GEORGETOWN , South Carolina ( CNN ) -- In many places across the South you can walk in the footsteps of slaves , and if you understand the history , it is not a happy journey . The same is true at Friendfield Plantation outside Georgetown , South Carolina . This is a former slave house on Friendfield Plantation , where Michelle Obama 's family has roots . It 's not exactly `` Gone With the Wind , '' but what makes this overgrown 3,300 acres of marsh and pine trees stand out is this : The family of first lady Michelle Obama believes her great-great grandfather was held as a slave here and labored in the mosquito-infested rice fields . It makes Friendfield Plantation a symbol of something more than servitude . It 's the symbol of something that 's never happened before , one important segment of an American family 's journey from the humiliation of slavery to the very top of the nation 's ruling class . CNN recently was the first television network allowed to visit the plantation and shoot video . It 's not a museum . It 's just private land , still with shadows of its past . Friendfield 's most distinctive historical feature , perhaps , is the dirt road known as Slave Street . Stroll across the plantation with CNN 's Joe Johns » . Six white-washed little shacks are all that remain of the slave quarters , even though rows of these houses once stood on the property . About 350 slaves lived here during the 19th century . The houses are nothing special -- no plumbing , of course . The wooden walls are paper thin in places . It would have been hot and humid in summer , and most certainly cold in winter , although the shacks had fireplaces . They would have been crowded : probably one or two families living in a space smaller than a modern-day garage . The White House is some 472 miles from Georgetown , South Carolina . But long before Michelle Obama was born , her great-great grandfather , Jim Robinson , likely toiled in the fields here six days a week , from sunup to sundown . The place he probably called home was a little white shack smaller than -- by comparison -- a Secret Service security shed on the grounds of the executive mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue . All told , hundreds of people lived like this , on this one plantation alone . `` Anywhere between 200 to 500 at different times , '' said Ed Carter , the property manager . `` The older the plantation got , they kept adding on more cabins . [ Some ] cabins are 1847 . `` There was some on the other street that were about probably 1820s . And when they added on , got a bit more wealthy , they just kept adding on more slaves , more cabins . '' Watch Obama 's recent comments on slavery » . The shacks probably were n't much refuge from the vicious clouds of mosquitoes , chiggers and other pests that still impinge on a person 's every move on the plantation . Then , consider the dangers of the alligators and snakes . There was also the oppressive heat and humidity of South Carolina . And on the day CNN visited , the skies opened up in a violent rainstorm . Add up all of these factors and you begin to get a picture of what life probably was , and was not , for the slaves on Friendfield Plantation . Workers on the rice plantation -- and Friendfield was one of the largest in these parts -- faced all these elements , plus the threat of disease , including malaria and yellow fever . And unlike the CNN crew , the slaves were not free to leave . Even in death , the slaves stayed . Three cemeteries are on the Friendfield grounds . The one slave cemetery CNN visited had mostly unmarked graves , but Jim Robinson -- who was born into slavery and died a free man -- is believed to be buried there somewhere . The cemetery clearly has been segregated from the rest of the property . Slave cemeteries were typically situated on land unsuitable for any other use . Surrounded by trees , it might have been a beautiful place . Now , it is hard to tell that you are standing in a cemetery -- except for half a dozen grave markers , some made of wood , bearing no names . All that 's known about Jim Robinson 's life comes from the few remaining records that mention him . Slaves were n't documented as individuals in the census , nor in life and death certificates . They were property , not people . But Michelle Obama 's great-great grandfather was a teenager when slavery was abolished , so as a free man , he started to leave a paper trail . The 1880 census shows he was born about 1850 , in South Carolina , and that his parents were born in South Carolina as well . He married a woman named Louiser , and in 1880 they already had three children , two boys and a girl , ages 1 , 2 , and 3 . The son that would become Michelle Obama 's great grandfather was not born yet . The census lists Jim 's occupation as a farmer , and Louiser 's as `` keeping house . '' They are both recorded as unable to read or write . It 's good fortune to uncover even this much information ; the original handwritten census got wet , the ink ran and it is nearly illegible . Proof of life , nearly washed away . There are a lot of unknowns concerning Michelle Obama 's ancestry -- how many generations of slaves there were , or what route they took to this hemisphere . The Obama election campaign commissioned a study of Michelle 's genealogy by the research group Lowcountry Africana , but they could n't make the link back to Africa . As with so many African-Americans ' family histories , the paper trail runs dry . `` I do n't think that that sort of information is available for anyone from Friendfield Plantation at this point , '' historian Tori Carrier , of Lowcountry Africana , said . `` Very , very few , if any , of the Friendfield records actually survived except in public records : wills and estate inventories . ... `` There 's not a real Friendfield Plantation records set , or plantation journals that have been preserved ... and there 's certainly not a shred of documentary evidence right now which would even suggest to us what the African origins would be , '' Carrier said . In an interview with The Washington Post last year , Michelle Obama talked about learning her family 's past and understanding the history of slavery . `` A lot of times these stories get buried , because sometimes the pain of them makes it hard to want to remember , '' she said told the Post for an October story . `` You 've got to be able to acknowledge and understand the past and move on from it . You have to understand it , and I think a lot of us just do n't have an opportunity to understand it -- but it 's there . '' Back in Georgetown , South Carolina , Margretta Knox remembers attending the Bethel AME church with the first lady 's grandparents -- Jim Robinson 's grandson and his wife -- when she was a girl . The couple spent many of their years in Chicago , but returned back South after they retired . `` My father knew that Fraser Robinson 's father sold newspapers , '' she recalled . `` He made his kids read them . Mr. Robinson was very , very smart , he could recite poetry . ... Their grandfather could recite poetry and that kind of thing . ... Her grandfather and her grandmother , they were both very smart people . '' But the family ties to the old plantation just got lost . `` We let our parents die before we really thought about asking them questions , '' Knox said . `` We did n't think about it until much later , and then it was too late . They were already gone . So there was no history after that . ... `` Because we live here , we do n't think about it . It 's just like , you 've been around it all of your life , it does n't cross your mind . You 're just living for today . '' In that same way , it probably never crossed Jim Robinson 's mind , as a slave in a white-washed cabin , that one day his great-great granddaughter would be living in a white house so very , very different from his own .
She owned plantation where Michelle Obama 's political roots began . Her great - great grandfather is believed to have been a slave on Friendfield Plantation . Anywhere from 200 to 500 slaves lived on the plantation over the years . He likely lived in a tiny white - washed slave house on the property .