HOMEWORK: Colonial SlaveryInstructionsBeforebeginning this assignment, read the following textbook pages: 115 (start at “The Expansion of Slavery”) to 117 (stop at “Native Americans and Colonial Expansion”); 119 (“The South as Slave Society”) to 124 (“The Backcountry South”); 129 (“Slaves and Free Blacks in Northern Societies”) to 130 (“Changes in New England”). This homework has fourparts, each of which contains a question or set of questions. For some issues, you will be prompted to read an additional source, which you will be able to find in theModule 2 Resources page on Canvas. If you are unsure how to answer, or if you do not completely understand the text to which a question refers, do not worry –the important thing is that you make an effort to understand the reading and answer the question(s). Your grade for the homework does not depend on a “right” answer. Rather, providing complete answers to all the questions and making clear use of all readings/sources as required (and following all instructions). The objective is to prompt you to think critically about what you are reading and the issues that the readings raise. The weekly debrief and lecture will address the homework questionsand topics.Part I: The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the “Middle Passage”(Primary Source)From the late fifteenth century to the late nineteenth century, approximately 12.4 million souls were loaded onto slave ships and carried through a “Middle Passage” across the Atlantic to hundreds of delivery points stretched over thousands of miles. Alongthe dreadful way, 1.8 million of them died, their bodies cast overboard to the sharks that followed the ships. That number does not include the 1.8 million enslaved Africans who died between the point of enslavement and the boarding of the slave ship. The10.6 million who survived were cast into slavery in the Americas, where roughly 15% (another 1.5 million) would die during their first year of laboring life in the New World. Read the excerpts from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano(available as in this week’s Module resources page) and answer the following questionsusing complete sentences:1.How did Equiano become a slave?2.How would you characterize Equiano’s experience on the slave ship? Consider his observations about the shipand the journey, the other slaves, as well as men on the ship. What was the first thing that Equiano noticed about the slave ship?Your answer should be 3-5 sentences.
23.Not long ago, the literary scholar Vincent Carretta suggested that Equiano was not born in Africa as he claimed, but rather was born a slave in South Carolina and invented for himself African origins in order to oppose the slave trade with greater moral authority. Scholars continue to debate his origins. But, for the sake of this question, if we accept Carretta’s contention, does this render Equiano’s account of the Middle Passage of no historical value? (Explainin 3–5sentences).Part II: The Transition to Slave Labor: The “Unthinking Decision”(Primary Source)For this part, you will view five graphs relating to Seventeenth-century Virginia. You will answer a question relating to each graph. The sixth question will ask you to consider the information contained in allthe graphs.Question#1: What factors might cause the price to rise or fall(1-3 sentences)?
3Question#2: What factors might have influenced the length of servicefor indentured servants?(1-3 sentences)
4Question#3: What factors might explain the decline in slave prices?(1-3 sentences)
5Question#4: What factors might have caused life expectancy to rise between 1620 and 1690?(1-3 sentences)
6Question#5: What factors might have caused the price of tobacco to decline between 1620 and 1690?(1-3 sentences)Question #6You are the owner of a 100-acre tobacco plantation in Virginia in the seventeenth century. Using the information provided, decide whether you woulduse indentured servants or African slaves as your primary labor sourcefor each of the following years: 1620, 1660, and 1690.Keep in mind that while indentured servants have set terms, slaves were typically owned for the duration of their lives. A.1620Price of Tobacco = 4 pence sterlingIndentured Servant prices = 10 pounds sterlingAverage length of Indenture term = 6 yearsSlave prices = 25 pounds sterlingLife expectancy after survival = 3 yearsAnnual Profit –Servant = 12.6%Annual Profit –Slave = 7.6%Primary labor source? Reason?
7B. 1660Price of Tobacco = 1.5 pence sterlingIndentured Servant prices = 8 pounds sterlingAverage length of Indenture term = 5 yearsSlave prices = 21 pounds sterlingLife expectancy after survival = 15 yearsAnnual Profit –Servant=4.4%Annual Profit –Slave =1.8%Primary labor source? Reason?C. 1690Price of Tobacco = .75 pence sterlingIndentured Servant prices = 9 pounds sterlingAverage length of Indenture term = 4 yearsSlave prices = 22 pounds sterlingLife expectancy after survival = 20 yearsAnnual Profit –Servant = .75%Annual Profit –Slave = 1.9%Primary labor source? Reason?Part III: Transition to Slavery –The “Thinking Decision”(Primary Source)Read the Virginia Slave and Servant Code of 1705 (“An Act Concerning Servants and Slaves. 1705) –the document is available in the Module 2 Resources. After reading it over, answer the following three questions. 1.In what ways do the laws appear to draw a distinction between the treatment of slavesand indentured servants?Your answer must be 2-4 sentences and include a specific examplefrom the document.2.In what ways do the laws appear to draw a distinction between free blacksand whites in Virginia?Your answer should be between 1-3 sentences and include a specific examplefrom the document.
83.What do you think was the primary objective of the 1705 Slave and Servant Code?Your answer must be 1-3 sentences. Part IV: Runaway Slaves(Primary Source)Read the Ads for Runaway Servants and Slaves (available in the Module 2 Resources) and answer the following three questions:1.What kind of work did the slaves noted in the ads perform? What does this indicate about the slave labor force?Your answer should be between 2 and 4 sentences.2.Based on the advertisements, what may have been some of the reasonsthat slaves ran away?Your answer should be between 1 and 3 sentences. 3.What do these advertisementstell usabout slavery in colonial North America in general? Your answer should between 2 and 4 sentences and clearly identify at least one general point.Part V: Response to the Stono Rebellion(Scenario)It is 1740 and you are a member of the South Carolina assembly. When the first English colonizers arrived in 1770, Carolina essentially was a “colony of a colony.” It began as an offshoot of the tiny island of Barbados. In the mid-seventeenth century, Barbados was the Caribbean’s richest planation economy, but a shortage of available land led wealthy planters to seek opportunities in Carolina for their sons. In hopes of attracting settlers, the colony’s proprietors provided for an elected assembly and religious toleration. They also provided for the legal recognition of slavery and instituted a rigorous legal code that promised slaveowners “absolute power and authority” over their human property and included imported slaves in the colony’s headright system.This allowed any persons who settled in Carolina and brought with them slaves, including planters from Barbados who resettled in the colony, instantly to acquire large new landholdings. In its early days, however, the economycentered on cattle raising and trade with local Indians, not agriculture. Carolina grew slowly until plantersdiscovered the staple –rice–that would make them the wealthiest elite in English North America and their colony an epicenter of mainland slavery. Among your greatest fears while living in the colony has been a slave uprising. Approximately two-thirds of the colony’s population is Black –the only British North American colony with a black majority. South Carolina rice plantations are also much larger –in terms of both land and slaves –than tobacco plantations in the Chesapeake. Because rice planters invest in complex irrigation systems needed alternatively to flood and drain
9the land, rice, like sugar, ismost efficiently cultivated on a large scale. As a result, South Carolina is the only colony in which blacks outnumber whites (approximately two-thirds of the population is black –most of them slaves). A Swiss immigrant who arrived two years ago, alarmed by these demographics, remarked that “Carolina looks more like a negro country than like a country settled by white people.”The colony’s black majority is especially pronounced on the rice plantations, where most owners –preferring the more comfortable surroundings of Charleston –leave their plantations under the control of overseers and the slaves themselves. Whereas field slaves on Chesapeake tobacco plantations work in groups under the constant supervision, slaves in South Carolina work under the “task” system, in which individual slaves areassigned daily jobs. Failure to complete the task can result in punishment, but once the jobs are complete slaves have time for leisure or other pursuits, such as cultivating crops of their own. Slaves are able to move about the plantation, and even visitneighboring plantations, in order to socialize and trade. Thus, while overall conditions in South Carolina are harsher when compared to the Chesapeake, slaves do have a greater degree of autonomy than their counterparts to the north. White South Carolinians’ fears of a slave uprising heightened during the 1730s as news of slave uprisings in the Virgin Islands and Jamaica was reported in colonial newspapers. Then, on in September 1739, your worst fears were realized. It began on an early Sunday morning ofSeptember 9, when a group of about twenty slaves broke into Hutcheson’s Store, killed the two shopkeepers (their heads left on the front steps), and outfitted themselves with weapons and supplies. From there they went to a house owned by a Mr. Godfrey, which they plundered and burned before then killing Mr. Godfrey along with his son and daughter. They continued, killing twenty-three whites, beating drums, carrying banners,and shouting “Liberty”as they made their way to the colony’s southern border, recruiting additional slaves (and coercing others) to join their band. Had it not been for Lieutenant Governor William Bull, who happened across the rebels while on his way to Charleston for the beginning of the legislative session, who knows the extent of theterror that these slaves could have unleashed. Bull managed to evade the rebel slaves –who gave pursuit –and warn others. By the time that a mounted group of armed planters caught up with the slaves, they numbered around 100 strong. But they were caught off-guard, and after a brief battle fourteen slaves were dead and another thirty were in custodywhile the rest managed to escape. In the tense week that followed a manhunt ensued as colonists feared more attacks. But within a month most of the rebels were apprehended(though a handful remain at large). All of the captured rebels have been executed, but the colony needs to decide what to do next if it wants to avoid another “Stono Rebellion.”Perhaps laws should be enacted to make slavery less harsh. Or, is the only way to prevent slave rebellions to eliminate slavery altogether? But what if the main problem was the ability ofthose slaves to plot and then carry out the rebellion in the first place. Maybe the answer is to limit the autonomy that slaves are able to secure through the “task system”.
10Question: What do you think should be done to prevent slave uprising in South Carolina? You may choose as many as you like. Explain your choice in 1-3 sentences.A.Abolish slavery in South Carolina.B.Do not abolish slavery, but place a moratorium on any new slave imports until the ratio of slaves to whites is more balanced.C.Encouragethe development of labor-saving machinery and encourage immigration from Europe.D.Place limits on how much a slave could be workedE.Pass a law that inflicted penalties on owners who did not adequately cloth and feed their slaves.F.Create a “Negro school” that will offer slaves instruction in carefully selected doctrines of the Christian faith –such as submissiveness and obedience. G.Enact stiff penalties for masters/overseers who impose excessive work or brutal punishments on theirslaves.H.Require that each plantation have one white man present for every ten slaves.I.Place legal restrictions on slaves’ autonomy, especially their freedom of movement, their ability to raise food and trade with other slaves.J.Pass a law prohibiting teaching slaves to read English.K.Pass a law banning slave use or ownership of musical instruments.L.Invade Florida in retaliation for inciting slaves to escape and rebel
