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People began their plantations in the early 17th century. The people that owned these were extremely wealthy and held a lot of power. They needed a lot of help to maintain their plantations. Since the work was hard, they resorted to taking people from Africa against their will. This was the start of slavery on the plantations, which lasted for about 250 years.

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What You Should Know About the History of America’s Plantations

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Behind the beautiful homes and gardens is a dark history.

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Abraham Lincoln was a member of the Republican Party. He was against slavery in all forms. He signed the Emancipation Proclamation to free all slaves. He signed this Proclamation on January 1st, 1863. Abraham Lincoln said "America will never be destroyed from the outside." He was a believer in America.

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This article includes many things about the Quakers.
Simple things such as the society and friends and who they trusted and who they didn't.
The religion that the Quakers believed in was Christianity.
They were very religious and strong about their beliefs.
Many different attributes come with being a Quaker.

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Introduction

Quakers - the Religious Society of Friends

Quakers are members of a group with Christian roots that began in England in the 1650s.

The formal title of the movement is the Society of Friends or the Religious Society of Friends.

There are about 210,000 Quakers across the world.

In Britain there are 17,000 Quakers, and 400 Quaker meetings for worship each week. 9,000 people in Britain regularly take part in Quaker worship without being members of the Religious Society of Friends.

The essence of the Quakers

Quakers believe that there is something of God in everybody and that each human being is of unique worth. This is why Quakers value all people equally, and oppose anything that may harm or threaten them.

Quakers seek religious truth in inner experience, and place great reliance on conscience as the basis of morality.

They emphasise direct experience of God rather than ritual and ceremony. They believe that priests and rituals are an unnecessary obstruction between the believer and God.

Quakers integrate religion and everyday life. They believe God can be found in the middle of everyday life and human relationships, as much as during a meeting for worship.

What Quakers believe

Among key Quaker beliefs are:

God is love

the light of God is in every single person

a person who lets their life be guided by that light will achieve a full relationship with God

everyone can have a direct, personal relationship with God without involving a priest or minister

redemption and the Kingdom of Heaven are to be experienced now, in this world

Quakers want to make this a better world

Quakers work actively to make this a better world. They are particularly concerned with:

human rights, based on their belief in equality of all human beings

social justice

peace

freedom of conscience

environmental issues - Quakers seek to live simply so as to reduce the burden on the world

community life

Holy Books

Quakers do not regard any book as being the actual 'word of God'.

Most Quakers regard the Bible as a very great inspirational book but they don't see it as the only one, and so they read other books that can guide their lives.

Holy Days

Quakers do not celebrate Christian festivals such as Easter and Christmas.

Worship

Quaker communal worship consists of silent waiting, with participants contributing as the spirit moves them.

Are Quakers Christian?

Although outsiders usually regard the movement as a Christian denomination, not all Quakers see themselves as Christians; some regard themselves as members of a universal religion that (for historical reasons) has many Christian elements.

Tolerance is part of the Quaker approach to life, so Quakers are willing to learn from all other faiths and churches.

Where the names come from

One story says that the founder, George Fox, once told a magistrate to tremble (quake) at the name of God and the name 'Quakers' stuck.

Other people suggest that the name derives from the physical shaking that sometimes went with Quaker religious experiences.

The name 'Friends' comes from Jesus' remark "You are my friends if you do what I command you" (John 15:14).

Beliefs

Quaker ideas and beliefs

There is no creed or formal set of beliefs that you have to hold to be a Quaker. This is because:

Quakers think that adopting a creed is taking on belief at second hand - they think that faith should be more personal than that and based on a person's inner conviction and on taking part in a shared search for the truth with other Quakers.

Quakers believe that faith is something that is always developing and not something frozen at a particular moment in history that can be captured in a fixed code of belief.

But it is possible to list many ideas and beliefs that are generally accepted by Quakers.

Distinguishing Quaker ideas

Quakers believe that there is a direct relationship between God and each believer, every human being contains something of God - this is often called "the light of God". So:

Quakers regard all human beings as equal and equally worthy of respect

Quakers accept that all human beings contain goodness and truth

Quakers do not accept value judgements based on race or gender

Quakers welcome diversity

A written list of beliefs is considered inappropriate. Quakers feel people should follow their 'inner light' rather than external rules.

They believe that God grows and changes with his creation and believe that God continues to tell human beings what they should do.

They don't believe in sacraments (either as realities or symbols) or formal liturgies or ceremonies and also refuse to take oaths.

Quakers don't believe in a clergy, they feel that all believers can minister to one another. They emphasise the importance leading your own life well as an example to others (what a person does can be much clearer than what they say). They also practice worship in silence.

They are actively involved in social and political issues and believe in pacifism and non-violence.

Beliefs

Each person has an inner light (part of God's spirit) inside them - so there is a unity between all human beings

Spiritual truth can only be known through direct revelation from God

God continues to "talk" to people today

Conscience gives a guide to conduct

The Bible is not regarded as the only guide for conduct and belief

Doubt and questioning are valuable tools for spiritual growth

All human beings can have a direct experience of God - they don't need priests to help them

There is good and evil inside all human beings, and all human beings can choose between them - everyone has the power to choose good over evil if they really want to

Christ's life demonstrates the full truth of God

Quakers do not agree on what happens after death. Some believe in an afterlife, some don't

Customs

Quakers do not follow a creed, they acknowledge that words are not up to the job of precisely defining belief for a whole group of people.

They believe that individuals should take personal responsibility for their understanding of faith rather than just buying a package and that each individual should try to develop themselves spiritually.

Quakers do not separate religious life and secular life and feel that all life should be 'lived in the spirit'.

They also feel that religious belief must influence a believer's actions and everything that happens in life can inspire religious insights.

Quakers do not have elaborate religious ceremonies and rituals. They regard these as unnecessary; they sometimes call them empty forms. They do not have clergy.

Quakers believe that political and other action to improve this world is vitally important.

Quakers and sacraments

Quakers neither practise baptism nor celebrate the Eucharist.

They don't regard some activities as more sacred than others, nor do they believe that any particular ritual is needed to get in touch with God, so they do not believe in the sacraments practised in mainstream Christian churches.

Instead of using 'holy' rituals, Quakers attempt to carry the sacred into every part of their lives. So, for example, they say that baptism should not be "a single act of initiation but a continuing growth in the Holy Spirit and a commitment which must be continually renewed."

Life and death

Quakers have no collective view on what happens after death. They tend to concentrate on making this world better rather than pondering what happens after leaving it.

Quakers and theology

In the early days Quakers were suspicious of theology... and many Quakers are still not keen on it, believing that experience is a better teacher.

Reasons for disliking theology include:

Theology distracts people from looking for the 'inner light' and responding to it

Theological ideas come from the teachings of churches that had distorted the original Christian teachings

Theological teachings are used to control people

Theology uses such difficult language that it hides God's truth from ordinary people

Theological debate may give people a false idea of their own religious abilities; it would be better to spend time believing and living a good life

Worship

Quaker worship

Introduction

Quaker worship is designed to let God teach and transform the worshippers.

Quakers call worship events meetings for worship rather than services.

In a Quaker meeting for worship a group of people sits in a room in silence for an hour. From time to time someone may speak briefly, but sometimes the entire hour may pass without a word being spoken.

Quaker meetings for worship are open to everyone. Children are specifically welcomed.

No liturgy

Quaker worship is very different to the worship of most Christian churches in that it doesn't follow a set liturgy or code of rules - a service has no structure, and no one leads it.

Quakers do without a liturgy because they believe that worship happens when two or three people come together to worship - nothing more is needed.

This belief comes from Jesus' statement that "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20).

Meeting for worship

Quaker meetings for worship take place in meeting houses, not churches. These are simple buildings or rooms.

A meeting begins when two or more worshipers come together to be in the presence of God.

They usually sit facing each other in a square or a circle. This helps them to be aware that they are a group together for worship, and puts everybody in a place of equal status.

Everyone waits in shared silence until someone is moved by the Spirit (i.e. has a strong religious feeling) to do something as part of their worship.

A person will only speak if they are convinced that they have something that must be shared, and it is rare for a person to speak more than once.

The words spoken are usually brief and may include readings (from the Bible or other books), praying, or speaking from personal experience. Each speaking is followed by a period of silence.

Quakers believe that God speaks through the contributions made at the meeting. Some people say that there is often a feeling that a divine presence has settled over the group.

The words should come from the soul - from the inner light - rather than the mind. Quakers know that even if the words they feel moved to speak have no particular meaning for themselves, they may carry a message from God to other people.

There may be no outward response to the contribution from other people, but if there is it will be something that builds positively on the previous contribution. Discussion and argument are not part of the meeting.

The meeting ends when the elders shake hands.

Quakers and silence

The silence in a meeting for worship isn't something that happens between the actual worship - the silence itself is part of the worship; it provides a space for people to separate themselves from the pressures and events of daily life and to get closer to God and each other.

The people who are present try to create an internal silence - a silence inside their head. They do this by stopping everyday thoughts and anxieties.

Quakers believe that if they wait silently for God in this way there will be times when God will speak directly to them.

A Quaker service is not a time of individual meditation, although the description above may make it sound like that.

It is important that the waiting in silence and the listening are done as a group. The people taking part are trying to become something more than just a collection of individuals; they want to become aware of being part of a 'we', rather than just a solitary 'I'.

Pastoral or programmed worship

Some Quakers have adopted many of the practices of mainstream churches, and have pastors and use hymns in their worship. Their services are usually like Methodist or Baptist services.

There is a Quaker hymn book, called Worship in Song, A Quaker Hymnal.

History

Quaker history

Like many Christian groups, Quakers never intended to form a new denomination. Their founder, George Fox, was trying to take belief and believers back to the original and pure form of Christianity.

Fox was born in July 1624 in Leicestershire, England, and died in 1691, by which time his movement had 50,000 followers.

As Fox grew up he was puzzled by the inconsistency between what Christians said they believed and the way they behaved. He became a religious activist at the age of 19, and was imprisoned eight times for preaching views that annoyed the religious and political establishment of his time.

Fox and social issues

Fox got into political trouble because of his idea that there was something "of God in every person".

This was a revolutionary attack on all discrimination by social class, wealth, race and gender and it had worrying implications for the social structure of his time.

The political establishment did not take this lying down. Quaker refusal to take oaths and to take off their hats before a magistrate, and their insistence on holding banned religious meetings in public, led to 6,000 Quakers being imprisoned between 1662 and 1670.

Fox and religious issues

Fox's aim was to inspire people to hear and obey the voice of God and become a community "renewed up again in God's image" by living the principles of their faith.

Fox believed that everyone should try to encounter God directly and to experience the Kingdom of Heaven as a present, living reality. He objected to the hierarchical structure and the rituals of the churches of his time, and rejected the idea that the Bible was always right.

But Fox went even further. He argued that God himself did not want churches. Churches were either unnecessary to get to God, or an obstruction (Fox often referred to churches unkindly as "steeple-houses"). Since believers should have a direct relationship with God, no one (priests, for example) and nothing (like sacraments) should come in between.

Not surprisingly, these views infuriated the mainstream churches, and Quakers were persecuted in Britain on a large scale until 1689.

USA

Quaker missionaries arrived in the USA in 1656. They were persecuted at first, and four were executed.

However the movement appealed to many Americans, and it grew in strength, most famously in Pennsylvania which was founded in 1681 by William Penn as a community based on the principles of pacifism and religious tolerance.

Quakers and slavery

The origins of Christian abolitionism can be traced to the late 17th Century and the Quakers. Several of their founders, including George Fox and Benjamin Lay, encouraged fellow congregants to stop owning slaves.

By 1696, Quakers in Pennsylvania officially declared their opposition to the importation of enslaved Africans into North America. Along with the Anglican Granville Sharp, Quakers established the first recognised anti-slavery movement in Britain in 1787.

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Famous Quakers

George Fox (1624-1691) - founder of Quakerism

William Penn (1621-1670) - friend of George Fox, founder of Pennsylvania

John Woolman (1720-1772) - an American Quaker involved in the abolition of slavery

John Dalton (1766-1844) - British scientist who invented the atomic theory of matter

Edward Pease (1767-1858) - first Quaker member of Parliament

Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845) - British prison reformer

John Bright (1811-1889) - British politician

Joseph Rowntree (1837-1925) - Chocolate manufacturer

George Cadbury (1839-1922) - Chocolate manufacturer

Arthur Eddington (1882-1944) - physicist

Paul Eddington (1927-1995) - actor

James Dean (1931-1955) - actor

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (born 1943) - astronomer, discoverer of pulsars

Bonnie Raitt (born 1949) - popular musician

Tom Robinson (born 1950) - popular musician

Ethics

Quaker ethics

Personal integrity

Quakers try to live up to high standards of honesty, as set out in this series of questions:

Work and business

Quakers avoid working for companies that manufacture weapons or other harmful products (nor will they invest in such companies). They prefer to choose work that has positive benefits for the community.

They maintain strict integrity in business transactions and in workplace dealings with individuals.

Gender issues

Quakers have always treated men and women as equals, and were pioneers in the movement for female equality.

Animal rights

Quakers oppose blood sports, and do not approve of businesses that exploit animals, such as circuses or zoos, or the fur trade.

They object to experiments on animals for trivial purposes such as cosmetics, and are divided as to whether animal experimentation should be allowed for medical research.

Gambling

Quakers do not gamble.

Alcohol and tobacco

Quakers are not forbidden from using alcohol or tobacco (although these substances are banned from Quaker Meeting Houses), but most Quakers avoid them, or consume them moderately.

Many Quakers took an active role in the Temperance Movement of Victorian times.

Sex

Quakers are non-judgemental about sex, which they see as a gift of God. Their attention is focused on the way in which it is used in human relationships.

Homosexuality

The same thinking applies to the Quaker attitude to homosexuality.

Abortion

Quakers don't have a united view on abortion but regard it as a matter of individual conscience. Philosophically there is no Quaker doctrine of when a person becomes a person.

The movement has difficulty reconciling the principle of non-violence, which could argue against abortion, and the wish that women should be able to play a full part in society, which might sometimes justify abortion.

Contraception

Quakers don't have a collective view on the rightness or wrongness of contraception. Many Quakers do use artificial methods of birth control.

Euthanasia

Quakers don't have a united view on euthanasia. Some Quakers make 'living wills', requesting that if they become ill to the point of being incapable of living without artificial life support systems or inappropriate medical intervention, they be allowed to die naturally and with dignity.

Justice, politics and society

Quakers are active in politics and in working for justice in the world.

This comes partly from their belief that there is something of God in every human being, and that they should respect the worth and dignity of each person, and partly from following Christ's own example of social activism.

Quakers have played a part in:

criminal law reform

prison reform - particularly through the work of Elizabeth Fry (1780-1845)

reducing poverty

ending the slave trade

ending the opium trade

women's rights

anti-racism

human rights

and many other campaigns. Quakers are active in many charities.

Oaths

Quakers will not swear oaths in court (or elsewhere) but will only affirm.

Pacifism and violence

Quakers believe that war and conflict are against God's wishes and so they are dedicated to pacifism and non-violence. And from a practical point of view they think that force nearly always creates more problems than it solves.

Many conscientious objectors (those who refuse to join the armed forces) are Quakers, but Quaker pacifism is not simply the refusal to fight: it includes working actively to bring about or preserve peace, by removing the causes of conflict.

Quakers, like other pacifists, are sometimes accused of being willing to give in to evil regimes rather than fight against them. They disagree, and say that they fight by non-violent means.

Quakers are not just opposed to war, but to all forms of violence. George Fox was personally opposed to the use of violence. He refused to defend himself when he was attacked and often, when the violence was over, had kind words or actions for his attackers.

Environment

Quakers believe that human beings are stewards of the earth, and should care for it to ensure that each generation passes on to the next generation a world as good as or better than it received.

Quakers think that the environmental crisis is a spiritual and religious crisis as well as a practical one.

Quakers say that environmental issues are also a matter of social justice: they acknowledge that those living in Britain or the USA are largely insulated from the effects of environmental problems and that such issues have a much more serious effect on the world's poor.

Richard J Foster set down some principles that Quakers can follow to live simple lives:

Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status

Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you

Develop a habit of giving things away - de-accumulate

Refuse to be propagandised by the custodians of modern gadgetry

Learn to enjoy things without owning them

Develop a deeper appreciation for the creation

Look with a healthy scepticism at all 'buy now, pay later' schemes

Obey Jesus' injunction about plain, honest speech

Reject anything that will breed the oppression of others

Shun whatever would distract you from your main goal

Marriage

Quaker marriage

Quakers strongly believe in the sanctity of marriage but also recognise the value of non-marital relationships and the single life.

Their weddings are very informal compared to those from other traditions and there is no priest or minister to lead the couple as they make their vows.

When a Quaker couple decide to marry, they make a commitment to each other in the presence of God, their family and friends.

Quakers believe that no one but God can join a couple in matrimony. They see marriage as more than a legal contract - it is a religious commitment.

The couple promise to be loving companions and take each other as lifelong partners in a spirit of freedom and equality.

Quaker weddings

Quaker weddings do not have to take place in registered buildings but they must be held indoors.

Most couples will book their local Quaker meeting house although some may choose to hold their wedding at home or another alternative venue.

A Quaker marriage is a community celebration and not just a ceremony for the couple. Therefore the style of worship at the wedding service must be acceptable to the wider community.

The wedding ceremony is usually held within a simple meeting for worship. It has no set order of service or sermon.

In most cases, the finer details of the ceremony are decided through discussion with the marriage registering officers and community elders.

A couple may decide to include readings and even a hymn. But music is, on the whole, rare.

If both parties are Quakers or regularly attend monthly meetings, they may marry in a Quaker marriage ceremony.

Couples who are registered as 'attenders' but not yet members of the Religious Society of Friends would be expected to have attended meetings for a number of months before making an application for marriage.

Where one member of the couple is not a Quaker, or divorced, two adult members of the Society must give written permission before the marriage can take place.

Marriage preparation

The first step in the official process is a meeting for clearness. (Clearness in this context means helping the couple affirm their decision to marry.)

The meeting gives them the chance to discuss their relationship with other members of the community.

At least six weeks before the wedding date, the couple must make an application to the registering officer of the monthly meeting where the marriage ceremony is due to be held.

The monthly meeting must approve the application before the registering officer, who is recognised by law, makes arrangements for the public notices and other legal requirements.

The monthly meeting then holds a Meeting for Worship for the Solemnisation of Marriage to confirm that the wedding can go ahead.

Quaker marriages can be held at any time of day. Public notice of the wedding is posted on the door of the venue a week before the wedding.

The wedding day

Guests are greeted by a door keeper when they arrive for the marriage ceremony.

The bride is not usually given away by her father. Neither is it customary to have a best man or bridesmaids.

The bride and groom will normally enter the meeting room together with friends and then quietly take their seats.

Sometimes they may come in when everyone else is seated. In the past, guests used to stand as the couple entered but these days this rarely happens.

The couple will sit next to a table with the Quaker wedding certificate and a pen.

Wedding attire

Quaker worship and ceremonies are relaxed so the bride, groom and their guests will usually dress smartly but informally.

Some brides may choose to wear white but, in most cases, the outfit is kept simple.

Guests need to be careful to strike the right balance too.

Men, for example, may wear a jacket or tie, but will often dress more informally. Women may choose a skirt or other reasonably smart clothes.

The ceremony

Like other Quaker meetings, the wedding service is mostly held in silence but anyone who feels moved by the Spirit can speak or pray.

Most ceremonies will follow the basic structure below:

A volunteer, usually a Quaker elder, will stand to explain how the service will proceed.

After an initial period of silence of about 10 to 15 minutes, the couple will rise and exchange their vows. The vows are handed down from the Quaker tradition and can be modified.

Holding hands, the couple take it in turns to make declarations based on the following: "Friends, I take this my friend...to be my wife/husband, promising divine assistance to be unto her/him a loving and faithful husband/wife so long as we both on earth shall live." It does not matter which order the bride and groom speak.

The Registering Officer calls upon the couple to sign the Quaker Marriage Certificate which records their vows. Two witnesses also sign.

The Registering Officer reads the certificate aloud.

There is a further period of silence.

The meeting is terminated by two elders who shake hands, inviting the rest of the congregation to do the same.

Members of the congregation sign the Quaker Marriage Certificate as a witness to both their presence and support for the marriage. The certificate, in the form of a scroll or a book, has no legal standing but it reminds the couple of their friends' happiness and hopes for the success of their marriage.

After the meeting the couple and the two witnesses sign the civil register. Rings are often exchanged at this point.

Divorce and remarriage

Divorced people may be allowed to remarry at the discretion of the members of the monthly meeting.

Quakers believe that those who are divorced need to be given the chance of a new start.

Blessings for same-sex couples

The Quakers have welcomed same-sex unions for more than two decades, allowing local groups to celebrate same-sex commitments through special acts of worship.

In July 2009, at the Britain Yearly Meeting, Quakers agreed to carry out same-sex marriages on the same basis as marriages for opposite-sex couples.

They will also formally ask the government to change the law to allow gay people to marry.

Structure and clergy

Structure of the Quaker movement

The Quakers are organised through a series of meetings. While there are actual meetings the word is used here to refer to the groups of people who meet to look after particular functions. The meetings are named after the frequency with which a group meets.

The structure is organised at local level (Preparative Meetings), smaller and larger district levels (Monthly and General Meetings) and national level (Yearly Meeting).

Most local Quaker communities hold monthly business meetings.

The Britain Yearly Meeting is the body that represents the interests of the thirty thousand Quakers in the Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain.

There is no organisation that has worldwide authority over the movement.

Meetings for business

Individual Quaker Meetings carry out matters of business and administration at "Meetings for Worship with a Concern for Business". The whole of such a meeting, even the most nit-pickingly detailed section, is regarded as worship.

These meetings begin with silence. When the Clerk judges the time is right, he or she summarises the agenda before the meeting, provides any necessary background information, and lays the first item before the meeting.

People stand up to show they wish to speak, and are called by the Clerk. The traditional formula for raising an issue is to begin "I have a Concern..." When everything is said the meeting agrees a 'minute' (a paragraph or two) setting out the decision.

The decision is not based on a majority or a consensus, but on the "sense of the meeting". Once a minute has been drafted and read out members can suggest modifications.

Meetings try not to take decisions by a majority vote, or even by reaching a consensus; they wait until "the right way will open and we shall be led into unity."

The Clerk records the decisions and helps those taking part discern the will of God in the meeting, but he/she does not chair or lead the meeting.

Clergy

Quakers don't have any clergy.

Some members may be appointed as elders because a meeting recognises that they have the ability to serve in a particular way. Appointment as an elder doesn't mean that the person is in any way superior to anyone else. Such appointments are for three years and can be renewed.

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Quakers are members of a group with Christian roots that began in England in the 1650s. The formal title of the movement is the Society of Friends or the Religious Society of Friends. There are about 210,000 Quakers across the world. In Britain there are 17,000 Quakers, and 400 Quaker meetings for worship each week.

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This video talks about the side effects that may come along with walking for 24 hours. The effects may include some pretty weird things. The most important thing is to exercise before the journey. The effects of not properly preparing include: hallucination, nausea, muscle tears, and even fever. The amount of physical physique anyone on the underground railroad must have had is incredible.

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What Would Walking For 24 Hours Do To Your Body?

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Cotton, rice, sugar, indigo, and tobacco were most commonly grown on plantations. These are cash crops, which means that these are sold to make a profit and not for personal uses. These different plantations were established between the 1600's and 1800's. Tobacco plantations were the first kind to be established. These main 5 types of plantations were very profitable and the owners became very rich off of them.

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The geography of the Southern Colonies featured fertile soil, hilly coastal plains, forests, long rivers and swamp areas

Climate: Mild winters and hot, humid summers made it possible to grow crops throughout the year and was ideally suited for plantations

The Southern Colonies concentrated on developing plantations that eventually grew cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar cane and indigo (a purple dye)

Slave Trade starting in Africa

Tobacco Plantations (established in the 1600's)

Rice Plantations (established in the 1700's)

Indigo Plantations (established in the 1700's)

Cotton Plantations (established in the 1800's)

Sugar Plantations (established in the 1800's)

Commodity Value

Tobacco

Flour
Rice
Fish

Wheat
Indigo
Corn

Pine Boards

Staves and Headings

Horses

£766,000

£410,000
£312,000
£154,000

£115,000
£113,000
£83,000

£70,000

£65,000

£60,000

Cotton is not included in the above chart because cotton was not grown on Southern plantations until 1793 when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin which made the production of cotton more profitable. Cane sugar was first imported to the 13 colonies from British West Indies. However, after the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, slave plantation owners also began growing sugar cane in addition to indigo on their plantations. Refer to and Trade in the Colonies for additional information about each of the colonies. The articles on Colonialism Mercantilism are also highly relevant to the subject of plantations. Triangular Trade,

Population Growth of Europeans and Africans
The population of the 13 colonies (European and African) increased dramatically in a relatively short number of years as can be seen by the following population chart. The number of slaves in the colonial period increased from 10,000 in the 1600's to 400,000 in the 1700's.

Year American
Population

1630

1640

1650

1660

1670

1680

1690

1700

1710

1720

1730

1740

1750

1760
1770

4,646

21,634

50,368

75,058

111,935

151,507

210,372

250,888

331,711

466,185

629,445

905,563

1,170,760

1,593,625
2,148,076

The Hierarchy on the Plantations
The hierarchy of the plantations was on three levels. The Plantation owner (the planter), the Overseer and the slaves. The owners of the plantations were usually rich, refined gentlemen from England. The owners of the plantations relied heavily on overseers to run their plantations. Overseers were men hired by the owners to manage and direct the work of slaves. The owners lived in colonial mansions, the overseers in small houses and the slave lived in very basic wooden cabins in the slave quarters.

Tobacco was the first plantation crop raised by the Southern colonies. The tobacco industry produced tobacco which was originally used for pipes and snuff. The first Southern plantations were worked by Tobacco Plantations
Indentured servants the massive sizes of the plantations needed more and more labor. Work on the tobacco plantations required slaves. The process of growing tobacco required all year attention. Seeds were first grown in flats and then the seedlings were planted by laborious hoeing in the fields. Tobacco was harvested in the late summer and then had to be dried "cured" in a tobacco house for six weeks. The tobacco leaves were then stripped from the stems and packed into hogsheads (round, wooden casks or barrels) used to hold tobacco for shipment. Tobacco became the biggest of all the trade exports during the Colonial period and tobacco plantations were highly profitable.

African slaves working on a Southern tobacco plantation in 1670 during Colonial Times

Rice Plantations
Rice was a particularly difficult crop to cultivate but the owners of the slave plantations in the Southern colonies mastered its culture by following the example of rice cultivation in Africa with information provided by their African slaves. The English and European colonists during the Colonial period had no practical experience of rice crops and the production of rice required its workers on the rice plantations to possess knowledge of the land and how to cultivate. The slaves provided sufficient labor force to produce the demanding crop on the rice plantations. In Delaware alone swampland covered over 30,000 acres. The swampland first had to be cleared. The construction of rice fields to create the rice plantations was an arduous task.

Dirt walls, called 'banks', had to be constructed to keep salt water out

Ditches and gates had to be built to move fresh water in

50 acres of rice fields sometimes required 5,000 feet of ditches

Sowing the rice seedlings was generally undertaken by female slaves on the rice plantations who trampled the seeds into the swampy soil with their bare feet. The rice fields were flooded at certain times of the year, and then drained back out. The slaves had to act as scarecrows to keep the birds away from the rice crops. The rice was flailed then harvested and then the rice was removed from the hulls in a winnowing basket. The rice was then polished before being packed into barrels and shipped for export. By the 1690's and rice became the mainstay of the colonies of Georgia and South Carolina. The cultivation of highly lucrative rice quickly spread to all of the slave plantations in the Southern colonies and rice became one of the top ten trade exports to England during the Colonial period of American history.

A rice plantation in Carolina

Indigo Plantations
Indigo was the highly prized source of blue dye. Indigo was a non-edible plant that was grown on the slave plantations in the Colonial period. Indigo was not grown on colonial plantations until an enterprising woman called Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793) developed the indigo plants as an additional cash crop for the Southern slave plantations. During the 1720s the French government had supplied the French colonists and settlers in Louisiana with indigo plant seeds. The indigo crop was successfully cultivated in Louisiana, and factories were built for the manufacture of dye.
Slaves working on an Indigo Plantation
When the indigo plants were in bloom, they were cut and put in large tubs to soak. There they fermented until it was time to drain the liquid and complete the process. Different blue shaded dyes were obtained from the leaves of the indigo plant from ranging from bright blue to violet and purple. A variant of the indigo plant is native to South Carolina and Georgia. The English encouraged the American colonists to produce indigo as it was highly dependent on Spain and France for this dye, so the indigo plantations flourished. The cultivation and processing of the indigo dye produced one-third the total value of the exports from the Southern slave plantations before the Revolutionary War.

Cotton Plantations
Cotton plants prosper in dry, hot sunny climates and rich soils. A cotton plant formed bolls containing seeds with many long hairy fibers. The cotton fibers need to be separated from the seeds. This process was so time consuming, and therefore expensive, that cotton was not grown until 1793 when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. The cotton gin was a machine that separated the cotton fibers from the seed ten times faster that the slaves could do by hand. The cotton industry and the number of cotton plantations boomed in the Southern colonies with the introduction of the cotton gin. Growing cotton as a crop required intensive labor - the existing slave plantations of the south increased the number of slaves to undertake the hard, back breaking work. Cotton plants had to be tended, weeds had to be chopped out. Picking took a few months during which time the cotton was put through the cotton gins, then pressed and finally baled before being shipped for market and export. Large-scale cultivation of cotton using slave labor was extremely profitable for the owners of the cotton plantations in the Colonial period of American history.

Sugar Plantations
Cane sugar was first imported to the 13 Southern colonies from the West Indies. However, after the US purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, the plantation owners followed the French lead and also began growing sugar cane on their plantations. The first years of sugar cane harvesting in Louisiana produced 300,000 tons of sugar per year so it was a profitable crop for the slave plantations of the southern colonies. Sugarcane is a tropical, grass that forms shoots at the base producing multiple stems. Sugarcane usually grows three to four meters high and is about five centimetres in diameter. The sugar cane stems grow into cane stalk from which the sugar is extracted. Another product of sugar cane is molasses were was used to produce rum - a major trade export of the Northern colonies.
Slaves cutting Sugar Cane
Cane sugar was grown on the sugar plantations. Sugar is best grown on relatively flat, fertile land. The early sugar plantations had an extensive use of slaves because sugar was considered as a cash crop exhibiting economies of scale in its cultivation. Sugar was most efficiently grown on the existing large slave plantations of the South. The construction of sugar cane fields to create the sugar plantations was an arduous task.

Rows of furrows about 1ft wide were dug to plant the sugar canes

Seeds were planted by hand at one-yard intervals

Before canes are harvested the sugar fields were burnt to remove leaves and weeds

During sugar harvesting the cane was cut at the lower stem, leaving the rest to produce more crops

Sugar cane crops could be cut and produced up to 4 times without having to be replanted

The slaves on the sugar plantations, including men, women, and children, had to endure the backbreaking work of planting rows upon rows of sugar cane seeds. Slaves in the sugar plantations were expected to plant between 5,000 - 8,000 seeds in order to produce one acre of sugar.

Plantations

Interesting Facts and information the Plantations of Colonial America

Slave Plantations

Fast Facts and info about Plantations in the Southern colonies

The Plantations is great resource for kids

Social Studies Homework help for kids on Plantations

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Check out this site for facts about the Slave Plantations in Colonial America. The Slave Plantations of the Southern Colonies. Fast facts about tobacco, sugar, rice, indigo and cotton Plantations.

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Abraham Lincoln's beliefs are still not known for sure but people are pretty sure that this is what he believed. He was never part of a church but he frequently read the Bible. He said in his final year "Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man." Most people think he was a believer in God. Many Northern preachers believed this was a divine retribution for the National sin of Slavery.

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Unlike that of recent American presidents, so eager to testify about their "come to Jesus" experiences, the exact nature of Abraham Lincoln's religious faith is hard to pin down.

In early campaigns for Congress, opponents were able to tar him as a "scoffer" of religion. But Lincoln emphatically denied the charge, saying he couldn't vote for an enemy of religion. Lincoln is the only U.S. president who never joined a church, but he read the Bible frequently, and he told a friend in the year before his death: "Take all of this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man."

And though Lincoln rejected the God's-on-our-side certainty of Northern abolitionist preachers, he eventually came to see the Civil War as divine retribution for the national sin of slavery. "Lincoln is clearly a believer in God and providence, yet it's a more mysterious God than his contemporaries worshiped," says Mark Noll, a history professor at the University of Notre Dame.

Beyond his reticence about personal matters and his obvious discomfort with organized religion, Lincoln's faith life eludes easy description because it changed dramatically during the White House years. If Lincoln arrived in Washington as an Enlightenment deist who, like the Founding Fathers, perceived a distant creator who left his creation to its own devices, the crucible of the Civil War made him believe in a justice-seeking God who intervened in history, even if his intentions were difficult to read.

"Because he never became a convert or joined a church, some people say he never changed," says Allen Guelzo, author of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President. "But you can't read about how Lincoln talks about God in speeches and documents after 1862 and say he's an infidel. Something had changed."

For Lincoln, growing up on the northern edge of the Bible Belt, the Good Book was one of the few volumes in the family collection. Lincoln read it closely enough to sprinkle conversations with biblical allusions. But he rejected his parent's Baptist faith as too emotional and chafed at the noisy denominational battles that had Methodists, Baptists, Universalists, and others denouncing one another on Sundays. Lincoln preferred the Enlightenment-fueled rationality of writers like Thomas Paine. Says Guelzo: "As a young man, Lincoln has a reputation as a village atheist."

His failure to clinch the Whig nomination for Congress in 1843 taught Lincoln that that reputation had political consequences, according to biographer Richard Carwardine. "[I]t was everywhere contended that no Christian ought to go for me, because I belonged to no church," Lincoln remarked after his loss. His secular reputation "levied a tax of considerable per cent upon my strength throughout the religious community."

Faith-based attacks against Lincoln returned in 1846, when he faced Methodist preacher Peter Cartwright in a race for Congress in Illinois. Lincoln denied claims that he looked down on religion but pointedly refused to defend his personal piety: "I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion." This time, he prevailed.

Fifteen years later, in his first presidential inaugural address, Lincoln struck an overtly religious tone. "Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land," Lincoln said in acknowledging the cracks that had begun emerging between North and South, "are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty."

What had changed? Lincoln had started attending Presbyterian services in 1850, following the death of his 4-year-old son, Edward. And once elected to the White House, Lincoln kept up his churchgoing ways, finding solace in what scholars call Old School Presbyterianism: a conservative, God's-in-charge brand of Christianity that rejected the political activism-including the abolitionist stance-of the new revivalism.

The onset of the Civil War and its spiraling death toll, along with the death of a second son, Willie, in 1862, deepened Lincoln's faith, even as that faith continued to defy categorization. (Lincoln declined to formally join the Presbyterian Church, even after his wife did.) "The failure of the North to thwart the South had shaken his self-confidence," says Guelzo. "The only confidence he could find was in a providential, interventionist God who had something up his sleeve, and that something was Emancipation."

Indeed, when he announced his decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet on the heels of the much-needed Union victory at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln said he was honoring a promise he made to God in exchange for a battlefield win. "God had decided this question in favor of the slaves," Lincoln told them, according to one account. A stunned cabinet member asked the ever rational Lincoln to repeat himself.

As the casualties on both sides mounted, Lincoln privately hashed his Civil War theology out on paper. In an undated writing thought to be from 1862 and never meant for publication, Lincoln describes a God whom neither abolitionists nor Confederates could claim as their own. "I am almost ready to say this is probably true-that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet," Lincoln wrote, in a piece his secretary later titled "Meditation on the Divine Will." " . . . He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds."

Though he attended a Christian church, Lincoln's God hewed closer to the Old Testament's ruler of nations. "His concept was that God calls nations to repentance just as he calls man and woman to repentance," says Joe Wheeler, author of Abraham Lincoln, a Man of Faith and Courage.

Some historians believe the undated "Meditation on the Divine Will" provided the basis for Lincoln's second inaugural address, the most overtly religious inauguration speech in American history. Fewer than 800 words long, the speech managed 14 mentions of God, four biblical allusions, and three invocations of prayer. "I read the previous 18 inaugurations and was surprised that they all mentioned God in the last paragraph, as a kind of add-on," says Ron White, author of the new A. Lincoln: A Biography. "Lincoln's mentions are not ornamental. They're part and parcel of the very strength of his argument."

That argument was that the Civil War was America's divine punishment. "If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which . . . He now wills to remove," Lincoln told a war-weary nation, "and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him?"

Since his assassination the following month, Christian believers and secular freethinkers have tried to claim him as one of their own. But Lincoln was neither. "He was theological but not religious," says White. Indeed, Lincoln was the first to admit to the uncertainty that shadowed his views of God. Today, politicians see such public doubt as political suicide; President Obama and every member of Congress identify themselves as members of a specific religious tradition.

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Unlike that of recent American presidents, so eager to testify about their "come to Jesus" experiences, the exact nature of Abraham Lincoln's religious faith is hard to pin down. In early campaigns for Congress, opponents were able to tar him as a "scoffer" of religion.

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Abraham Lincoln ended slavery in the United States of America. Abraham Lincoln hated the idea of owning another person. It went against God's Word, he stated as a lawyer from Nebraska. He didn't actually believe that the government could end slavery. Although he ended slavery on January 1st, 1863, by signing the Emancipation Proclamation.

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On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that as of January 1, 1863, all enslaved people in the states currently engaged in rebellion against the Union "shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."

Lincoln didn't actually free any of the approximately 4 million men, women and children held in slavery in the United States when he signed the formal Emancipation Proclamation the following January. The document applied only to enslaved people in the Confederacy, and not to those in the border states that remained loyal to the Union.

But although it was presented chiefly as a military measure, the proclamation marked a crucial shift in Lincoln's views on slavery. Emancipation would redefine the Civil War, turning it from a struggle to preserve the Union to one focused on ending slavery, and set a decisive course for how the nation would be reshaped after that historic conflict.
READ MORE: Slavery in America

Lincoln's Developing Views on Slavery

Sectional tensions over slavery in the United States had been building for decades by 1854, when Congress' passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act opened territory that had previously been closed to slavery according to the Missouri Compromise. Opposition to the act led to the formation of the Republican Party in 1854 and revived the failing political career of an Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln, who rose from obscurity to national prominence and claimed the Republican nomination for president in 1860.

Lincoln personally hated slavery, and considered it immoral. "If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that 'all men are created equal;' and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another," he said in a now-famous speech in Peoria, Illinois, in 1854. But Lincoln didn't believe the Constitution gave the federal government the power to abolish it in the states where it already existed, only to prevent its establishment to new western territories that would eventually become states. In his first inaugural address in early 1861, he declared that he had "no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists." By that time, however, seven Southern states had already seceded from the Union, forming the Confederate States of America and setting the stage for the Civil War.
READ MORE: 5 Things You May Not Know About Abraham Lincoln, Slavery and Emancipation
First Years of the Civil War

At the outset of that conflict, Lincoln insisted that the war was not about freeing enslaved people in the South but about preserving the Union. Four border slave states (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri) remained on the Union side, and many others in the North also opposed abolition. When one of his generals, John C. Frémont, put Missouri under martial law, declaring that Confederate sympathizers would have their property seized, and their enslaved people would be freed (the first emancipation proclamation of the war), Lincoln directed him to reverse that policy, and later removed him from command.

But hundreds of enslaved men, women and children were fleeing to Union-controlled areas in the South, such as Fortress Monroe in Virginia, where Gen. Benjamin F. Butler had declared them "contraband" of war, defying the Fugitive Slave Law mandating their return to their owners. Abolitionists argued that freeing enslaved people in the South would help the Union win the war, as enslaved labor was vital to the Confederate war effort.

In July 1862, Congress passed the Militia Act, which allowed Black men to serve in the U.S. armed forces as laborers, and the Confiscation Act, which mandated that enslaved people seized from Confederate supporters would be declared forever free. Lincoln also tried to get the border states to agree to gradual emancipation, including compensation to enslavers, with little success. When abolitionists criticized him for not coming out with a stronger emancipation policy, Lincoln replied that he valued saving the Union over all else.

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or to destroy slavery," he wrote in an editorial published in the Daily National Intelligencer in August 1862. "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."

From Preliminary to Formal Emancipation Proclamation

Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

At the same time however, Lincoln's cabinet was mulling over the document that would become the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln had written a draft in late July, and while some of his advisers supported it, others were anxious. William H. Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state, urged the president to wait to announce emancipation until the Union won a significant victory on the battlefield, and Lincoln took his advice.

On September 17, 1862, Union troops halted the advance of Confederate forces led by Gen. Robert E. Lee near Sharpsburg, Maryland, in the Battle of Antietam. Days later, Lincoln went public with the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which called on all Confederate states to rejoin the Union within 100 days-by January 1, 1863-or their slaves would be declared "thenceforward, and forever free."

On January 1, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which included nothing about gradual emancipation, compensation for enslavers or Black emigration and colonization, a policy Lincoln had supported in the past. Lincoln justified emancipation as a wartime measure, and was careful to apply it only to the Confederate states currently in rebellion. Exempt from the proclamation were the four border slave states and all or parts of three Confederate states controlled by the Union Army.

Impact of the Emancipation Proclamation

As Lincoln's decree applied only to territory outside the realm of his control, the Emancipation Proclamation had little actual effect on freeing any of the nation's enslaved people. But its symbolic power was enormous, as it announced freedom for enslaved people as one of the North's war aims, alongside preserving the Union itself. It also had practical effects: Nations like Britain and France, which had previously considered supporting the Confederacy to expand their power and influence, backed off due to their steadfast opposition to slavery. Black Americans were permitted to serve in the Union Army for the first time, and nearly 200,000 would do so by the end of the war.

Finally, the Emancipation Proclamation paved the way for the permanent abolition of slavery in the United States. As Lincoln and his allies in Congress realized emancipation would have no constitutional basis after the war ended, they soon began working to enact a Constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. By the end of January 1865, both houses of Congress had passed the 13th Amendment, and it was ratified that December.

"It is my greatest and most enduring contribution to the history of the war," Lincoln said of emancipation in February 1865, two months before his assassination. "It is, in fact, the central act of my administration, and the great event of the 19th century."
READ MORE: How the Black Codes Limited African American Progress After the Civil War
Sources

The Emancipation Proclamation, National Archives

10 Facts: The Emancipation Proclamation, American Battlefield Trust

Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010)

Allen C. Guelzo, "Emancipation and the Quest for Freedom." National Park Service.

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Issued after the Union victory at Antietam on September 22, 1862, the Emancipation Proclamation carried moral and strategic implications for the ongoing Civil War. While it did not free a single enslaved person, it was an important turning point in the war, transforming the fight to preserve the nation into a battle for human freedom.

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Plantations usually ranged from 500 to 1000 acres. There were usually 5000 plants grown on each plantation. The plantations had fertile soil. The also had forests, rivers, and swamps nearby. The summers were humid and the winters were mild, which allowed them to grow crops all year round.

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The geography of the Southern Colonies featured fertile soil, hilly coastal plains, forests, long rivers and swamp areas

Climate: Mild winters and hot, humid summers made it possible to grow crops throughout the year and was ideally suited for plantations

The Southern Colonies concentrated on developing plantations that eventually grew cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar cane and indigo (a purple dye)

Slave Trade starting in Africa

Tobacco Plantations (established in the 1600's)

Rice Plantations (established in the 1700's)

Indigo Plantations (established in the 1700's)

Cotton Plantations (established in the 1800's)

Sugar Plantations (established in the 1800's)

Commodity Value

Tobacco

Flour
Rice
Fish

Wheat
Indigo
Corn

Pine Boards

Staves and Headings

Horses

£766,000

£410,000
£312,000
£154,000

£115,000
£113,000
£83,000

£70,000

£65,000

£60,000

Cotton is not included in the above chart because cotton was not grown on Southern plantations until 1793 when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin which made the production of cotton more profitable. Cane sugar was first imported to the 13 colonies from British West Indies. However, after the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, slave plantation owners also began growing sugar cane in addition to indigo on their plantations. Refer to and Trade in the Colonies for additional information about each of the colonies. The articles on Colonialism Mercantilism are also highly relevant to the subject of plantations. Triangular Trade,

Population Growth of Europeans and Africans
The population of the 13 colonies (European and African) increased dramatically in a relatively short number of years as can be seen by the following population chart. The number of slaves in the colonial period increased from 10,000 in the 1600's to 400,000 in the 1700's.

Year American
Population

1630

1640

1650

1660

1670

1680

1690

1700

1710

1720

1730

1740

1750

1760
1770

4,646

21,634

50,368

75,058

111,935

151,507

210,372

250,888

331,711

466,185

629,445

905,563

1,170,760

1,593,625
2,148,076

The Hierarchy on the Plantations
The hierarchy of the plantations was on three levels. The Plantation owner (the planter), the Overseer and the slaves. The owners of the plantations were usually rich, refined gentlemen from England. The owners of the plantations relied heavily on overseers to run their plantations. Overseers were men hired by the owners to manage and direct the work of slaves. The owners lived in colonial mansions, the overseers in small houses and the slave lived in very basic wooden cabins in the slave quarters.

Tobacco was the first plantation crop raised by the Southern colonies. The tobacco industry produced tobacco which was originally used for pipes and snuff. The first Southern plantations were worked by Tobacco Plantations
Indentured servants the massive sizes of the plantations needed more and more labor. Work on the tobacco plantations required slaves. The process of growing tobacco required all year attention. Seeds were first grown in flats and then the seedlings were planted by laborious hoeing in the fields. Tobacco was harvested in the late summer and then had to be dried "cured" in a tobacco house for six weeks. The tobacco leaves were then stripped from the stems and packed into hogsheads (round, wooden casks or barrels) used to hold tobacco for shipment. Tobacco became the biggest of all the trade exports during the Colonial period and tobacco plantations were highly profitable.

African slaves working on a Southern tobacco plantation in 1670 during Colonial Times

Rice Plantations
Rice was a particularly difficult crop to cultivate but the owners of the slave plantations in the Southern colonies mastered its culture by following the example of rice cultivation in Africa with information provided by their African slaves. The English and European colonists during the Colonial period had no practical experience of rice crops and the production of rice required its workers on the rice plantations to possess knowledge of the land and how to cultivate. The slaves provided sufficient labor force to produce the demanding crop on the rice plantations. In Delaware alone swampland covered over 30,000 acres. The swampland first had to be cleared. The construction of rice fields to create the rice plantations was an arduous task.

Dirt walls, called 'banks', had to be constructed to keep salt water out

Ditches and gates had to be built to move fresh water in

50 acres of rice fields sometimes required 5,000 feet of ditches

Sowing the rice seedlings was generally undertaken by female slaves on the rice plantations who trampled the seeds into the swampy soil with their bare feet. The rice fields were flooded at certain times of the year, and then drained back out. The slaves had to act as scarecrows to keep the birds away from the rice crops. The rice was flailed then harvested and then the rice was removed from the hulls in a winnowing basket. The rice was then polished before being packed into barrels and shipped for export. By the 1690's and rice became the mainstay of the colonies of Georgia and South Carolina. The cultivation of highly lucrative rice quickly spread to all of the slave plantations in the Southern colonies and rice became one of the top ten trade exports to England during the Colonial period of American history.

A rice plantation in Carolina

Indigo Plantations
Indigo was the highly prized source of blue dye. Indigo was a non-edible plant that was grown on the slave plantations in the Colonial period. Indigo was not grown on colonial plantations until an enterprising woman called Eliza Lucas Pinckney (1722-1793) developed the indigo plants as an additional cash crop for the Southern slave plantations. During the 1720s the French government had supplied the French colonists and settlers in Louisiana with indigo plant seeds. The indigo crop was successfully cultivated in Louisiana, and factories were built for the manufacture of dye.
Slaves working on an Indigo Plantation
When the indigo plants were in bloom, they were cut and put in large tubs to soak. There they fermented until it was time to drain the liquid and complete the process. Different blue shaded dyes were obtained from the leaves of the indigo plant from ranging from bright blue to violet and purple. A variant of the indigo plant is native to South Carolina and Georgia. The English encouraged the American colonists to produce indigo as it was highly dependent on Spain and France for this dye, so the indigo plantations flourished. The cultivation and processing of the indigo dye produced one-third the total value of the exports from the Southern slave plantations before the Revolutionary War.

Cotton Plantations
Cotton plants prosper in dry, hot sunny climates and rich soils. A cotton plant formed bolls containing seeds with many long hairy fibers. The cotton fibers need to be separated from the seeds. This process was so time consuming, and therefore expensive, that cotton was not grown until 1793 when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. The cotton gin was a machine that separated the cotton fibers from the seed ten times faster that the slaves could do by hand. The cotton industry and the number of cotton plantations boomed in the Southern colonies with the introduction of the cotton gin. Growing cotton as a crop required intensive labor - the existing slave plantations of the south increased the number of slaves to undertake the hard, back breaking work. Cotton plants had to be tended, weeds had to be chopped out. Picking took a few months during which time the cotton was put through the cotton gins, then pressed and finally baled before being shipped for market and export. Large-scale cultivation of cotton using slave labor was extremely profitable for the owners of the cotton plantations in the Colonial period of American history.

Sugar Plantations
Cane sugar was first imported to the 13 Southern colonies from the West Indies. However, after the US purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, the plantation owners followed the French lead and also began growing sugar cane on their plantations. The first years of sugar cane harvesting in Louisiana produced 300,000 tons of sugar per year so it was a profitable crop for the slave plantations of the southern colonies. Sugarcane is a tropical, grass that forms shoots at the base producing multiple stems. Sugarcane usually grows three to four meters high and is about five centimetres in diameter. The sugar cane stems grow into cane stalk from which the sugar is extracted. Another product of sugar cane is molasses were was used to produce rum - a major trade export of the Northern colonies.
Slaves cutting Sugar Cane
Cane sugar was grown on the sugar plantations. Sugar is best grown on relatively flat, fertile land. The early sugar plantations had an extensive use of slaves because sugar was considered as a cash crop exhibiting economies of scale in its cultivation. Sugar was most efficiently grown on the existing large slave plantations of the South. The construction of sugar cane fields to create the sugar plantations was an arduous task.

Rows of furrows about 1ft wide were dug to plant the sugar canes

Seeds were planted by hand at one-yard intervals

Before canes are harvested the sugar fields were burnt to remove leaves and weeds

During sugar harvesting the cane was cut at the lower stem, leaving the rest to produce more crops

Sugar cane crops could be cut and produced up to 4 times without having to be replanted

The slaves on the sugar plantations, including men, women, and children, had to endure the backbreaking work of planting rows upon rows of sugar cane seeds. Slaves in the sugar plantations were expected to plant between 5,000 - 8,000 seeds in order to produce one acre of sugar.

Plantations

Interesting Facts and information the Plantations of Colonial America

Slave Plantations

Fast Facts and info about Plantations in the Southern colonies

The Plantations is great resource for kids

Social Studies Homework help for kids on Plantations

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Check out this site for facts about the Slave Plantations in Colonial America. The Slave Plantations of the Southern Colonies. Fast facts about tobacco, sugar, rice, indigo and cotton Plantations.

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This is a map of the underground railroad. This is the routes the slaves and conductors traveled on. The conductors would be going back and forth on these routes. The conditions they were walking on were bad as well. This would have taken a toll on their bodies.

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The slaves worked on the plantations against their will. Many of them came from Africa on ships with poor conditions. They traveled 3000 miles across the ocean on those ships. From there, slaves would be sold at auctions. Once they were bought by wealthy white families, they worked on the plantations without any pay.

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Check out this site for facts about the Slave Plantations in Colonial America. The Slave Plantations of the Southern Colonies. Fast facts about tobacco, sugar, rice, indigo and cotton Slave Plantations.

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The muscular system of a human is shown. Walking for huge amounts of time don't only affect the leg muscles. It affects the lungs, heart, and abdominal region of the body. After a while these muscle will tear, get pulled, or simply give out. The slaves would need lots of sleep and exercise before hand.

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Everything they did was being watched by an overseer. They worked in poor conditions on the plantations as well. They were beaten if they misbehaved. They worked long and hard hours in the hot sun every single day. The rooms that they stayed in were in awful condition as well. Their main purpose was to make their master rich without him having to do any work himself.

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Check out this site for facts about the Slave Plantations in Colonial America. The Slave Plantations of the Southern Colonies. Fast facts about tobacco, sugar, rice, indigo and cotton Slave Plantations.

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Runaway slaves had to cross many rivers. Even tough the water was decently warm, staying in would cause hypothermia. Since the water is regular body heat it would gradually lower the slave's. This would also be a huge factor to escaping. They had to trudge through these rivers in order to avoid leaving tracks.

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This an article that summarizes the underground railroad. It says there was 100,000 freed slaves. That means that 100,000 + people had to go through these tough conditions. They all shared in this struggle. The conductors were especially challenged.

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The Underground Railroad, a vast network of people who helped fugitive slaves escape to the North and to Canada, was not run by any single organization or person. Rather, it consisted of many individuals -- many whites but predominently black -- who knew only of the local efforts to aid fugitives and not of the overall operation. Still, it effectively moved hundreds of slaves northward each year -- according to one estimate, the South lost 100,000 slaves between 1810 and 1850.

An organized system to assist runaway slaves seems to have begun towards the end of the 18th century. In 1786 George Washington complained about how one of his runaway slaves was helped by a "society of Quakers, formed for such purposes." The system grew, and around 1831 it was dubbed "The Underground Railroad," after the then emerging steam railroads. The system even used terms used in railroading: the homes and businesses where fugitives would rest and eat were called "stations" and "depots" and were run by "stationmasters," those who contributed money or goods were "stockholders," and the "conductor" was responsible for moving fugitives from one station to the next.

For the slave, running away to the North was anything but easy. The first step was to escape from the slaveholder. For many slaves, this meant relying on his or her own resources. Sometimes a "conductor," posing as a slave, would enter a plantation and then guide the runaways northward. The fugitives would move at night. They would generally travel between 10 and 20 miles to the next station, where they would rest and eat, hiding in barns and other out-of-the-way places. While they waited, a message would be sent to the next station to alert its stationmaster.

The fugitives would also travel by train and boat -- conveyances that sometimes had to be paid for. Money was also needed to improve the appearance of the runaways -- a black man, woman, or child in tattered clothes would invariably attract suspicious eyes. This money was donated by individuals and also raised by various groups, including vigilance committees.

Vigilance committees sprang up in the larger towns and cities of the North, most prominently in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. In addition to soliciting money, the organizations provided food, lodging and money, and helped the fugitives settle into a community by helping them find jobs and providing letters of recommendation.

The Underground Railroad had many notable participants, including John Fairfield in Ohio, the son of a slaveholding family, who made many daring rescues, Levi Coffin, a Quaker who assisted more than 3,000 slaves, and Harriet Tubman, who made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom.

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The Underground Railroad, a vast network of people who helped fugitive slaves escape to the North and to Canada, was not run by any single organization or person. Rather, it consisted of many individuals -- many whites but predominently black -- who knew only of the local efforts to aid fugitives and not of the overall operation.

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On January 1st, 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. It did free slaves but it didn't actually free all the slaves. It didn't free the slaves in the border states that were in the Union. It only freed the slaves in the Confederate States. It may not have ended slavery nationally it gave people hope that all slavery would be abolished.

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President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."

Despite this expansive wording, the Emancipation Proclamation was limited in many ways. It applied only to states that had seceded from the United States, leaving slavery untouched in the loyal border states. It also expressly exempted parts of the Confederacy (the Southern secessionist states) that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union (United States) military victory.

Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.

From the first days of the Civil War, slaves had acted to secure their own liberty. The Emancipation Proclamation confirmed their insistence that the war for the Union must become a war for freedom. It added moral force to the Union cause and strengthened the Union both militarily and politically. As a milestone along the road to slavery's final destruction, the Emancipation Proclamation has assumed a place among the great documents of human freedom.

The original of the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, is in the National Archives in Washington, DC. With the text covering five pages the document was originally tied with narrow red and blue ribbons, which were attached to the signature page by a wafered impression of the seal of the United States. Most of the ribbon remains; parts of the seal are still decipherable, but other parts have worn off.

The document was bound with other proclamations in a large volume preserved for many years by the Department of State. When it was prepared for binding, it was reinforced with strips along the center folds and then mounted on a still larger sheet of heavy paper. Written in red ink on the upper right-hand corner of this large sheet is the number of the Proclamation, 95, given to it by the Department of State long after it was signed. With other records, the volume containing the Emancipation Proclamation was transferred in 1936 from the Department of State to the National Archives of the United States.

The Emancipation Proclamation

Select Resources

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Enlarge The Emancipation Proclamation (page 1) Record Group 11 General Records of the United States View in National Archives Catalog Español President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war.

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Abraham Lincoln was the President that ended slavery, but who was he before he was President? Abraham Lincoln was a self taught lawyer. He was also a legislator before he was the President. And he was a very vocal opponent of slavery. He was a congressman for Illinois, but people didn't like him for his stance on the Mexican-American War. He caught the attention when he debated slavery against a Politician in the town where he worked. He ran for President and he was elected as the 16th President in March of 1861.

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This article talks mostly about the health benefits of walking. But it also mentions how walking for more than 15 minutes a day can be harmful if you aren't used to it. So if a slave was not walking for huge amounts of time before running away, they would be hurt. They would normally experience a burnout. A burnout means they can fall over and completely collapse.

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If you've just discovered the joys of walking, you may be throwing yourself into it wholeheartedly. And, generally speaking, that's a good thing. But there does come a point where getting "too much of a good thing" may be harmful if you've not been properly conditioned.

While people tend to think of walking as a recreational activity rather than a sport, the aims are the same as with any other form of exercise: to improve your strength, endurance, and cardiovascular health. Overexerting yourself to get fitter faster only serves to increase your risk of injury and burnout.

In order to reap the benefits of walking, you need to exercise good judgment and design a program that allows you to increase the volume and intensity of your workout gradually. The amount of walking that is "too much" will vary from person to person, but there are tips guidelines you can use to set up a smart program for you.

How to Get Started

When embarking on an exercise program, especially if you have never trained before, it's important to start slowly and gradually build up your time and intensity.

A good strategy for beginners is to start with no more than 15 minutes of walking at a relatively easy pace (to where you can speak in full sentences without breathing heavily). Thereafter, add a few minutes each week, building up to 30 minutes of walking at a brisk pace (to where you can speak in full sentences but are breathing through the mouth rather than the nose).

To attain the full benefits of walking, you should walk no less than three days a week. Anything less will fail to deliver the gains you desire, either in terms of strength, endurance, or weight loss.

The rules apply even if you are over age 65. In addition to walking, you should engage in other forms of exercise, including strength training, flexibility exercises, and balance exercises.

While this may seem like a lot, many of the exercises can be done at home and would only take 5 to 6 hours of your time per week (that's less than an hour per day). Compare that to the amount of time you spend in front of the TV, and you'll realize that the benefits of exercise far outweigh the minimal investment in time. And some of these exercises you could do while watching TV.

Mistakes to Avoid

A common mistake when starting a walking program is to do too much too soon. Although it is admirable to want to change your life for the better, you'd be well-served to take your time and learn how to walk properly for the first couple of weeks.

And despite what some may tell you, there is a correct way to walk. The proper walking technique involves the correct posture, stride length, foot placement, and footwear. Getting this right can help alleviate stress to your ankles, knees, hips, and lower back.

Other common mistakes include:

Ignoring intensity: Try to keep your walks in the moderate intensity zone-or around 50% to 70% of your maximum heart rate (MHR). To estimate your MHR, subtract your age from 200. If you are 60, your heart rate should be at or below (200 - 60 x 50% = 70 beats per minute). If you don't have a heart rate, use the talk test. You should be able to talk, but only about a sentence before taking a breath.

Walking too far: Even if you feel great when you first start walking, remember that you have to turn around and come home. Start with 15-minute walks and increase only after you can do so comfortably.

Walking too fast: Until you are in better physical shape, avoid walking so fast that you are unable to speak in full sentences.

How to Avoid Overtraining

A well-structured training program is designed in part to reduce the risk of overtraining. Overtraining occurs when the amount of exercise you engage in exceeds your body's ability to recover.

You can tell you are overtraining when you have any of the following symptoms:﻿﻿

Decreased performance

Depression

Elevated resting heart rate (RHR)

Increased irritability

Loss of appetite and weight loss

Nagging and chronic injuries

Persistent fatigue

Persistent heavy, stiff, and sore muscles

Recurrent infections, colds, and headaches

It is at this stage that you need to stop and speak with your doctor to help guide your recovery.

Walking Training Tips

One of the great things about walking is that there is always something new to learn. Here are few tips to set you off on the right foot:

Alternate easy and hard days. Any hard workout day should be followed by either an easy day or a rest day. You can focus on stretching and flexibility or take an easy stroll with friends. Breaking things up gives your body a chance to recover.

Always warm-up. You should warm up with 5-10 minutes of easy walking before breaking into a faster stride. After warming up, you can do stretches for your calves, hamstrings, groin, and ankles if you prefer. Also take the time to cool down, especially if you've had a long walk. Stretching after your workout is important.

Increase in small increments. Increase only one element at a time. For example, if you're looking to walk longer, don't try to also walk faster. Gradually increase one aspect of your walking at a time and then focus on another to reduce your risk of injury.

Increase your daily steps incrementally. A great way to track your steps is to download a fitness app like Google Fit or purchase a Fitbit or low-cost pedometer. Week-on-week, increase your steps by around 10%. (For example, if you walk 5,000 steps per day this week, aim for 5,500 steps per day next week.)

Stay consistent. By maintaining a regular walking schedule, you will eventually turn walking into a habit and feel strange if you miss a workout. Consistency is the key to success.

Most importantly, listen to your body. If you experience pain, shortness of breath, dizziness, a cold sweat, or sudden changes in heart rate, do no push through. Stop and contact your doctor. None of these symptoms should ever be considered normal.

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If you've just discovered the joys of walking, you may be throwing yourself into it wholeheartedly. And, generally speaking, that's a good thing. But there does come a point where getting "too much of a good thing" may be harmful if you've not been properly conditioned.

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Quakers would learn a tiny part of a speech and recite it every church service. They would memorize and recite these words their whole life long. They said it was their spiritual life-long journey. The Quaker religion is known to be as old a Christianity. Each person had to put them selves in this religion it wasn't a choice.

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Quaker Beliefs

What is the Quaker faith? It is not a tidy package of words which you can capture at any given time and then repeat weekly at a worship service. It is an experience of discovery which starts the discoverer on a journey which is life-long. The discovery in itself is not uniquely a property of Quakerism. It is as old as Christianity, and considerably older if you share the belief that many have known Christ who have not known His name. What is unique to the Religious Society of Friends is its insistence that the discovery must be made by each man for himself.

No one is allowed to get it second-hand by accepting a ready-made creed. Furthermore, the discovery points a path and demands a journey, and gives you the power to make the journey.

Elise Boulding, 1954

Faith and Practice

Quaker Ideals

The Religious Society of Friends does not define itself by formal creedal statements. Instead, Quakers prefer to set down our religious experience in the form of testimonies, general statements about practices and beliefs on which most Friends can unite. These testimonies represent our ideals.

Equal treatment of women and men is accepted practice because Quakers believe all people have the potential to receive spiritual leadings and are equal in the eyes of God.

Because Quakers believe in the common humanity of all races, race relations are an active concern of Friends in America.

Quakers encourage participation of young people in all aspects of the life of our faith community as a form of nurture.

Quakers aid the non-violent efforts of the exploited to attain self-determination and social, political and economic justice. This mission often requires persuading exploiters, some of whom may be Quakers, to change their ways, not only for the sake of the exploited, but also to strengthen their own goodness.

We seek both to bring to light and to counteract or expunge structures, institutions, language and thought processes that subtly support discrimination and exploitation.

We examine our own attitudes and practices to test whether we contribute as much as we ought to social, political and economic justice.

We encourage others to adopt consensus decision-making that is Spirit-led.

Quakers are sensitive to the spiritual as well as the material needs of those in prison.

We recognize that the penal system often reflects the injustices in our society.

We offer support services to the victims of crime as well as conflict resolution training for both offenders and prison employees.

We act out of the conviction that redemption and restorative justice, not retribution, are the right tasks of the criminal justice system.

We strongly oppose capital punishment.

In a world torn by strife and violence, our peace testimony expresses Friends' commitment to love and respect all persons and to overcome evil with good. We avoid not only physical violence, but also more subtle forms-psychological, economic, or institutional.

In our own lives, Friends see conflict as an opportunity for loving engagement with those with whom we disagree. Love can be manifested by acknowledging the sincerity of the other, while forthrightly expressing our own convictions.

We can reflect the peace testimony in our manner of living: our employment, our investments, our purchases, our payment of taxes.

We should take care to avoid benefiting from the manufacture of arms and from business practices that do violence to employees, consumers, or the natural world.

We support those who resist cooperation with the military draft or those who oppose war by performing peaceful service as conscientious objectors.

We work as we are able to alleviate the suffering caused by war, and are troubled that nations use military forces rather than non-military units to engage in this work.

Friends work to promote nonviolent resolution of conflict, from the kindergarten to the United Nations, and the conversion to peaceful uses of facilities built for war.

Friends examine decisions about obtaining, holding and using money and other assets, to see whether we find in them the seeds of self-indulgence, injustice, conflict, or ecological disaster.

We need to consider our roles as stewards of the earth, recognizing that we citizens of technologically advanced nations now contribute more to the problem than to the solution. We must not only change our lifestyles, but also give serious thought to the size of our families.

Friends seek wholeness and harmony in the various aspects of our lives. We strive to limit the material circumstances of our lives in order to open the way to divine leadings.

Friends call for honesty in whatever we say and do. Friends do not swear judicial oaths, but rather affirm that our witnessing is truthful.

Friends seek to follow these testimonies but acknowledge that our practices are sometimes flawed. However, these testimonies remind us to be true to that of God within ourselves and to be mindful of carrying out these ideals in our lives.

This compilation by Mike Ciul is based on the 1997 document,Faith and Practice, of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. For more information, visit www.pym.org

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What is the Quaker faith? It is not a tidy package of words which you can capture at any given time and then repeat weekly at a worship service. It is an experience of discovery which starts the discoverer on a journey which is life-long.

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Here is a picture of a pair of legs. It shows two muscle deformities or affects fro over use. The run away slaves were pushed to their limits. Both physically and mentally. Being afraid your life could also cause panic.

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This talks about how panic can distort decision making. I would guess that a run away slave would be totally panicked. That is why conductors were so important. They had the routes and could remain calm. All this on top of the physical stuggles.

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"Fear is a very powerful weapon. Fear doesn't give you the freedom to decide... Don't act of out fear." - The Sea Inside (2004)

Decision-Making: Cognitive and Emotional

How do we make decisions? Many of us like to imagine that we're rational creatures, deciding what to do by weighing the anticipated risks against the benefits of our actions. But 50 years of psychology and behavioral economics research have told a much different story.

Princeton University psychologist Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel Prize in 2002 for the work he did in the 1970s with colleague Amos Tversky on "prospect theory," based on the finding that decision-making often occurs through cognitive shortcuts called " heuristics" that have the potential to cause errors in how we estimate risk. ¹ For example, our brains use an " availability heuristic " to make judgments based on information that's easily recalled due to recent exposure or because it's based on personal experience. We might therefore overestimate the risk of getting killed in a drunk-driving accident if a family member died that way.

As of 2020, it has been proposed that there are nearly 200 such heuristics, or "cognitive biases," that have evolved to make decision-making more efficient but have also resulted in making us prone to errors in accurately judging the risks and benefits of our actions 2,3 (for a summary, see the comprehensive " cognitive bias codex" developed by Buster Benson and John Manoogian and this shorter list of 50 common cognitive biases). Understanding how cognitive biases can lead to both good and bad decisions reveals a more complex, if sobering, view of human decision-making.

For all that cognitive biases have revealed about how we make decisions, a criticism has been that cognitive models are based too much "in the head" and not enough "in the heart," neglecting the role of emotions which clearly also play an important role in guiding our actions. Obvious examples abound-for instance, while we might deliberate over the pros and cons of marrying someone, few of us make that decision without being deeply influenced by how we feel.

In his 2011 book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman proposed two different modes of decisional thinking-an automatic, fast judgment based on instinct and emotion and a slower, more rational, and deliberative process-that optimally work together, but often come into conflict. ⁴

Sometimes, when one mode of decision-making wins out over the other, the results can be problematic. For example, the impulsivity of quick, instinctive thinking can result in us "jumping the gun" and making bad decisions based on inaccurate prejudices. Thinking carefully and deliberately about the best course of action might be wise for some decisions, but not for those where swift action is needed, like jumping out of the way of a car.

How Does Fear Affect Assessments of Risk?

Over the past few decades, researchers have furthered our knowledge about how emotions act as their own heuristics, influencing how we estimate risk within other "dual-process" models of decision-making like Kahneman's. 5,6 When it comes to assessments of risk, there may be no more pertinent emotion than fear. In a 2001 paper, behavioral economist George Loewenstein and his colleagues wrote:

"Fear causes us to slam on the brakes instead of steering into the skid, immobilizes as when we have greatest need for strength, causes sexual dysfunction, insomnia, ulcers, and gives us dry mouth and jitters at the very moment when there is the greatest premium on clarity and eloquence." ⁵

In 2004, "decision researcher" Paul Slovic and his colleagues likewise wrote, "feelings of dread [are] the major determiner of public perception and acceptance of risk for a wide range of hazards," and more specifically noted that negative emotions like fear of things like nuclear power tend to result in greater assessments of perceived risk and lower assessments of perceived benefits. ⁷ More recent research has demonstrated that fear is also associated with greater pessimism and feelings of unpredictability about the future as well as lower feelings of self-control. ⁸

That fear would make us more cognizant of risk should come as little surprise. And to be clear, these findings don't mean that fear is always a pathological emotion that leads to overestimates of risk and overreaction. Fear is extraordinarily useful when it's optimally matched to a given threat. If we're being held at gunpoint during a robbery, or are surprised by a rattlesnake at our feet during a hike, our fear-based risk assessment and even the paralysis that it might bring on might be completely appropriate and life-saving.

But fear can become problematic when it's disproportionate to actual risk. This can often happen when actual risks are unknown. For example, fear of the uncertain, or the imagined, is a frequent saboteur of relationships in their early stages.

Fear can also lead to overestimates of risk for infrequent but catastrophic outcomes, such as plane crashes, mass shootings, or acts of terrorism. 9,10 Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein has used the term "probability neglect" to describe how we tend to overestimate the chances of such worst-case scenarios, with evidence that we sometimes do so to the point of our protective responses causing more harm than good. 10,11 For example, Sunstein has often argued that after 9/11, the fear-based implementation of burdensome airport screening measures may have resulted in people avoiding air travel and instead dying in car accidents as a result.

More recently, Sunstein made similar claims early on about COVID-19, but later backed off as the realities of the pandemic threat became more clear, highlighting the importance of adjusting our fear and our responses to it based on actual, or actuarial, risks.

How Does Fear Affect Perceptions of Interventions Designed to Reduce Risk?

Another key finding from research on fear and decision-making is that perceived risks are often inversely proportional to perceived benefits. 6,7 This helps us understand why we tend to underestimate risk when we have positive feelings about a particular activity, such as having sex or sending and receiving text messages. Along with influence from optimism bias and another " positive illusion" of personal control-cognitive biases that tend to make us overestimate good outcomes and the degree to which we can avoid bad outcomes for ourselves-we're more likely to discount risks when we envision a significant benefit or reward, leading to dangerous behaviors like having unprotected sex with strangers or texting while driving. This may be especially true for teenagers who are often more willing to engage in risk-taking, in spite of fear, due to lack of personal experience, the irresistible allure of novelty, and peer pressure.

While risk and benefits are often inversely correlated for a particular activity, fear is often associated not only with high and potentially overestimated perceptions of risk, but also overestimates of the benefits of protective measures. Again, Sunstein cites the illustrative example of the largely ineffectual and ceremonial Transportation Security Administration (TSA) measures that remain in place nearly two decades after 9/11. I've made a similar argument about how fears of mass shootings can lead to overestimated benefits of interventions on both sides of the polarized gun debate, whether bans or open carry. ¹² Research has also shown that patients often overestimate the effectiveness of tests and treatments for medical illnesses while underestimating their harms (this finding has recently been illustrated by unwarranted faith in interventions like hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19). 13,14

How Much Fear Is "Just Right?"

If fear is adaptive and self-protective on the one hand, but problematic when it's disproportionate to actual risks on the other hand, is it possible to achieve the "Goldilocksian" ideal of avoiding too much and too little fear in favor of just the right amount? What, if anything, can we do to increase healthy fear and decrease irrational fear?

The answer is complicated by several issues. First, we often don't know the actual risks, especially when faced with a threat from a new technology, pandemic, or terrorist group. Second, even when we do have actuarial statistics about known risks, attempts to educate ourselves about them and adjust our commensurate levels of fear are often thwarted by the fact that fear doesn't just increase our own random estimates of risk; it can lead to biased interpretations of presented statistics. 11,15 Depending on cognitive biases and emotions like fear, we might also alternately pay too much attention, or not enough, to relevant risk factors that might alter our individual risk compared to statistical averages. So, knowing the numbers alone might not be enough to put them into proper perspective and react accordingly.

In addition, the amount of fear that each of us has is at least partially "dispositional"-that is, based on some combination of genetics and life experience such that some of us are inherently more anxious, fearful, and risk-averse while others are undaunted, risk-accepting, and even thrill-seeking as "adrenaline junkies." Accordingly, some of us might benefit from being more fearful and some less. As for how much we can actually modify that through self-help or psychotherapy, as the well-known disclaimer goes, "your experience may vary."

If the major effect of fear on decision-making is to overestimate both risk and the effectiveness of interventions intended to keep us from danger, it could be argued that interventions that decrease fear but do little to reduce actual risk are justified. Sunstein has argued as much, suggesting that ineffective interventions that can reduce "baseless fear" may be a "social good" in their own right. 10,11 That argument carries more weight if reducing fear can also lead to more rational and risk-accepting behavior if it's warranted.

Whenever possible though, we should aspire to the Goldilocksian ideal of just the right amount of fear by educating ourselves about actual risks, putting them into proper perspective relative to other known threats, and collectively developing interventions that decrease both fear and actual danger.

But of course, that's easier said than done, whether for an individual or for society. After all, even in the best telling of the well-known cautionary tale for children, Goldilocks' quest for perfection ends with her escaping with her life but developing an intractable phobia of bears and the forest in the process.

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How Does Fear Influence Risk Assessment and Decision-Making?

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"Fear is a very powerful weapon. Fear doesn't give you the freedom to decide... Don't act of out fear." - The Sea Inside (2004) How do we make decisions? Many of us like to imagine that we're rational creatures, deciding what to do by weighing the anticipated risks against the benefits of our actions.

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Lincoln was the President of the United States and freed the slaves. In 1856 Abraham Lincoln became a major politician in the east. Lincoln challenged Stephen Douglas as the leader of the Republican party in 1856. Lincoln beat out Douglas and he had his debates with him written and printed in 1860. Then in 1861 Abraham Lincoln was elected as the President of the United States.

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For about five years Lincoln took little part in politics, and then a new sectional crisis gave him a chance to reemerge and rise to statesmanship. In 1854 his political rival Stephen A. Douglas maneuvered through Congress a bill for reopening the entire Louisiana Purchase to slavery and allowing the settlers of Kansas and Nebraska (with "popular sovereignty") to decide for themselves whether to permit slaveholding in those territories. The Kansas-Nebraska Act provoked violent opposition in Illinois and the other states of the old Northwest. It gave rise to the Republican Party while speeding the Whig Party on its way to disintegration. Along with many thousands of other homeless Whigs, Lincoln soon became a Republican (1856). Before long, some prominent Republicans in the East talked of attracting Douglas to the Republican fold, and with him his Democratic following in the West. Lincoln would have none of it. He was determined that he, not Douglas, should be the Republican leader of his state and section.

Lincoln challenged the incumbent Douglas for the Senate seat in 1858, and the series of debates they engaged in throughout Illinois was political oratory of the highest order. Both men were shrewd debaters and accomplished stump speakers, though they could hardly have been more different in style and appearance-the short and pudgy Douglas, whose stentorian voice and graceful gestures swayed audiences, and the tall, homely, almost emaciated-looking Lincoln, who moved awkwardly and whose voice was piercing and shrill. Lincoln's prose and speeches, however, were eloquent, pithy, powerful, and free of the verbosity so common in communication of his day. The debates were published in 1860, together with a biography of Lincoln, in a best-selling book that Lincoln himself compiled and marketed as part of his campaign.

In their basic views, Lincoln and Douglas were not as far apart as they seemed in the heat of political argument. Neither was abolitionist or proslavery. But Lincoln, unlike Douglas, insisted that Congress must exclude slavery from the territories. He disagreed with Douglas's belief that the territories were by nature unsuited to the slavery-based economy and that no congressional legislation was needed to prevent the spread of slavery into them. In one of his most famous speeches, he said: " A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe the government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free." He predicted that the country eventually would become "all one thing, or all the other." Again and again he insisted that the civil liberties of every U.S. citizen, white as well as Black, were at stake. The territories must be kept free, he further said, because "new free states" were "places for poor people to go and better their condition." He agreed with Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers, however, that slavery should be merely contained, not directly attacked. In fact, when it was politically expedient to do so, he reassured his audiences that he did not endorse citizenship for Blacks or believe in the equality of the races. "I am not, nor ever have been, in favour of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races," he told a crowd in Charleston, Illinois. "I am not nor ever have been in favour of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people." There is, he added, "a physical difference between the white and Black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality." Lincoln drove home the inconsistency between Douglas's "popular sovereignty" principle and the Dred Scott decision (1857), in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that Congress could not constitutionally exclude slavery from the territories.

In the end, Lincoln lost the election to Douglas. Although the outcome did not surprise him, it depressed him deeply. Lincoln had, nevertheless, gained national recognition and soon began to be mentioned as a presidential prospect for 1860.

On May 18, 1860, after Lincoln and his friends had made skillful preparations, he was nominated on the third ballot at the Republican National Convention in Chicago. He then put aside his law practice and, though making no stump speeches, gave full time to the direction of his campaign. His "main object," he had written, was to "hedge against divisions in the Republican ranks," and he counseled party workers to "say nothing on points where it is probable we shall disagree." With the Republicans united, the Democrats divided, and a total of four candidates in the field, he carried the election on November 6. Although he received no votes from the Deep South and no more than 40 out of 100 in the country as a whole, the popular votes were so distributed that he won a clear and decisive majority in the electoral college.

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Abraham Lincoln - The road to presidency

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For about five years Lincoln took little part in politics, and then a new sectional crisis gave him a chance to reemerge and rise to statesmanship. In 1854 his political rival Stephen A.

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This is a swamp in Massachusetts. These would be the conditions they traveled in. It would have been cold, wet, and very uncomfortable. This is the lengths that they went to for freedom. This goes to show how bad slavery must have been.

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video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twClW4uetUI  May 6, 2019   Life Noggin

“Can You Walk Too Much?” Verywell Fit, 28 July 2020, www.verywellfit.com/how-much-walking-is-too-much-3975564.

https://cdn-assets.alltrails.com/uploads/photo/image/22403577/extra_large_049742e4200fe4a90fd6e4a06fc3fef6.jpg

Pierre, Joseph M. “How Does Fear Influence Risk Assessment and Decision-Making?” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 15 July 2020, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psych-unseen/202007/how-does-fear-influence-risk-assessment-and-decision-making.

https://pamofit.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/031f9-calves.png

“The Underground Railroad.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2944.html.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/52/Mattapoisett_River%2C_Mattapoisett_MA.jpg/1200px-Mattapoisett_River%2C_Mattapoisett_MA.jpg

https://img2.cgtrader.com/items/89599/male_muscular_system_3d_model_obj_tga_d296c98f-01d8-4d1c-9a39-f8d32bfda5e1.jpg

https://thatdevilhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Underground-Railroad-map.jpg

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Lincoln was a great Leader in war. He didn't always attack right away but he would react to what the enemies did. He didn't have a strategy he just reacted and he was very successful. He saw how Uylessues S. Grant in Vicksburg and how he held the blockade. So he promoted him. And so it promoted his leadership skills.

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After the war there was a mess to clean up called the United States. So Lincoln started to clean up by the Ten Percent Plan. That was a plan were ten percent of the voters in the confederate state had to swear an oath to the Union. Lincoln gave many pardons to Southern slave owners. Even though it was against his party's opinion. He tried to ingratiate the south back into the United States.

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Events

1865 Congress creates Freedmen's BureauLincoln is assassinated; Johnson becomes president

Key People

Abraham Lincoln

16th U.S. president; proposed Ten-Percent Plan for Reconstruction in 1863; assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865

Andrew Johnson

17th U.S. president; was vice president in Lincoln's second term and became president upon Lincoln's assassination

Plans for Reconstruction

After major Union victories at the battles of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln began preparing his plan for Reconstruction to reunify the North and South after the war's end. Because Lincoln believed that the South had never legally seceded from the Union, his plan for Reconstruction was based on forgiveness. He thus issued the Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction in 1863 to announce his intention to reunite the once-united states. Lincoln hoped that the proclamation would rally northern support for the war and persuade weary Confederate soldiers to surrender.

The Ten-Percent Plan

Lincoln's blueprint for Reconstruction included the Ten-Percent Plan,which specified that a southern state could be readmitted into the Union once 10 percent of its voters (from the voter rolls for the election of 1860) swore an oath of allegiance to the Union. Voters could then elect delegates to draft revised state constitutions and establish new state governments. All southerners except for high-ranking Confederate army officers and government officials would be granted a full pardon. Lincoln guaranteed southerners that he would protect their private property, though not their slaves. Most moderate Republicans in Congress supported the president's proposal for Reconstruction because they wanted to bring a quick end to the war.

In many ways, the Ten-Percent Plan was more of a political maneuver than a plan for Reconstruction. Lincoln wanted to end the war quickly. He feared that a protracted war would lose public support and that the North and South would never be reunited if the fighting did not stop quickly. His fears were justified: by late 1863, a large number of Democrats were clamoring for a truce and peaceful resolution. Lincoln's Ten-Percent Plan was thus lenient-an attempt to entice the South to surrender.

Lincoln's Vision for Reconstruction

President Lincoln seemed to favor self-Reconstruction by the states with little assistance from Washington. To appeal to poorer whites, he offered to pardon all Confederates; to appeal to former plantation owners and southern aristocrats, he pledged to protect private property. Unlike Radical Republicans in Congress, Lincoln did not want to punish southerners or reorganize southern society. His actions indicate that he wanted Reconstruction to be a short process in which secessionist states could draft new constitutions as swiftly as possible so that the United States could exist as it had before. But historians can only speculate that Lincoln desired a swift reunification, for his assassination in 1865 cut his plans for Reconstruction short.

Louisiana Drafts a New Constitution

White southerners in the Union-occupied state of Louisiana met in 1864-before the end of the Civil War-to draft a new constitution in accordance with the Ten-Percent Plan. The progressive delegates promised free public schooling, improvements to the labor system, and public works projects. They also abolished slavery in the state but refused to give the would-be freed slaves the right to vote. Although Lincoln approved of the new constitution, Congress rejected it and refused to acknowledge the state delegates who won in Louisiana in the election of 1864.

The Radical Republicans

Many leading Republicans in Congress feared that Lincoln's plan for Reconstruction was not harsh enough, believing that the South needed to be punished for causing the war. These Radical Republicans hoped to control the Reconstruction process, transform southern society, disband the planter aristocracy, redistribute land, develop industry, and guarantee civil liberties for former slaves. Although the Radical Republicans were the minority party in Congress, they managed to sway many moderates in the postwar years and came to dominate Congress in later sessions.

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Reconstruction (1865-1877): Lincoln's Ten-Percent Plan: 1863-1865 | SparkNotes

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Events 1865 Congress creates Freedmen's BureauLincoln is assassinated; Johnson becomes president Key People 16th U.S. president; proposed Ten-Percent Plan for Reconstruction in 1863; assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865 17th U.S.

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The Quaker religion is a lot smaller than it used to be. Most of the Quakers don't even live in the United States anymore. Africa has the highest amount of Quakes who are still alive. The site that was linked was last updated in 2011. From the year 2007-2018 the amount of Quakers went down by 10,000 people.

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Submitted by QICadmin on

For statistical information see the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) website and complete the form to receive the PDF of the worldwide statistics.

Worldwide: most recent membership count (2012) = 377,055

Distribution worldwide of Friends:

Africa = 52% North America = 20% Caribbean and Latin America = 15% Europe and Middle East = 7% Asia-West Pacific = 6%.

United States: 2007 = 86,837; 2012 = 76,360

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Submitted by QICadmin on For statistical information see the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) website and complete the form to receive the PDF of the worldwide statistics. Distribution worldwide of Friends: Africa = 52% North America = 20% Caribbean and Latin America = 15% Europe and Middle East = 7% Asia-West Pacific = 6%.

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As you probably know Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in the second term of his Presidency. He was watching a theater production. When John came up behind him with a gun and assassinated him in front of everyone. John ran he broke both his legs trying to escape. He ran and he finally got caught up with and he was killed by Union soldiers twelve days after.

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This article talks about how slaves could sometimes buy things. The article is kind of long and very wordy. It mentions how some people thought it was a bad idea because it gave them more freedom and they could buy whatever they wanted. Other slave owners weren't bothered by it as much. They would let the slaves go by themselves, and not monitor their spending. Others went with their slaves when they wanted to buy something.

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Quakers believe that even though not everyone believes in the Lord, he believes in everyone. They think that even the most atheist people ever still have God in them. They know that everyone deserves God and they believe that everyone does have God within them. They believe that everything is truth if it has come from a somewhat godly source, and they don't even question it. Someone's life itself speaks God's word through their actions. They believe that they don't have to do anything except let God speak through them.

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Here are my sources:
“Abraham Lincoln Quotes (Author of The Gettysburg Address).” Abraham Lincoln, 2021, www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/229.Abraham_Lincoln.
“Access Denied.” Abraham Lincoln, 12 Feb. 2009,

www.usnews.com/news/history/articles/2009/02/12/abraham-lincolns-religious-uncertainty#:%7E:text=Though%20he%20attended%20a%20Christian,Man%20of%20Faith%20and%20Courage.

History.com Editors. “Emancipation Proclamation.” HISTORY, 25 Jan. 2021, www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/emancipation-proclamation#:%7E:text=On%20September%2022%2C%201862%2C%20President,thenceforward%2C%20and%20forever%20free.%E2%80%9D.

“The Emancipation Proclamation.” National Archives, 17 Apr. 2019, www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation#:%7E:text=President%20Abraham%20Lincoln%20issued%20the,and%20henceforward%20shall%20be%20free.%22.

History.com Editors. “Abraham Lincoln.” HISTORY, 11 Feb. 2021, www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/abraham-lincoln.

“Abraham Lincoln - The Road to Presidency.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2021, www.britannica.com/biography/Abraham-Lincoln/The-road-to-presidency.

History in Five. “The Leadership of Abraham Lincoln.” YouTube, uploaded by Abraham Lincoln, 16 Aug. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygLNUpYWFmg.

“Reconstruction (1865–1877): Lincoln’s Ten-Percent Plan: 1863–1865.” SparkNotes, 2021, www.sparknotes.com/history/american/reconstruction/section1/#:%7E:text=Lincoln’s%20Vision%20for%20Reconstruction,pledged%20to%20protect%20private%20property.

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This article is much shorter and it is straight to the point. It talks about the conditions that slaves lived in. It mentions that they varied on each plantation. Some living conditions were better and they could have a day off each month. Others had every Sunday off; and others still had no days off. Some had better clothing and shelters, and others had to build their own houses.

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The living conditions of slaves in the antebellum American South were some of the worst for slaves across history. As legal property of their masters they had no rights themselves and fared far worse than Roman slaves or medieval serfs. Perhaps only slaves in sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean fared worse. Africans sold as slaves in the Americas had to rely on their owners providing them with housing or building materials, pots and pans for cooking and eating, food and clothing. Many slaves did the best they could with what they were given. Most did not dare complain for fear of receiving a whipping or worse punishment.

Living Conditions of Slaves: Housing

Slaves were allocated an area of the plantation for their living quarters. On some plantations the owners would provide the slaves with housing, on others the slaves had to build their own homes. Slaves that had to build their own houses tended to make them like the houses they had had in Africa and they all had thatched roofs. Living conditions were cramped with sometimes as many as ten people sharing a hut.

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They had little in the way of furniture and their beds usually made of straw or old rags.

Slaves who worked in the plantation house generally had slightly better housing nearer to the house and were given better food and clothing than those slaves that worked in the fields.

Living Conditions of Slaves: Food

Sometimes they were given pots and pans for cooking, but more often they had to make their own. The long hours they had to work in the fields meant that they had little free time for making things to improve their living conditions. Some slaves used a hollowed out pumpkin shell called a calabash, to cook their food in.?

Most plantation owners did not spend more money on food for their slaves than they had to and so the slaves lived on a diet of fatty meat and cornbread.

Living Conditions of Slaves: Clothing

Slaves would be given one pair of shoes and three items of underwear a year. Although these and other clothing would be provided by their owner, they were often ill-fitting and made of coarse material

Living Conditions of Slaves: Non-Forced Labor

Most slaves had to work from sunrise to sunset. Some owners made their slaves work every day, others allowed slaves one day a month off and some allowed their slaves to have Sundays as a rest-day.

Slaves would spend their non-forced working time mending their huts, making pots and pans and relaxing. Some plantation owners allowed their slaves a small plot of land to grow things to supplement their diet.

Slaves were not allowed to read or write, but some were allowed to go to church.
This article is part of our extensive resources on black history. For a comprehensive article on black history in the United States, click here.
Cite This Article

"The Living Conditions of Slaves in the American South" History on the Net
© 2000-2021, Salem Media.
April 28, 2021 <https://www.historyonthenet.com/living-conditions-of-slaves>
More Citation Information.

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The Living Conditions of Slaves in the American South - History

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Loading... The living conditions of slaves in the antebellum American South were some of the worst for slaves across history. As legal property of their masters they had no rights themselves and fared far worse than Roman slaves or medieval serfs. Perhaps only slaves in sugar cane plantations in the Caribbean fared worse.

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Not all Quakers do dress plainly, actually quite a few don't. Some Quakers do it because they want to follow in the foots of their ancestors. Others will do it because of a part in the bible. The bible says to dress plainly and not obscure. The women in the video also does it because of the fact they they are mostly minimalists. She doesn't want a whole closet full of things for her to wear.

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Many Quakers back in the day dresses like the picture below. The women is wearing all white and is not mix matching any of her colors. The man on the other hand is wearing all black. Yet, still he is not mix matching any of his colors and clothes. They are humbling themselves knowing that they aren't supporting brands on clothes that could be against their beliefs. Plainly dresses and I bet they only have a few things in their closet.

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Sometimes the Quakers would make outstanding churches. They wanted to make sure they had a place for worship that was nice and neat. They wanted to gift everything they had to God and others. They really truly did want to show God how much he mattered to them. This led to them creating these magnificent churches such as the ones below.

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Quakers were often very humble with them selves and would help almost anyone. At the time when Quakers were most thriving they were all over the North trying to help. When a poor helpless slave would come along they knew that the right thing to do was to help. God made slaves too and they could see past their skin colors and help them out. They would take them to the railroad and even keep them in their houses.

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This picture shows what many plantation houses looked like. This would be what the owner lived in. These houses are popular with people now, because of their history and grandeur. It is awful to think that the slave owners would live in houses like this. This is because their slaves had small structures that could barely count as a shelter.

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The plantations that slaves worked on probably looked something like this picture. This picture shows a vast area of farmland. Most plantations were around 1000 acres. So, this picture is not big enough to show what the actual size would be like. Only tending this much land would be a lot of work.

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This video is short and straight to the point. It shows the history of plantations that were in South Carolina. There were hundreds of plantations in this area. This is mainly because of the river. South Carolina produced most of the cash crops in the United States.

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Hilliard, Kathleen. "Slave Consumption in the Old South: A Double-Edged Sword."
The American Historian, www.oah.org/tah/issues/2017/may/
slave-consumption-in-the-old-south-a-double-edged-sword/.

House Beautiful. 11 Nov. 2020, www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/a34624544/
history-of-plantations/. Accessed 25 Mar. 2021.

Plantations. www.landofthebrave.info/plantations.htm.

Rank, Scott Michael, editor. "The Living Conditions of Slaves in the American
South." History on the Net, www.historyonthenet.com/
living-conditions-of-slaves.

Slave Plantations. www.landofthebrave.info/slave-plantations.htm.

https://www.wickedgoodtraveltips.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/640px-Nottoway_Plantation_House.jpg

https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1458360112982-28942a1f776e?ixid=Mnw3ODI2fDB8MXxzZWFyY2h8MTB8fHNsYXZlJTIwcGxhbnRhdGlvbnxlbnwwfHx8fDE2MTY3NjY4NDc&ixlib=rb-1.2.1

https://www.pentaxforums.com/gallery/images/20414/1_Cash_Crop.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNZbt-LuINw

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Believe it or not some Quakers follow a specific diet. Many people in the Quaker religion are vegetarian. Some of them are even completely vegan. They believe that God does not want them to indulge in food too much. A belief is that God wants them to eat healthy and stay healthy to not ruin their lives. Leading to them not being able to eat; meat, fish, dairy products, or wine.

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Hello Friends,

I have searched for answers to this question, but have found yet no one really discussing this very much. The topic: Simplicity in Food. I suppose this could be a discussion topic in the Plainness and Simplicity group, but I don't know if it would be welcome there, and so, I hesitate to clutter that page unnecessarily. I will say that I feel a commonality between what seems to be a call to me to eat simply and Quaker Jane's description of why she went plain.

My question is: Does anyone here similarly feel called by God to eat simply? I don't mean to be vegetarian or vegan (which I certainly see as valuable as well). I mean to eat just to satisfy your need for nourishment and not for pleasure. I have often felt this calling, but have just recently began to take it more seriously. I want to get to the bottom of it.

I know that George Fox describes this in his journal, saying: "I might not eat and drink to make myself wanton but for health." So I am not alone. Also, many faiths adhere to periods of fasting, which must be seen as somewhat similar: Islam, Baha'i, Catholics, Greek Orthodox, etc. If you follow the Greek Orthodox calendar, for example, there are over 180 days where the diet is restricted. On the strictest of days, one may not consume meat, fish, dairy products, oil, or wine. Of course, I think there is a distinction between fasting and eating for nourishment and not pleasure, but as I said, they are similar: Both come from a notion that in eating simply we draw our focus on God and seek joy in God, not in food.

I'm trying diligently to discern what I believe may be a calling from God and to understand what exactly my Quaker Simple Eating would look like.

I would appreciate any thoughts or insights.

Michael

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Hello Friends, I have searched for answers to this question, but have found yet no one really discussing this very much. The topic: Simplicity in Food. I suppose this could be a discussion topic in the Plainness and Simplicity group, but I don't know if it would be welcome there, and so, I hesitate to clutter that page unnecessarily.

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Works Cited

"Distribution of Quakers." Quakerinfo, QICadmin, 6 Aug. 2011, quakerinfo.org/resources/statistics. Accessed 1 Jan. 2012.

9 Core Quaker Beliefs. Quaker Speak, 2018. Youtube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H08cyXVYDw. Accessed 19 July 2018.

"Plain Dressed Quakers." 2007. Quaker Jane, 2007, www.quakerjane.com/index.php?fuseaction=plain_dress.plainquakers. Accessed 2007.

Quaker Church. Unsplashed, unsplash.com/@hoshiichiban.

"Quaker 'Fasting.'" QuakerQuaker, 25 Sept. 2009, www.quakerquaker.org/profiles/blogs/quaker-fasting-simplicity-in.

Quakers and Slaves. afriendlyletter.com/wp-content/uploads/Resurrection_of_Henry_Box_Brown-300x227.jpg.

"Quakers Beliefs in a Nutshell." Green Street Friends, greenstreetfriendsmeeting.org/belief.php.

"Religions." BBC, idk, 3 July 2009, www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/subdivisions/quakers_1.shtml#:~:text=The%20essence%20of%20the%20Quakers&text=Quakers%20seek%20religious%20truth%20in,between%20the%20believer%20and%20God. Accessed 3 July 2009.

Why Do Some Quakers Dress Plainly. Quaker Speak, 2020. YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=idEhVxg0SrA&t=210s. Accessed 26 Mar. 2020.