COMMODITY CULTURE: THE ENSLAVED EXPERIENCE

Question 1

What is the key takeaway?

Answer 1

The demand for commodities was so large it incentivizes the expansion of slave trade and abuse of enslaved people

Question 2

What was the basis for discrimination with Medieval slavery?

Answer 2

Religion not race

Question 3

What does the Development of the caravel (small fast ship) let people do?

Answer 3

sail greater distances faster and more safely

*1441: Portuguese traders sailing down the African coast first capture and enslave Africans
*C. 1502: the first African enslaved people are transported to South America

Question 4

How do the debates over who can be enslaved change over time?

Answer 4

*16th century: Valladolid debates exclude Africans (see lectures on the New World for a refresher)

*17th century: John Locke argues that enemies defeated in a “just war” can be enslaved

*18th century: Rise of scientific racis

Question 5

What was “race” first used for?

Answer 5

Complexion

Question 6

What is Code Noir (1685) ?

Answer 6

governs the institution of slavery in all French colonies

*Writes that slaves can be of any race or religion, but the subtitle of the document directly refers to Black people

Question 7

Rise of the Curse of Ham justification for slavery, what is it?

Answer 7

Thing with Noah
had three sons in bible

• He cursed one of his sons and made him black
• So all black ppl are cursed? (some logic like that)

Question 8

Which country is the big slave trader?

Answer 8

Portugal

Question 9

Where are enslaved africans from in africa?

Answer 9

West africa

Question 10

Where does sugar grow?

Answer 10

*Sugar requires a tropical climate

*Grows best on flat land, close to water

*Initially grown on the South American continent, but Caribbean islands eclipse the continent by the 1650

Question 11

How is sugar grown?

Answer 11

*Sugarcane is a kind of grass & can be propagated from cuttings of the cane
*A majority of the world’s sugar cane was still harvested by hand (or by machete) as of 2016

Question 12

What is a Sugar island?

Answer 12

an island whose economy was either entirely or principally devoted to the production of sugar

*Sugar grows well at scale, you can grow more of it by clear-cutting land and building massive plantations

Question 13

Were plantations and refineries at the same spot, or separate businesses?

Answer 13

Initially, plantations and refineries were separate businesses but, on the Caribbean sugar island, planters realized that they can also refine sugar on their own premises

Question 14

What were the two kinds of labour for enslaved men on sugar plants?

Answer 14

1. On the plantation = healthy men and boys
   *Cutting and propagating sticky sugarcane in the hot sun (often disease or machete accidents)
2. In the boiling house = injured men, older men, young boys
   *Supervising the boiling sugar syrup in the dark, smoky, humid boiling house
   (Sugar sticks to you as it burns you)

Question 15

What did enslaved women do on sugar plants?

Answer 15

ancillary work (support work)
*Enslaved women gave birth to the next generation of slaves = this is an area of resistance

Question 16

Where did the enslaved people live on sugar plants?

Answer 16

Enslaved people lived in “slave villages,” where they had to cultivate subsistence crops in their spare time; some of these villages demonstrate hierarchy among enslaved people
*3-6 person per dwelling

Question 17

What can we learn from the case study (Newton Plantation Barbatos)?

Answer 17

Low life expectancy= 29 years

Low infant mortality = contradicts a lot of previous scholarship

A lot of culture was retained (ex. cultural burials)

Question 18

Where is tobacco grown?

Answer 18

Tobacco can be grown throughout the America (espc. Virginia - George Washington)

Question 19

How is tobacco harvested?

Answer 19

Whole stalks harvested, dried, before leaves are picked off and cured

*Different cures produce different flavours and aromas

Question 20

Who does tobacco work?

Answer 20

indentured workers (bound people) regardless of skin colour

Question 21

What is “Foot-dragging” in tobacco work?

Answer 21

deliberately slowing down the work in the field as a form of resistance (as demands went u, you tried to slow it down)

Question 22

What was different about Tobacco? (versus sugar and coffee)

Answer 22

tobacco was treated as an “artisanal” product which required careful cultivation and curing by skilled labourers

*Less “turnover” in tobacco plantations = higher life expectancy
*Sought young men to be trained in the work; women and children were often separated from men

Question 23

How were tobacco plantations run?

Answer 23

one white overseer would supervise the work of about a dozen enslaved men = not possible on a Caribbean sugar plantation

Question 24

What does coffee need to grow?

Answer 24

*Nutrient rich soil = volcanic is best

*Indirect sunlight

*Warm weather and moist climate

*It can take 3-4 years for a coffee plant to produce fruit

Question 25

How to harvest coffee?

Answer 25

Picked by hand

Beans roasted

Question 26

In Caribbean where does coffee grow well?

Answer 26

Up hill

Question 27

How was the coffee plantation enslaved people different from sugar plant enslaved people?

Answer 27

Coffee planters tended to rely on enslaved workers that sugar planters did not want (more women, and more Central African than West African or creole)

Question 28

How was the labour at the coffee plantation?

Answer 28

Number of enslaved workers varied dramatically from ~15 – ~300

*Depending on size of plantation: 1 enslaved worker per 1,000 trees

Almost all coffee plantation labour is outdoors = no boiling house for the sick or injured (if sick / injured, no reason to keep you)

*Birth rates on coffee plantations are low for reasons we don’t perfectly understan

Question 29

Tactics of resistance:

What is Affecting the product?

Answer 29

(e.g. foot-dragging, sabotaging the product) often at a high cost

Question 30

Tactics of resistance:

What is preserving culture?

Answer 30

Preserving original culture and language or cultivating African plants for food

Question 31

Tactics of resistance:

What is Refusing to participate?

Answer 31

Refusing to participate in growing the unfree labour force (birth control, abortifacients, etc)

Question 32

Tactics of resistance:

What is Self liberation?

Answer 32

Often goes together with, e.g. stealing seeds or tools to carry to self-liberated communities

Freeing yourself (running away)

Question 33

Tactics of resistance:

What is Active rebellion?

Answer 33

Communities of self-liberated enslaved people, often residing in areas Europeans found inhospitable and often in community with Indigenous people
- Farming and crafts people
- Growing via reproduction or welcoming other self liberated people

Question 34

What happened when Maroon communities grew to the point where they are a legitimate threat to planter society?

Answer 34

1740: Following the First Maroon War, Jamaican Maroons sign a treaty with the British that promises the Maroons 2,500 acres (including 2 towns) in exchange for capturing and returning escaped enslaved people

*These Maroons are effectively free at this point but they can no longer grow through self-liberation

Question 35

What is important about the Berbice Uprising?

Answer 35

enslaved people in Berbice took over the plantation
- Set up government
- Taken down by dutch

But almost first black run plantation!

Question 36

What is important about Haitian Revolution?

Answer 36

Successful rebellion, largest slave revolt of the modern era, Haiti is the first free Black republic