How Growing a Cash Crop Led to Slavery

How Growing a Cash Crop Led to Slavery

Geography Concepts • Modification of the Environment • Migration • Transportation and Trade

Objectives: Students will be able to: • use photographs to sequence the steps of growing tobacco. • construct a timeline showing how growing tobacco led to slavery in the colonies. • draw inferences about modification of the environment using photographs. • explain why the colonies made strict laws and codes that applied to enslaved people. • construct a map showing enslaved population of counties in Maryland in 1790.

Why do you think so much land in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina was used to grow tobacco? • Nearness to navigable water since all goods coming from and going to Europe were transported by water. • The land had good soil. Often, the areas with prime soil coincided with old fields that had been cultivated by Native Americans. • Climate was good for growing tobacco.

Steps for Growing Tobacco 4 5 The tobacco growing season might have started as early as January. Tiny tobacco seeds were planted in seedbeds. About While the plants were beginning to grow in 10, 000 tobacco seeds filled a teaspoon so the seedbeds, new fields were cleared. preparing and sowing the seedbed was a Forests were cut so that tobacco could be difficult task. Small plants were planted in large fields. Tobacco exhausted protected from the cold by covering them the soil after four or five years and new with pine branches. Seedlings had to be fields had to be constantly prepared. B watered and weeded. A

9 1 1 After the fields had been cleared, the soil was piled into small mounds or hills with a hoe. After two months in the seedbeds, tobacco plants were large enough to be transplanted. They were planted in the mounds because they required a great amount of space for leaves to develop. C 9 Tobacco growing in the fields needed constant attention. Weeds were pulled and plants were watered if there had been little rain. Tobacco plants also had be checked for worms. The only way to remove worms was to pull them off each leaf. Every enslaved person was needed to kill the worms. D

8 8 Late in summer or early fall the entire stalk of each tobacco plant was cut at the bottom and left to wilt in the fields for a few hours. Next a hole was cut in each stalk so that it could be threaded onto a long stick, called a tobacco stake. As many as six to eight stalks were placed on a stake. E 2 2 In November and December stalks were moved to the drying house or barn and hung under the beams until they were fully dry. These drying houses or barns had good ventilation and kept out sunlight and rain. F

10 When the leaves on the stakes were dry, they were taken down and stripped from the stalks. This was often done on rainy days so the leaves would not crumble and break. 3 The dried tobacco leaves were bundled into “hands, ” a bunch of 10 to 20 leaves wrapped together. The hands were packed inside barrels called hogsheads.

6 7 Some enslaved people worked as coopers on plantations making barrels of all sizes including hogsheads. Hogsheads could hold 200 - 1000 pounds of tobacco depending on their size and how they were packed. It took several months to transport the hogsheads from the barn, down roads, often called “rolling roads, ” to the wharf and loaded onto the ships. When the ships were loaded they set sail for England.

Timeline of Slavery in Maryland Virginia 1612 - Tobacco is successfully grown as a cash crop for the first time in Virginia, cultivated by John Rolfe. Before the end of decade, tobacco the colony’s largest export. 1619 - A Dutch ship sells some twenty Blacks (probably from the West Indies) to the colonists in Jamestown. At first, Blacks made up a small part of the workforce, as most labor was performed by white indentured servants. 1622 - Virginia produces 60, 000 pounds of tobacco. 1625 - Virginia’s census lists only 23 Blacks, reflecting tobacco planters’ continued use of indentured servants rather than imported Africans.

1630 s - English colonists begin to distinguish between the status of White servants and Black servants. 1634 - Maryland is founded. Both Maryland Virginia use tobacco as money to pay wages, taxes and fines. 1642 - Virginia passes legislation to stop assistance to runaways. Individuals could be fined twenty pounds of tobacco for each night he or she harbored a runway. 1650 - 300 - 500 enslaved people are in Virginia.

1660 s - Maryland Virginia adopt laws specifically designed to deny Blacks their rights. These laws banned interracial marriages and deprived Blacks of property. Other laws prohibited blacks from bearing arms or traveling without written permission. 1664 - Maryland passes a law that recognizes slavery as legal. All Blacks currently in the colony and all who would arrive later would be considered enslaved. ( Interpretation and enforcement of the law was inconsistent. ) 1670 - The largest concentrations of Blacks are in the colonies of Virginia with a total of 2000 and in Maryland with 1190. 1680 - Seven percent of the population of Virginia and Maryland consists of enslaved people. Using enslaved people becomes the dominant labor system on plantations.

1692 - Virginia passed new legislation that states that enslaved people cannot keep horses, cattle or hogs. Also enslaved people charged with a capital crime loose their right of trial by jury. 1700 - 22 percent of the population of Virginia and Maryland consists of enslaved people. Most do not come directly from Africa, but from Barbados and other Caribbean colonies or from the Dutch colony of New Netherlands. 1705 - All existing laws dealing with enslaved people in Virginia are collapsed into a slave code, “Act Concerning Servant and Slave. ” Under this law, all enslaved people were considered property. 1710 - As the slave trade expands, more than twice as many Africans arrive in colonial America in the last ten years as in the entire previous century.

1732 - Robert "King" Carter, one of the richest tobacco growers in Virginia, dies. He is reported to own 300, 000 acres of land 700 slaves. 1750 - Proportion of enslaved people in Maryland reaches 31% and in Virginia 44 % of the general population, increasing the existing White fear of Black uprisings. 1775 - Virginia and Maryland's combined tobacco production exceeds 100 million pounds. 1800 - Between them, Virginia and Maryland have more than 395, 000 enslaved people — more than half of the U. S. 's slave population.

Timeline Questions q Why did slavery begin in Maryland Virginia? (To provide labor for the tobacco fields)In 1634, Maryland Virginia used tobacco as money or as a “cash” crop. q What is a cash crop? (a product grown for sale and not for the planters own use. ) q What law did Maryland pass in 1664? (Slavery was legal. All Blacks currently in the colony and all who would arrive later would be considered enslaved. )

q Between 1660 and 1670 what were some of the laws imposed upon enslaved people in Maryland Virginia? (Laws banned interracial marriages and deprived Blacks of property. Other laws prohibited Blacks from bearing arms or traveling without written permission. ) q According to Virginia law, what happened to people who harbored a runaway slave? They were fined 20 pounds of tobacco for each night they harbored an enslaved person. ) q How did tobacco farmers benefit from slavery? (Tobacco production required lots of workers. Enslaved people were forced to work without pay so tobacco farmers could make large profits. )

q How did tobacco farmers benefit from slavery? (Tobacco production required lots of workers. Enslaved people were forced to work without pay so tobacco farmers could make large profits. ) q How many years separated the time that John Rolfe introduced the idea of growing tobacco as a cash crop and the time that Virginia and Maryland were using enslaved people as the dominant labor force? (68 years)

q What legislation was passed that stated enslaved people could be denied the right to a trial by jury? (If enslaved people were charged with a capital crime they lose their right to a trial by jury. ) q Name the continents from which enslaved people in the colonies were forcefully moved. (Africa & North America - Barbados, Caribbean colonies and New Netherlands. ) q Why is most of the timeline without facts after the 1700 s? (Laws were now being passed in the southern colonies as rice, indigo, and cotton were established as cash crops there. Many of these laws also were applied to enslaved people in Virginia and Maryland. )

ACTS OF ASSEMBLY PASSED IN JUNE 1752 At a Session of Assembly begun and held at the City of Annapolis the third day of June in the second year of the Dominion of the Right Honourable Frederick Absolute Lord and Proprietary of the Province of Maryland Avalon Lord Baron of Baltimore &c. Anno Domini 1752 and ending the twenty third day of the same Month. The following Laws were Enacted and Assented to by the Honble Benja Tasker Esq. r President.

An Act to prevent disabled and superannuated Slaves being set free, or the Manumission of Slaves by any last Will or Testament. Whereas sundry Persons of this Province have set disabled and superannuated Slaves free who have either perished through Want, or otherwise become a Burthen to others: And inasmuch as giving Freedom to Slaves, by any last Will and Testament, may be attended with many Evils; it is therefore humbly prayed that it may be Enacted ;

Slaves who are old, and incapable of working not to be set at Liberty; but to be pro- vided for by the Owner. ] And be it Enacted by the Right Honourable the Lord Proprietary, by and with the Advice and Consent of his Lordship's President, and the Upper and Lower Houses of Assembly, and the Authority of the same, That it shall not be lawful for any Person or Persons within this Province, to give or grant Freedom to any Slave or Slaves disabled to work, or gain a sufficient Livelihood and Maintainance; but that in all such Cases, any Master, Mistress, or Owner of such Slave or Slaves, at the proper Cost and Charge of such Master, Mistress, or other Person owning such Slave or Slaves, shall support and maintain such Slave or Slaves, during the natural Life or Lives of such Slave or Slaves, in Food and Cloathing fitting and needful for such Slave or Slaves; whereby he, she, or they may not become a Burthen to others, or perish through Want, to the great Scandal of Christian Society.

“Maryland’s Enslaved Population, 1790” County % of total population enslaved people Prince George's Calvert Charles Somerset St. Mary's Anne Arundel Queen Anne's Kent Talbot Dorchester Montgomery Worcester 52 50 49 45 45 45 43 42 37 34 34 33 % of all families owning enslaved people 54 nd 60 nd 59 52 52 60 46 45 45 45 # of Black families owning enslaved people 1 nd 3 nd 2 12 9 34 16 3 0 0

“Maryland’s Enslaved Population, 1790” County % of total population enslaved people Cecil Baltimore Harford Caroline Frederick Baltimore City Washington Allegany % of all families owning enslaved people 25 23 23 22 12 9 8 5 nd= no data released Source: Census of the United States, 1790. United States Historical Data Browser, University of Virginia http: //fisher. lib. virginia. edu/census/index. shtml 28 29 29 31 16 23 11 nd # of Black families wning enslaved people 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 nd