Tobacco and Slavery Lesson Plan: Voices from the Past
By Jean West

Overview

"Tobacco and Slavery: Voices from the Past" is a lesson plan for students to use while studying about the slave trade or as a culminating activity. Because the statistics of the slave trade are staggering, it is easy for students to lose sight that each person enslaved had a unique story. Students will examine eyewitness accounts from the essay Tobacco and Slavery: The Vile Weed and personalize the story of slaves involved in the tobacco economy by retelling it in a written, visual, or dramatic format.

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 and access to computer labs

Materials

Essay, Tobacco and Slavery: The Vile Weed

The Lesson

Anticipatory Set

1. Ask for a volunteer to move a textbook between the floor and table 100 times. Take the student's pulse rate before and after. Then, ask the volunteer how he or she would feel about repeating the activity 74,900 additional times.


2. Explain that each slave working on a tobacco plantation was personally responsible for planting, transplanting, worming, pruning, and cutting between 10,000 and 20,000 tobacco plants.


3. Ask students if they know the wording of the Surgeon General's warning on tobacco products. Then, ask if there are other hidden risks caused by tobacco, such as those faced by tobacco field workers.


4. Next, read aloud (or have a student read aloud) the following extracted Federal Writers Project (WPA) interview with Reverend Silas Jackson, ex-slave, conducted on September 29, 1937:

I was born at or near Ashbie's Gap in Virginia, either in the year of 1846 or '47. I do not know which, but I will say I am 90 years of age. My father's name was Sling and mother's Sarah Louis. They were purchased by my master from a slave trader in Richmond, Virginia. My father was a man of large stature and my mother was tall and stately. They originally came from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, I think from the Legg estate, beyond that I do not know. I had three brothers and two sisters. My brothers older than I, and my sisters younger. Their names were Silas, Carter, Rap or Raymond, I do not remember; my sisters were Jane and Susie, both of whom are living in Virginia now. Only one I have ever seen and he came north with General Sherman, he died in 1925. He was a Baptist minister like myself.

The only things I know about my grandparents were: My grandfather ran away through the aid of Harriet Tubman and went to Philadelphia and saved $350, and purchased my grandmother through the aid of a Quaker or an Episcopal minister, I do not know. I have on several occasions tried to trace this part of my family's past history, but without success.

I was a large boy for my age, when I was nine years of age my task began and continued until 1864. You see I was a slave.

In Virginia where I was, they raised tobacco, wheat, corn and farm products. I have had a taste of all the work on the farm, besides of digging and clearing up new ground to increase the acreage to the farm. We all had task work to do--men, women and boys. We began work on Monday and worked until Saturday. That day we were allowed to work for ourselves and to garden or to do extra work. When we could get work, or work on some one else's place, we got a pass from the overseer to go off the plantation, but to be back by nine o'clock on Saturday night or when cabin inspection was made. Some time we could earn as much as 50 cents a day, which we used to buy cakes, candies, or clothes.

On Saturday each slave was given 10 pounds corn meal, a quart of black strap, 6 pounds of fat back, 3 pounds of flour and vegetables, all of which were raised on the farm. All of the slaves hunted or those who wanted, hunted rabbits, opossums or fished. These were our choice food as we did not get anything special from the overseer.

Our food was cooked by our mothers or sisters and for those who were not married by the old women and men assigned for that work.

Each family was given 3 acres to raise their chickens or vegetables and if a man raised his own food he was given $10.00 at Christmas time extra, besides his presents.

In the summer or when warm weather came each slave was given something, the women, linsey goods or gingham clothes, the men overalls, muslin shirts, top and underclothes, two pair of shoes, and a straw hat to work in. In the cold weather, we wore woolen clothes, all made at the sewing cabin.

My master was named Tom Ashbie, a meaner man was never born in Virginia--brutal, wicked and hard. He always carried a cowhide with him. If he saw anyone doing something that did not suit his taste, he would have the slave tied to a tree, man or woman, and then would cowhide the victim until he got tired, or sometimes, the slave would faint.

I have heard it said by people in authority, Tom Ashbie owned 9000 acres of farm land besides of wood land. He was a large slave owner having more than 100 slaves on his farm. They were awakened by blowing of the horn before sunrise by the overseer, started work at sunrise and worked all day to sundown, with not time to go to the cabin for dinner, you carried your dinner with you. The slaves were driven at top speed and whipped at the snap of the finger, by the overseers, we had four overseers on the farm all hired white men.

I have seen men beaten until they dropped in their tracks or knocked over by clubs, women stripped down to their waist and cowhided.

There was a stone building on the farm, it is there today. I saw it this summer while visiting in Virginia. The old jail, it is now used as a garage. Downstairs there were two rooms, one where some of the whipping was done, and the other used by the overseer. Upstairs was used for women and girls. The iron bars have coroded, but you can see where they were. I have never seen slaves sold on the farm, but I have seen them taken away, and brought there. Several times I have seen slaves chained taken away and chained when they came.

No one on the place was taught to read or write. On Sunday the slaves who wanted to worship would gather at one of the large cabins with one of the overseers present and have their church. After which the overseer would talk. When communion was given the overseer was paid for staying there with half of the collection taken up, some time he would get 25¢. No one could read the Bible. Sandy Jasper, Mr. Ashbie's coachman was the preacher, he would go to the white Baptist church on Sunday with family and would be better informed because he heard the white preacher.

Twice each year, after harvest and after New Year's, the slaves would have their protracted meeting or their revival and after each closing they would baptize in the creek, sometimes in the winter they would break the ice singing Going to the Water or some other hymn of that nature. And at each funeral, the Ashbies would attend the service conducted in the cabin there the deceased was, from there taken to the slave graveyard. A lot dedicated for that purpose, situated about 3/4 of a mile from cabins near a hill.

There were a number of slaves on our plantation who ran away, some were captured and sold to a Georgia trader, others who were never captured. To intimidate the slaves, the overseers were connected with the patrollers, not only to watch our slaves, but sometimes for the rewards for other slaves who had run away from other plantations.

When work was done the slaves retired to their cabins, some played games, others cooked or rested or did what they wanted. We did not work on Saturdays unless harvest times, then Saturdays were days of work. At other times, on Saturdays you were at leisure to do what you wanted. On Christmas day Mr. Ashbie would call all the slaves together, give them presents, money, after which they spent the day as they liked. On New Year's day we all were scared, that was the time for selling, buying and trading slaves. We did not know who was to go or come.

I do not remember of playing any particular game, my sport was fishing. You see I do not believe in ghost stories nor voodooism, I have nothing to say. We boys used to take the horns of a dead cow or bull, cut the end off of it, we could blow it, some having different notes. We could tell who was blowing and from what plantation.

When a slave took sick she or he would have to depend on herbs, salves or other remedies prepared by someone who knew the medicinal value. When a valuable hand took sick one of the overseers would go to Upper Ville for a doctor.



5. Ask students if they realized that most tobacco raised between 1619 and 1865 was raised by slaves. Discuss what this fact adds to their knowledge of the problems tobacco has created for individuals, aside from health risks. Explain that they will be studying the history of slavery and tobacco, which have been entwined in the United States since Jamestown, through the words of people who lived that history.

Procedures

1. Allow the class to divide into teams and explain that each team is responsible for reading the essay Tobacco and Slavery: The Vile Weed and will be using quotes from individuals directly from or expanded beyond the essay. The teams will then transform the quotes and essay information into a presentation about the impact of tobacco on people's lives, especially slaves. Potential individuals who may be researched include the following:
   
   
   • Thomas Hariot
   • King James I
   • Henrietta Perry
   • Ralph Hamor
   • John Pory
   • William Capps
   • John Rolfe
   • King Charles II
   • the Virginia Assembly
   • C. W. Gooch
   • Landon Carter
   • Olmsted's tobacco grower
   • Silas Jackson
   • Gabe Hunt
   • Dennis Simms
   • Booker T. Washington
   • William "Box" Brown
   
   
2. Tell the teams they will need to plan to decide about several issues, including:
   
   
   • Whether to focus on exploring one specific individual's relationship with slavery and tobacco, or more than one (possibly all the individuals mentioned, if a team is particularly inspired).
   
   
   • What individual(s) they intend to explore and the approach they intend to take in interpreting the story.
   
   
   • The media they intend to use to share project information, which may be a dramatic script or performance, a piece of artwork or other captioned visual display, or a computer slide-show or videotape.
   
   
   • What materials or props, computer hardware and software, and other supplies will need to be collected.
   
   
   • A realistic checklist/timeline so they can complete the assignment by the due date.
   
   
3. Ask each team to share its completed assignment with the class.


4. Explain to students that the same essay could have been used for a statistical discussion of slavery and tobacco. However, Virginia colonial-era archaeologist Ivor Noël Hume once observed, "Whenever we turn people into numbers and back again, we invariably lose something, and what we lose is life." Ask students to discuss this question: How does focusing on the words of former slaves and other eyewitnesses to the history of the slave trade help you to remember that history is about people rather than numbers?

Assessment

You may evaluate projects on a 25-point scale (which you may multiply by four to convert to a 100-point scale or to letter grades) using the following rubric:

Sources

Books

Breen, T. H. and Stephen Innes. "Myne Owne Ground:" Race and Freedom on Virginia's Eastern Shore, 1640-1676. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Breen, T. H. Puritans and Adventurers: Change and Persistence in Early America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=53316363

Kerr-Ritchie, Jeffrey R. Freedpeople in the Tobacco South: Virginia, 1860-1900. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=100795978

Kulikoff, Allan. Tobacco and Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake, 1680-1800. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.

Middleton, Arthur Pierce. Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era. Ed. George Carrington Mason. Newport News, VA: Mariners' Museum, 1953.
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=3969369

Perdue, Charles L., Thomas E. Barden, and Robert K. Philips, Eds. Weevils in the Wheat. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, reprint edition 1992.

Internet Resources

A Counterblaste to Tobacco
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/james1.html

How the Cradle of Liberty Became a Slave-Owning Nation, by Susan DeFord
http://www.innercity.org/columbiaheights/newspaper/slavery.html

The Lives of African-American Slaves in Carolina During the Eighteenth Century
http://www.sciway.net/hist/chicora/slavery18-3.html

The African American Experience at Stratford: 1782, by Jeanne Calhoun
http://www.stratfordhall.org/africa.html?HISTORY

North American Slave Narratives:

Henry Box Brown
http://docsouth.unc.edu/brownbox/menu.html

Henry Clay Bruce
http://docsouth.unc.edu/bruce/menu.html

Booker T. Washington
http://docsouth.unc.edu/washington/menu.html

Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project (WPA) 1936-1938, Maryland
http://www.gutenberg.net/1/1/5/5/11552/11552-h/11552-h.htm

Interdisciplinary Links

• Mathematics: Direct students to examine the two tables in the essay Tobacco and Slavery: The Vile Weed. 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 tobacco economy and the slave trade offers many paths of exploration for economics students, including the two below:


1. Students may wish to convert the historic prices mentioned in the essay into their modern values to get a better understanding of the wealth created by tobacco slaves. They may find conversion calculators at such sites as the Federal Reserve's at: http://minneapolisfed.org/Research/data/us/calc/index.cfm or the Economic History Services' "How Much is That Worth Today?" calculator located at http://www.eh.net/ehresources/howmuch/dollarq.php.


2. Students may wish to calculate the profits made on Brazil's bi-lateral trade route and the slaves-tobacco-English consumer goods triangle and compare which was the more profitable mercantile system.


• Health/Sociology: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other government health groups are concerned about niche-marketing to African Americans by the tobacco industry. Research suggests that three African-American publications--Ebony, Jet, and Essence--receive proportionately higher profits from cigarette advertisements than do mainstream publications. Ask students to look at the statistical information available for the smoking rates of different ethnic groups in the United States and evaluate whether the government agencies have cause for concern. An alternate activity would be to ask students to do a media log for tobacco advertising in different publications, recording whether the advertisement is being niche-marketed to a general audience or targeted by sex, age, or race. Then, have students evaluate whether the government agencies have cause for concern. To start, visit CDC Fact Sheet: African Americans and Tobacco at:
  http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/sgr/sgr_1998/sgr-min-fs-afr.htm.


• Art: Ask students to collect images and create an exhibit tracing depictions of smoking and smokers over time. For early images, check the New York Public Library Print Collection, Online Exhibition, Dry Drunk: "The Culture of Tobacco in 17^th- and 18^th-century Europe" at:
  http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/art/print/exhibits/drydrunk/intro.htm.

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