Yoruba Style:
The Yoruba people are from the region of West-Africa that today consists of Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. One of the distinctive styles of the Yoruba Peoples are long, narrow houses. Usually only one room across and several deep. The entrance to the house was on the short side of the house, meaning to get to the back of the house you had to go through each room. This meant that privacy was not considered as important, and followed the typical vernacular building style, meaning things were built, and added to houses out of necessity, instead of for looks.
This style was taken to the U.S. through New Orleans, following the wave of immigrants after the Haitian revolution. In New Orleans this style merged with the prevalent French designs, and created the ‘Shotgun’ house.
Shotgun Style:
This house is similar to the Yoruba style in that the entrance is on the narrow side, and it is (usually) only one room across. I should note that while the ‘Double-barrel House’ does exist it is actually two Shotgun houses that share a common wall. Traditionally the shotgun house gets its name from the idea that if you a fire a shotgun at the entrance of the house the bullet will hit each room, then exit through the back door. However the name ‘Shotgun’ may have come from Africa ‘To-gun’, meaning a ‘place of assembly or gathering’.
Though the interior design of the house followed traditional building styles, the exterior followed the French building style, and decorations, aside from the odd shape of the building it was typical of a French facade to be highly decorated, as seen above. The major exception to the french building style was the addition of the porch, this was quite distinct from french homes, whose outdoor areas were typically ‘indoor courtyards’, the addition of the porch was yet another West African influence on the Shotgun house.
Early influences from colonisation:
During the colonisation of the southern states the settlers brought with them building styles from England, and from the Northern U.S. as some of the Northern states were already established colonies. Due to the plantation economy of the south houses tended to be small, and relatively simple. This was done for the simple fact that the more money put into a house was money that could not be spent on acquiring land, or slaves. As a result almost all of the early buildings were relatively simple with rooms like the Kitchen often being in the basement, or added on to the side. Other rooms could be added on as they were needed, or as the family grew. This style of building is known as Vernacular, and was the common trend since the Middle Ages. This was at first slowly replaced by the ‘Georgian Order’ mindset, which is to say focusing much more on ascetics, uniformity, and control over nature. This meant that the house was proportional, windows the same on each side, mirrored chimneys (or one in the center, like how is typical of buildings in England), and equal vegetation or decorations on the house.
In Augusta county you can see several of these styles in the lithograph of Staunton from the late 1850s. The buildings outlined in blue have their histories recorded in greater detail, and can be found here.
One of the buildings that excellently reflects the Georgian order is ’19 S. Market St.’ seen below. it is uniform in almost every aspect, the windows are perfectly aligned, the chimneys are on opposing sides of the house, the entrance is centered on the longest side, and though one of the trees is farther back, there is an even number on either side of the walkway.
Slave Housing:
In the South one other consideration should be the slave houses, though the design was often controlled by the slave holders, slaves could, and would often make renovations to their houses. These houses were typically one or two rooms, often without any windows. Though the houses were symmetrical at the construction, the renovations the slaves added, would make the house A-symmetrical, often causing the plantation owners to look further down upon the enslaved, as the saw the slaves were lacking civility, and couldn’t impose their will on nature, as the civilised White man could.
Finally in the pictures you can see how the houses were raised off the ground usually by several inches, this was done deliberatley as a means of controlling behavior, and attempting to minimise resistance. If the cabins were built directly on the ground the slaves could hide objects in the floors of their houses, to prevent this the overseers, or plantation owners would build the houses off the ground to be able to inspect beneath the house.
Comparing Architecture of the Antebellum U.S. 