Cotton and Slavery Lesson Plan: Global Consequences
By Jean West

Overview

Cotton and Slavery: Global Consequences is a lesson plan for students to use while studying about slavery in the United States or as a culminating activity. Cotton was the thread that bound slaves and mill workers, the Industrial Revolution, and international banking and trade. It also provides students with one of the earliest case studies in the consequences of a global economy. Students will read the essay King Cotton: The Fiber of Slavery to determine the impact of the cotton economy on the Americas, Africa, Europe, and Asia. The lesson is intended to be used by high school students, grades 9-12.

National Curriculum Standards met by this lesson

For a list of standards that this unit addresses, click here.

Time required

One-two 50-minute class periods, excluding time students may need for outside reading, group planning, media center research, access to computer labs, and whether student presentations are kept at 10-15 minutes.

Materials

• Essay, King Cotton: The Fiber of Slavery
• Checklist for Cotton Products

The Lesson

Anticipatory Set

1. The day before the anticipatory lesson, ask students to prepare an inventory of all the items in their wardrobe and bedroom that contain cotton. Provide students the included Checklist for Cotton Products to assist them. Remind students that the item must contain cotton, even if it isn't 100% cotton.


2. Either select student volunteers or collate with the class the results of the survey on a transparency, flipchart, or chalkboard, and on a world map (using sticky notes or push pins).


3. Once the statistics have been pulled together, discuss how prevalent cotton is in their environment and in the world. Ask students whether the Cotton Incorporated slogan, "Cotton: The Fabric of Our Lives" is accurate or not.


4. Ask students if they think they would have as many cotton products if it cost 100 times more.


5. Explain that, by 1850, the price of cotton fabric declined to one percent of its 1784 cost. Brainstorm what might have accounted for the decline in prices (cotton gin, Industrial Revolution, slavery, etc.).

Procedures

1. Provide students with the following anti-slavery poem written in 1833 by Thomas Moore. For full notes, go to:
   http://www2.bc.edu/~richarad/asp/tmec.html
   
   Epistle of Condolence from a Slave-Lord to a Cotton-Lord

   Alas! my dear friend, what a state of affairs!
   How unjustly we both are despoil'd of our rights!
   Not a pound of black flesh shall I leave to my heirs,
   Nor must you any more work to death little whites.
   
   Both forced to submit to that general controller
   Of King, Lords, and cotton-mills Public Opinion;
   No more shall you beat with a big billy-roller,
   Nor I with the cart-whip assert my dominion.
   
   Whereas, were we suffered to do as we please
   With our Blacks and our Whites, as of yore we were let,
   We might range them alternate, like harpsichord keys,
   And between us thump out a good piebald duet.
   
   But this fun is all over; farewell to the zest
   Which Slavery now lends to each cup we sip;
   Which makes still the cruellest coffee the best,
   And that sugar the sweetest which smacks of the whip.
   
   Farewell, too, the Factory's white pickaninnies,
   Small, living machines, which, if flogg'd to their tasks,
   Mix so well with their namesakes, the billies and jennies,
   That which have got souls in 'em nobody asks ;
   
   Little Maids of the Mill, who, themselves but ill fed,
   Are oblig'd, 'mong their other benevolent cares,
   To keep "feeding the scribblers," and better, 'tis said,
   Than old Blackwood or Fraser have ever fed theirs.
   
   All this is now o'er, and so dismal my loss is,
   So hard 'tis to part from the smack of the thong,
   That I mean (from pure love for the old whipping process)
   To take to whipt syllabub all my life long.



2. Discuss whether Moore blames plantation-owners (slave-lords) and mill-owners (cotton-lords) equally for the horrible treatment of slaves and child workers in the early 19^th century. Ask students if consumers buying cotton products might have also deserved blame. Explain to students that the slave-based U.S. cotton economy had effects globally in the 19^th century and that they will be examining the impact on four regions of the world.


3. Either divide the students into four teams or allow the class to divide itself into four teams: (1) the Americas (together), (2) Africa, (3) Asia, and (4) Europe. Explain that each team is responsible for reading the essay King Cotton: The Fiber of Slavery and conducting additional research to assess the impact of cotton in their region. Direct each group to a) create and label a map that sets events in a geographical location and b) create a written report and 10-15 minute oral summation evaluating the impact of cotton on their continent(s) in the following categories:
   
   
   • Quality of life of laborers in field and/or factory;
   
   
   • Technology and the industrial revolution;
   
   
   • Trade (slave, raw material, or finished product);
   
   
   • Distribution of wealth (including the impact on planters, mill owners, yeoman farmers, the middle class, slaves, and mill workers/ "wage slaves");
   
   
   • Land ownership and use (including the impact on Native Americans); and
   
   
   • Financial institutions (banking, commodity and stock market).


4. Each team will need to plan to decide about several issues including:
   
   
   • A fair distribution of additional research since not all categories have the same amount or complexity of information
   
   
   • Whether one or all of them will present the oral summation and prepare the written report
   
   
   • What supplies will need to be collected to produce the map
   
   
   • A realistic checklist/timeline so they can complete the assignment by the due date


5. Ask each team to turn in their written paper, then share their map and completed assignment with the class.


6. When all the groups have completed their presentations, discuss whether the historical impact of cotton on the global economy has lessons for consumers, farmers, industrial workers, corporations, banks, and financial markets today.

Assessment

Evaluate group presentations on a 30-point scale (which may be multiplied by 3.3 to convert to 100-point scale or letter grades) using the following rubric:

This lesson was submitted by Jean West, an education consultant in Port Orange, Florida.

Checklist for Cotton Products

Quantity Item

_______ Pillow cases

_______ Sheets

_______ Mattress covers

_______ Mattress

_______ Quilt, comforter, bedspread

_______ Curtains/drapes/window dressing

_______ Upholstered furniture

_______ Towels (face, hand, bath, beach)

_______ Socks

_______ Undergarments

_______ Jeans and pants

_______ Tee-shirts

_______ Shirts

_______ Sweaters (including pullovers, sweatshirts)

_______ Jackets, coats

_______ Scarves

_______ Hats

_______ Shorts

_______ Skirts, dresses

_______ Shoes, sandals, boots

_______ Accessories (friendship bracelets, necklaces, sweatbands, watchbands, belts, hair accessories)

_______ Tote bag, purse, gym bag

_______ Decorative pillows, throws, tablecloths, dresser scarves

_______ Stuffed animals

_______ Cotton filler in medication bottles

_______ Cotton balls, q-tips

_______ Band-Aids or bandages

_______ Paper with cotton rag content

_______ Rug or carpet

_______ Other items (list):

Do you have at least one item that is 100% cotton? ___ Yes ___ No

List the country of origin for all pants, jeans, and shorts:

Related Works

Sources

Books

Green, Constance M. Eli Whitney and the Birth of American Technology. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Educational Publishers, 1965.

Hine, William C., ed. Slavery in America (Jackdaw No. A30). New York: Viking Press, Inc., 1975.

Mirsky, Jeannette and Allan Nevins. The World of Eli Whitney. New York: Macmillan Co., 1952.

Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell. American Negro Slavery. Baton Rouge, LA: Peter Smith, 1959.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=10265038

Reidy, Joseph P. From Slavery to Agrarian Capitalism in the Cotton Plantation South: Central Georgia, 1800-1880. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=12034198

Smith, Julia Floyd. Slavery and Plantation Growth in Antebellum Florida, 1821-1860. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1973.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=259778

Internet Resources

A House Divided: America in the Age of Lincoln. Chicago Historical Society online exhibition with numerous images of cotton slavery:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/ahd/slavery2.html

American Slave Narratives, An Online Anthology. Mary Reynolds, Texas (uses the n-word, has some sexually explicit material):
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/wpahome.html.

The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record. Jerome S. Handler and Michael L. Tuite, Jr.:
http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery.

Beneath These Waters, Chapter 14: "From Cradle to Grave." Sharyn Kane and Richard Keeton:
http://www.cr.nps.gov/seac/beneathweb/ch14.htm.

Cotton: the Fabric of our Lives. Angela Box:
http://www.siu.edu/~ebl/leaflets/cotton.htm.

Cotton: the Fiber of Life:
http://www.mhhe.com/biosci/pae/botany/botany_map/articles/article_30.html

Documenting the American South, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries:

Ball, Charles. Fifty Years in Chains; or the Life of an American Slave:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/ball/ball.html.

Hughes, Louis. Thirty Years a Slave: From Bondage to Freedom, The Institution of Slavery as Seen on the Plantation and in the Home of the Planter:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/hughes/hughes.html.

Jackson, John Andrew. The Experience of a Slave in South Carolina:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/jackson/jackson.html.

Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave, Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853 from a Cotton Plantation Near the Red River, in Louisiana:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/northup/menu.html.

Thompson, Charles. Biography of a Slave; Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson, a Preacher of the United Brethren Church, While a Slave in the South:
http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/thompsch/thompsch.html.

Inventing the Cotton Gin? A Class Debate
http://invention.smithsonian.org/centerpieces/whole_cloth/u2ei/u2materials/eiPac1.html

American Memory--Library of Congress

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html:

• Charlie Aarons, Alabama (uses the n-word)
• Ellen Cragin, Arkansas (uses the n-word, has some sexually explicit material)
• Tempe Herdon Durham (uses the n-word)
• Mingo White, Alabama (uses the n-word)

Voices from the Days of Slavery: American Folklife Center:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/vfshtml

• Celia Black, Texas (part 8)
• Aunt Phoebe Boyd, Virginia (talks about cotton around the 15 minute-point of the interview)
• Joe McDonald, Alabama (uses the n-word)
• Susanna Rebecca White Thompson, Virginia (audio quality improves as the interview goes on)

National Archives Digital Classroom, Teaching with Documents: Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin Patent:
http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/cotton_gin_patent/cotton_gin_patent.html

New Deal Network, Feature--Been Here So Long: Selections from the WPA American Slave Narratives. George Fleming, South Carolina (uses the n-word):
http://newdeal.feri.org/asn/asn09.htm

Philips, William H. "The Cotton Gin." EH.Net Encyclopedia. Robert Whaples, Ed. February 11, 2004 URL:
http://www.eh.net/encyclopedia/phillips.cottongin.php

Photographs of Slaves and Cotton Labor:
http://www.pawpaw.k12.mi.us/cedarstreet/0kidkorner/free/COTTON/cotton2.html

Interdisciplinary Links

• Music: Slaves used work songs (call and response) and field "hollers" (solitary shouts from one laborer to another or to the water carriers) to help set the pace, pass the time, and cope with the physical and mental stress of slavery in the cotton fields. Field researchers Alan and John Lomax collected many of these songs, the most famous of which is Pick a Bale of Cotton. Cotton also appears in songs ranging from Cotton Field Back Home, Old King Cotton, Cotton-Eye Joe, and Sousa's King Cotton March. Ask students to collect a sampling of either the traditional slave songs or cotton-theme songs and share them with the class through recordings or performances.


• Art: Ask students to collect images and either:
  1. Compare and contrast photographic depictions of slave's work in the cotton field and cotton economy with artists' depictions of the same subject, looking at the creator's point of view and how that is reflected in composition, staging, whether the image is close-up or distant, the expressions of the subject, use of color (where applicable), choice of subject, and other factors; or
  2. Create an exhibit tracing the depiction of slaves and cotton over time.
  
  
• Language Arts:
  1. A number of folk tales and superstitions have grown around cotton, which was also used as a "conjure" to treat illness. Ask students to collect some of these stories, sayings, and "old wives' cures" and create a display, poster, or computer slideshow to share them.
  2. Writers lent their talents to the abolition movement. Students may wish to select an example and analyze it for persuasive technique. Many examples, including the Thomas Moore poem used in the lesson, may be found at: http://www2.bc.edu/~richarad/asp.html
  
  
• Mathematics: Direct students to examine the two tables in the essay, King Cotton: The Fiber of Slavery. Ask students to create two graphs (either a bar, line, or pie) to express the data contained in the tables. Remind students that their graphs should include a key, if appropriate, and titles.

• Economics: The relationship between the cotton economy and slavery offers many paths of exploration for economics students. Students may wish to examine the Eli Whitney patent, the claims of other inventors to have also been working on the cotton gin, and the problems Whitney had in defending his patent, including legal battles.