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Belle Grove Plantation is located in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. "The plantation primarily produced wheat, grain, corn, and livestock" (The Winchester Star). In 1732, Jost Hite and other families migrated into the valley and accessed 140,000 acres of land through grants. Part of this land came to eventually be known as the Belle Grove Plantation. In 1783, the grandson of Jost Hite, Issac Hite Jr. was given part of the land by his father. This land came to later reside the Belle Grove Manor (pictured above).

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Oak Alley Plantation was a sugar plantation and is located in Vacherie, Louisiana. The Oak Alley manor was built in 1837 by George Swainey for Jacques Roman. Swainey finished construction of the manor in 1839. Jacques Roman was the brother of Andre Roman (who was the governor twice in Louisiana). When Jacques Roman and his family bought Oak Alley in 1836,  it was a plantation and the residents were 57 field slaves. The number of slaves grew after he bought 49 slaves that same year.

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"Ole Missus--dat's Miss Waston--she pecks on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she wouldn' sell me down to Orleans. . . .she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but she didn' want to, but she copied git eight hund'd dollars for me, en it 'uz a big stack o' money she couldn' resis'" (Twain 43).

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Chapter 26-Tom describes how Jim is treated by Uncle Silas

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Chapter 26-Tom describes how Jim is treated by Uncle Silas

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"And there's Jim chained by one leg, with a ten-foot chain, to the leg of his bed: why, all you got to do is lift up the bedstead and slip off the chain. And Uncle Silas he trusts everybody; sends the key to the punkinheaded nigger, and don't send nobody to watch the nigger" (Twain 239).

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Unlike Miss Waston, Silas Phelps trusts his slaves to not disobey him. He views his slaves like human beings although not equal as they have to work for him. This can be inferred through the way he lets a slave walk by himself with a key to another slave. Any other slave owner would have sent someone to watch him and make sure he didn't try to help Jim escape. Uncle Silas treats his slaves as human.

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Chapter 36-Jim tells Huck and Tom how he is treated

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Chapter 36-Jim tells Huck and Tom how he is treated

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“So Jim said it was all right. . .Jim told him Uncle Silas come in every day or two to pray with him, and Aunt Sally come in to see if he was comfortable and had plently to eat, and both of them was as kind as they could be” (Twain 249).

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Plantation Mansion

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Slave Cabin

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The estate was built in the late 1700s by entrepreneur Jean Jacques Haydel upon land purchased by his German-immigrant father, Ambroise. It was the younger Haydel who expanded the estate and established the plantation as a key player in Louisiana’s sugar trade, transitioning the main crop away from the less-profitable indigo markets. A couple of years after the Civil War, a Northerner by the name of Bradish Johnson bought the property and named it after his grandson Harry Whitney.

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The Hite family owned 276 slaves at Belle Grove Plantation between the years of 1783 and 1851, according to family records. 15 enslaved Africans were given to Issac Hite by his father-in-law, James Madison Sr. These 15 slaves were among the first at Belle Grove Plantation. These slaves were named Jerry, Jemmy, Sally, Milley, Eliza, along with Eliza's five children, Truelove, along with her four children as well. Truelove and Eliza's families would continue on for three generations at Belle Grove.

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“the conditions under which the occupants worked: six days of hard labor from dawn to dusk, families sometimes torn apart, and brutal reprisals for resistance,” (The Boston Globe).

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The slave quarters at Oak Alley were made up of 20 'doubles' which was one house split into two. Each side of the 'double' held one household.

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The slaves at Oak Alley roughly numbered between 110 and 120 men, women, and children. The number of slaves at the Oak Alley plantation was considered smaller compared to other plantations in the South at the time.

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As seen from the novel Huckleberry Finn, Jim sees Miss Waston in an unflattering light after she decides she's going to sell him for a lot of money. It is inferred from the quote that Miss Waston not only physically beats Jim, but mentally abuses him as well. Miss Waston can be seen as the typical slave owner during that time period in the United States. She treats her slaves as property and doesn't care about treating them right..past their work ability. Unlike the Phelps', Miss Waston viewed Jim as property and not a person with free thought.

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Jim describing how Uncle Silas and Aunt Sally came to see him and check on him, shows the Phelps' aren't typical slave owners. By asking if he was comfortable and fed, shows they care about his well-being. This is atypical of slave owners during this time, most would not care about the well-being of a runaway slave. During the time period Jim is held, he does not seem to be beaten or verbally abused. That is a stark contrast to Miss Waston, who verbally and physically beat him.

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General Information

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Missouri attracted slave owners because slavery had been allowed in the area under French and Spanish rule. Later, as American settlers came to the lands opened up by the Louisiana Purchase, a blending of cultures created a unique economic and social system that included slavery (Twain 11-12).

Union or Confederate State?

The Union government had achieved control by the end of 1861 and Missouri is considered a Union state, with the Confederate government functioning only as a government in exile for the duration of the war. This hybrid allows for Mark Twain to explore the societal construct of slavery through the characters by setting the novel initially in Missouri.

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Tobacco, cotton and sugar were grown on large-scale farms called plantations.

As European demand for these crops increased, the plantations grew larger and needed more slaves to harvest the crops.

80% of all slaves shipped to the Americas were put to work on plantations. They worked long hours in the fields and were punished if they did not work hard enough.

Other slaves worked in the house as servants, or were used to do other jobs around the plantation.

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Plantation Owner’s House

The owners of plantations were very rich and lived in big houses with many rooms. The area around the house would often be planted with plants and flowers.

Slave Huts

The slaves were housed in sparsely furnished wooden huts. Their huts were grouped together, often fairly close to the plantation fields.

Livestock

Many plantations kept cows, sheep and chickens to provide them with fresh meat, milk and eggs.

Plantation Fields

Most plantations tended to concentrate on growing just one product – tobacco, cotton or sugar were the most common. They were grown on a large scale in one or more fields. Slaves were responsible for the ploughing, sowing and harvesting of the crop and were punished if they did not work hard enough.

House Slaves

The house slaves – cooks, maids, nannies, butlers and drivers, were often housed separately to the field slaves. Their living quarters were generally better than those who worked in the fields and were placed fairly close to the plantation owner’s house.

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Up From Slavery
Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915) was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to multiple presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African American community and of the contemporary black elite.Washington was from the last generation of black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jim Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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Booker was born into slavery to Jane, an enslaved African-American woman on the plantation of James Burroughs in southwest Virginia, near Hale's Ford in Franklin County. He never knew the day, month, and year of his birth, but the year on his headstone reads 1856. Nor did he ever know his father, said to be a white man who resided on a neighboring plantation. The man played no financial or emotional role in Washington's life.

From his earliest years, Washington was known simply as "Booker", with no middle or surname, in the practice of the time. His mother, her relatives and his siblings struggled with the demands of slavery. He later wrote:

“I cannot recall a single instance during my childhood or early boyhood when our entire family sat down to the table together, and God's blessing was asked, and the family ate a meal in a civilized manner. On the plantation in Virginia, and even later, meals were gotten to the children very much as dumb animals get theirs. It was a piece of bread here and a scrap of meat there. It was a cup of milk at one time and some potatoes at another,” (Washington 34).

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Slavery, the treatment of human beings as property, deprived of personal rights, has occurred in many forms throughout the world. But one institution stands out for both its global scale and its lasting legacy. The Atlantic slave trade, occurring from the late 15th to the mid 19th century and spanning three continents, forcibly brought more than 10 million Africans to the Americas. The impact it would leave affected not only these slaves and their descendants, but the economies and histories of large parts of the world. There had been centuries of contact between Europe and Africa via the Mediterranean. But the Atlantic slave trade began in the late 1400s with Portuguese colonies in West Africa, and Spanish settlement of the Americas shortly after. The crops grown in the new colonies, sugar cane, tobacco, and cotton, were labor intensive, and there were not enough settlers or indentured servants to cultivate all the new land. American Natives were enslaved, but many died from new diseases, while others effectively resisted. And so to meet the massive demand for labor, the Europeans looked to Africa. African slavery had existed for centuries in various forms. Some slaves were indentured servants, with a limited term and the chance to buy one's freedom. Others were more like European serfs. In some societies, slaves could be part of a master's family, own land, and even rise to positions of power. But when white captains came offering manufactured goods, weapons, and rum for slaves, African kings and merchants had little reason to hesitate. They viewed the people they sold not as fellow Africans but criminals, debtors, or prisoners of war from rival tribes. By selling them, kings enriched their own realms, and strengthened them against neighboring enemies. African kingdoms prospered from the slave trade, but meeting the European's massive demand created intense competition. Slavery replaced other criminal sentences, and capturing slaves became a motivation for war, rather than its result. To defend themselves from slave raids, neighboring kingdoms needed European firearms, which they also bought with slaves. The slave trade had become an arms race, altering societies and economies across the continent. As for the slaves themselves, they faced unimaginable brutality. After being marched to slave forts on the coast, shaved to prevent lice, and branded, they were loaded onto ships bound for the Americas. About 20% of them would never see land again. Most captains of the day were tight packers, cramming as many men as possible below deck. While the lack of sanitation caused many to die of disease, and others were thrown overboard for being sick, or as discipline, the captain's ensured their profits by cutting off slave's ears as proof of purchase. Some captives took matters into their own hands. Many inland Africans had never seen whites before, and thought them to be cannibals, constantly taking people away and returning for more. Afraid of being eaten, or just to avoid further suffering, they committed suicide or starved themselves, believing that in death, their souls would return home. Those who survived were completley dehumanized, treated as mere cargo. Women and children were kept above deck and abused by the crew, while the men were made to perform dances in order to keep them exercised and curb rebellion. What happened to those Africans who reached the New World and how the legacy of slavery still affects their descendants today is fairly well known. But what is not often discussed is the effect that the Atlantic slave trade had on Africa's future. Not only did the continent lose tens of millions of its able-bodied population, but because most of the slaves taken were men, the long-term demographic effect was even greater. When the slave trade was finally outlawed in the Americas and Europe, the African kingdoms whose economies it had come to dominate collapsed, leaving them open to conquest and colonization. And the increased competition and influx of European weapons fueled warfare and instability that continues to this day. The Atlantic slave trade also contributed to the development of racist ideology. Most African slavery had no deeper reason than legal punishment or intertribal warfare, but the Europeans who preached a universal religion, and who had long ago outlawed enslaving fellow Christians, needed justification for a practice so obviously at odds with their ideals of equality. So they claimed that Africans were biologically inferior and destined to be slaves, making great efforts to justify this theory. Thus, slavery in Europe and the Americas acquired a racial basis, making it impossible for slaves and their future descendants to attain equal status in society. In all of these ways, the Atlantic slave trade was an injustice on a massive scale whose impact has continued long after its abolition.

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Transcript of "The Atlantic slave trade: What too few textbooks told you"

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TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript: Slavery has occurred in many forms throughout the world, but the Atlantic slave trade -- which forcibly brought more than 10 million Africans to the Americas -- stands out for both its global scale and its lasting legacy. Anthony Hazard discusses the historical, economic and personal impact of this massive historical injustice.

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“The Atlantic slave trade also contributed to the development of racist ideology. Most African slavery had no deeper reason than legal punishment or intertribal warfare, but the Europeans who preached a universal religion, and who had long ago outlawed enslaving fellow Christians, needed justification for a practice so obviously at odds with their ideals of equality. So they claimed that Africans were biologically inferior and destined to be slaves, making great efforts to justify this theory. Thus, slavery in Europe and the Americas acquired a racial basis, making it impossible for slaves and their future descendants to attain equal status in society. In all of these ways, the Atlantic slave trade was an injustice on a massive scale whose impact has continued long after its abolition,” (Anthony Hazard).

Highlighting the idea of the “cycle of oppression,” which directly correlates to the plantations in the Deep South surrounding the Civil War.

Connects directly to the social critiques of Mark Twain as he examines slavery in America, in a pre - Civil War society. As can be seen as Huck struggles with the morality of whether or not to “turn Jim in,” (Twain 57-58).

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"Our mission is simple here," said Cummings, 78, in a telephone interview. "We're interested in the history of what white people did or didn't do when Africans arrived here. When we can agree on that, we can take an honest look at slavery, and the post-slavery period, to understand what we're looking at today." This place was designed to educate Americans of all racial backgrounds about a dark chapter in our nation's history that continues to resonate down the centuries.

Whitney Plantation is on the west bank of the Mississippi River in St. John the Baptist Parish, a southern Louisiana county on the historic River Road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. In the mid-18th century, this was known as "the German coast" because so many immigrants from that part of Europe settled here. One of those families, the Haydels, and their slaves, grew indigo, then sugarcane on roughly 250 acres here from 1752 until just before the Civil War. As the Oscar-winning 2013 movie "12 Years a Slave" shows, working on a sugar plantation was one of the worst fates slaves faced. After the war, the property was sold to Bradish Johnson, a millionaire distiller, who named the place for his grandson, Harry Whitney.

On the day we came, the heat and humidity piling up beneath the cloud-cluttered sky only hinted at the harsh conditions of the cane harvest, but we still sought shelter in the air-conditioned comfort of the Welcome Center as we waited for our 1 p.m. guided tour. The center is relatively Spartan, with an informative, low-tech exhibit on the history of the African slave trade, along with gifts and a few snacks. The bookstore section features copies of "Bouki Fait Gombo," a history of the plantation's slave community by Ibrahima Seck, Whitney's academic director. The book's title is taken from a Creole-African proverb that translates to: "The he-goat makes the gombo [gumbo], but the rabbit eats it." Seck is from Senegal, a part of West Africa where many of Louisiana's slaves had their origins.

To tell their story, Cummings and his staff have made Whitney Plantation more a memorial than a museum, deep on data along with displays. The French-Creole style Big House has stood here since the late 18th century, but many of the other structures have been rebuilt or moved here from elsewhere. When Cummings purchased the property in 1998, it had been uninhabited for 25 years, once nearly razed to make way for a rayon factory. But the authenticity of structures isn't the point. The goal is to transmit to the visitor at least something of the experience of being a slave.

We began the tour seated on pews in Antioch Baptist Church, founded by former slaves in 1868 and moved here from the nearby town of Paulina in 2001 and restored. We watched a video of former slaves offering their life stories and gazed at statues of slave children, created by Akron, Ohio, artist Woodrow Nash, scattered around the sanctuary.

The next tour stops are designed to drive home the sheer numbers and the depths of misery involved in a life of servitude. The Wall of Honor consists of granite slabs engraved with the names and the small bits of information known about the people who were enslaved at Whitney Plantation. Then there's the Allees Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, named for the prominent historian and New Orleans native who is a seminal figure in the study of slavery in the United States. Reminiscent of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, the hall is dedicated to the 107,000 people enslaved in Louisiana before 1820. Perhaps most moving is the Field of Angels, a beautiful statue of a black angel carrying a baby surrounded by low walls featuring the names of 2,200 slave children known to have died in St. John the Baptist Parish. Many of our tour group of about 30, both black and white, paused at this stop.

Next, we were given a chance to explore a duplex slave cabin, while our guide, Mikhala Iversen, outlined the conditions under which the occupants worked: six days of hard labor from dawn to dusk, families sometimes torn apart, and brutal reprisals for resistance. Many of the slaves arrived here as Muslims and were forced to convert to Catholicism while ignoring the bans on eating pork and poor hygiene that were tenets of their native religion.

"They had just enough to eat, but never enough to run," Iversen said. "They were always hungry." We walked past a reconstructed blacksmith shop that was used for a scene in Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained," in which the slave character portrayed by Jamie Foxx is branded. We also got a close look at a rusted metal "hot box" used to punish recaptured runaways as their fellows looked on. This one came from Philadelphia.

The Big House was the final stop, and it was perhaps the least impressive part of the tour. It's original, but it's filled with antique furniture purchased at auction in New Orleans, and it's not in the same league as other elegantly preserved plantation homes on the River Road or in Natchez, Miss., for example. It's also not the focus of what Whitney Plantation is about. The Big House was for the masters; the rest of the place is about the people who served them.

After the tour, which ran well over the scheduled 90 minutes, several visitors shared their thoughts about what they had seen. Paula Barry and Jim Smith, of Conway, Mass., found the whole experience arresting. "It's an incredible monument to the darkest part of America's history," Barry said. "It's timely to be here because of all the strife that's happening now." Smith said education is the key. "It's incredible to come and actually witness what slavery was like. You can't go away unchanged."

Back outside the Welcome Center, Brenda Billips Square, former director of archives at the Amistad Research Center in New Orleans, said she had made a special trip to Whitney Plantation with her husband and cousins. "We found a powerful spiritual presence here," said Square, who is also a UCC minister. "It's important to have a place to reflect on the struggles of our ancestors, but also feel a sense of hope to inspire us to carry on the work that needs to be done."

Cummings is by no means finished with his work at Whitney Plantation. He plans to have a memorial to the Louisiana slave uprising of 1811 installed on a small island in a pond on the property in the next few months: It will consist of 60 ceramic skulls on stainless steel rods depicting the slaves executed and then beheaded for their part in the revolt. Additional artwork is being brought to the site, he says, and he has people working on an international database for tracking slave ancestors across the Americas.

"We want to tell the facts of slavery, no matter how raw," Cummings said. "People need to know what we really did during that time. It's a great story, but not a pretty one. I'm all in."

Doug Warren can be reached at dwarren003@austin.rr.com.

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Plantation life made painfully real - The Boston Globe

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John Cummings, a New Orleans lawyer and preservationist, has spent 16 years and nearly $8 million of his own money creating Whitney Plantation, which opened in December and is dedicated to telling the story of slavery in southern Louisiana. And Cummings, who is white, didn't do it out of nostalgia for old times not forgotten.