Quilt, Star of Bethlehem pattern variation

In the pre-Civil War United States, enslavers often forced people they enslaved, particularly girls and women, to make quilts. Ellen Morton Littlejohn and Margaret Morton Bibb were born into slavery on the white Morton family’s plantation in Kentucky in the 1820s or 30s. They may have been children when the white Morton family forced them to create this quilt, made of silk-and-cotton in an elaborate “Star of Bethlehem” pattern. The Morton family eventually gave the quilt to the Met. Enslaved girls and women also made quilts for their own and their families’ use, and some such quilts remain treasured heirlooms among descendent communities to this day. Black feminist artists and scholars have studied historic quilts created by enslaved and free Black people to learn about their lives.