’s work—on the glass coffee table before her. The signature on the pot said “Dave” and was dated August 16, 1857. The cursive inscription in the clay read, faintly, “I wonder where is all my relation.” Scholars tend to frame Dave’s poetic inscription as a raw expression of grief, made after his wife and children had been sold to other owners. His heirs—seven of whom were in the room—said they now read it as a question posed across generations, to which they are the answer.