Slavery in America – Plantations

# Learning objectives

1. Explain the origins of the slave trade in Britain’s thirteen American colonies.{.info}
1. Describe a plantation{.info}
1. Describe how disagreements over slavery led to the American Civil War.{.info}

**Scene Overview and Key Elements:**

Traders brought the first enslaved Africans to Britain’s American colonies in 1619. The practice was driven by the need for low-cost farm workers to cultivate crops such as tobacco and rice. Over the centuries, the enslavement of Africans grew, and in the 18th and 19th centuries, it gained momentum with the rise of cotton production in the southern United States.

This scene will take students to a cotton plantation where they will observe the contrast in living conditions between the people enslaved on the plantation and the plantation owner. It will also help students understand how disagreements over slavery led to the American Civil War.

# The Origins of the American Slave Trade{.objective .objective1}

This section will explain how colonists developed plantations in the southern colonies, where they grew cash crops such as tobacco and cotton. It will discuss how Africans were brought to the colonies by force and enslaved to work on plantations.

Students will be asked to enter the plantation house and consider how the interior reflected the wealth of its owner. They will look for references to the transatlantic slave trade.

# The Plantation{.objective .objective2}

The living conditions of enslaved people, as well as some of the punishments that their enslavers inflicted on them, will be described.

Students will be encouraged to explore the cotton field, where they will pick cotton and put it in baskets. Students will also consider what it might have felt like to work in the fields for long hours with little food or rest.

They will be asked to enter the slave quarters and compare the living conditions to those in the plantation house.

# The Civil War{.objective .objective3}

This section will examine northern and southern disagreements about the expansion of slavery, which created tension between the regions. Their increasingly divided economies, social structures, and political ideologies, particularly regarding slavery, led to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.

The end of the Civil War brought the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery in the United States.

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# Assignment

Write an essay response to the following task:

Discuss the impact of slavery on the development of the United States as a nation. Consider both the economic and social consequences of slavery in your response.