Overview:

By the middle third of the eighteenth century, plantation slavery had taken firm root in the Chesapeake colonies of Virginia and Maryland.  The principal labor source consisted of African slaves and their descendants, who were legally bought and sold by white masters.  Slaves filled many kinds of jobs, such as household servant, skilled craftsman, teamster, or boatman.  They were most important as agricultural laborers, raising foodstuffs and the region’s staple crop, tobacco.  The profits arising from tobacco underwrote the emergence of a wealthy class of planters, who used their wealth to expand their landholdings, stake claims to social leadership, and build lavish houses.  The plantation “great house” was both for the enjoyment of the planter’s family and for the display of the family’s social status. 

The relationship of master and slave was therefore fundamentally exploitative, as masters used violence to compel their slaves to work and then kept the profits to themselves.  Masters and slaves interacted on a daily basis in the fields or inside the plantation house, and yet they also each occupied separate worlds defined by high degrees of residential, social, and recreational segregation.  Slaves often resisted their plight by means both subtle and overt. 

Objectives

The following exercise is designed to introduce you to the eighteenth-century Chesapeake world that masters and slaves occupied together, along with the social spaces—the plantation great house and the slave quarters—that each occupied separately.  It uses visual images of work and home in order to give you a sense of those worlds, while it relies on newspaper advertisements in order to explore one form of slave resistance, running away.

Resources:

The following are the three websites used in this activity:

1. Stratford Hall Plantation (http://www.stratfordhall.org/) typifies the kind of great houses being erected by Virginia’s richest planters during the middle of the eighteenth century.  Here we can learn what life was like for the Lee family.
2. “The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record” (http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery/search.html) is a database of hundreds of pictures that document multiple aspects of slavery from Africa to the Caribbean and North and South America.  This exercise uses just a handful of the available images.
3. “The Geography of Slavery in Virginia” (http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/gos/index.html) is a developing project that includes a searchable database of runaway slave advertisements that appeared in Virginia newspapers between 1736 and 1795.

Activity:

Each of you will work with a partner to complete the following instructions.  You will do this in the computer lab on Thursday, September 2 and Thursday, September 9.

In lab Thursday, September 2:

1. As a pair working side-by-side in the computer lab, examine and discuss among yourselves the following four images of work: cultivating tobacco, George Washington as Chesapeake planter, processing tobacco, and shipping tobacco.  Do the same for this image of plantation violence.  (Note that each image can be expanded to full-screen size by clicking on it.)  Together write a paragraph of 3-5 sentences that discusses the economic production and labor that you see depicted in these four images.  Note especially the different types of jobs that blacks and whites are performing, as well as the tasks being performed by men and women.  In a second paragraph, discuss how the images represent slavery from the artists’ particular points of view.  That is, consider such questions as who the artists were, when they worked, why they created the illustrations, what they chose to emphasize or leave out, and how they depicted the scenes.  (This might require some speculation on your part.)  Post those two paragraphs to Blackboard no later than Wednesday evening, September 8th.

Next, read steps #2 and #3.  Decide with your partner who will do step #2 and who will do step #3.

In lab Thursday, September 9:

2.  Now working separately, one of you is to do the following, while the other should proceed to #3.  Read the brief background text, “Stratford and the Lees of Virginia: A Brief History.”  View the exterior photo of Stratford Hall, then click on “Main Floor Plan” and click and read the descriptions of “The Great Hall,” “Dining Room,” and “Chamber.”  Finally, view this image of a black nursemaid and white children.  Post to Blackboard a paragraph that addresses the following questions:  How did the Lees rise to wealth and prominence in eighteenth-century Virginia?  What materials were used in the construction of Stratford Hall?  How was the house furnished?  How were residents and guests entertained?  How did they dine?  What kind of public presentation would the house make to a visitor?  What does the house tell you about its occupants’ lifestyles?

3. Read this brief description of slavery (which you received as a handout on Tuesday, August 31) and the following images: exterior and interior views of the reconstructed slave quarters at the Carter’s Grove plantation, the slave quarters at Mulberry Plantation, a plantation dance, and this image of a black nursemaid and white children.  Post to Blackboard a paragraph that addresses the following questions:  How did some people end up as slaves in eighteenth-century Virginia?  What materials were used in the construction of the slave quarters?  How were the houses furnished?  How were residents and guests entertained?  How did they dine?  What kind of public presentation would the houses make to a visitor?  What do such houses tell you about their occupants’ lifestyles?

4. “The Geography of Slavery in Virginia” website contains a searchable database of runaway slave and indentured servant advertisements that appeared in eighteenth-century Virginia newspapers.  Go to the search page, and in the box marked subscriber, enter “Henry Lee,” who was a relative of the Lees of Stratford Hall.  Click on “submit search,” and read the 1769 and 1784 advertisements that this search yields.  Do the same thing for subscriber “George Washington,” and read the advertisement that this search yields.  What skills did these runaway slaves possess?  Where were they expected of going?  In Blackboard, post a statement about what running away and taking out a newspaper advertisement meant for a slave or a planter.  That is, if you answered #2 above, write about these advertisements from the master’s point of view.  If you answered #3, then discuss the meaning of running away from the slave’s point of view.

For homework:

5. For homework, read and view your partner’s assigned material and post a reply to his or her posts.  That is, if you were assigned to complete #2 above about Stratford Hall, you are now to read the directions under #3 and #4 and reply to your partner’s post.  Make any suggested additions of things that your partner may have failed to mention that you think are important.  Also, comment upon how this material presents a different point of view and life experience from what you read under #2.  Alternately, if you were assigned to complete #3 above regarding the slave quarters, now turn to #2 and #4 and comment on your partner’s postings.  Post no later than Thursday, September 16th.

Due Tuesday, September 28th:

6. Paper Assignment --  Write an imaginary diary entry or letter of 2-3 double-spaced pages, that describes a visit to Stratford Hall and the slave quarters during the mid-eighteenth century from the point of view of a visitor.  Your visitor may be male or female, black or white, slave or free, New Englander or Southerner, etc.; that is, feel free to develop your character.  Include in your diary entry or letter such details that a visitor might have noted.  Use your best creative imagination and synthesize what you’ve learned in this exercise.  This paper is due in class next Tuesday, September 28th.  [Note that the assignment due date has been extended from Thursday, September 23rd to Tuesday, September 28th.]