Introduction
For at least two millennia, tobacco has been grown in America. European colonization, however, created the conditions for the emergence of cultivators specialized in large-scale plantation of tobacco. Conversely, tobacco’s long growing season and demanding labor requirements were produced by slave labor. The distinct nature of its cultivation shaped the community and work of the tobacco plantations. These slaves also impacted the American culture that led to the growth of the African American culture. This paper aims to explain the nature of cultivation in tobacco colonies in the United States and how the African-American culture evolved.
Nature of cultivation in the United States’ tobacco colonies as well as the low country
Location and Land distribution
Tobacco plantations emerged in different places during the colonial period. From parts of New York and Connecticut in the north, south to the Caribbean colonies of Jamaica and Barbados and Spanish Louisiana in the far west. North America had the largest concentration of tobacco yet developed in Chesapeake Bay colonies of Maryland and Virginia (Vaughan 250). They also spread westward to other parts of the south following the American Revolution, including Missouri, western Kentucky, and Tennessee.
Crop cultivation and marketing
Most people of African descent living on southern plantations employed technologies related to growing and processing crops for distant markets during the American colonial era, and a minority gained technical skills related to different trades. The harvest began with preparing leaves for the market in tobacco-growing regions. Slaves hung plants in tobacco houses where their open construction kept the rain and sunlight out while allowing breezes to dry the leaves and circulate (Corbett et al. 852). Slaves then removed the leaves and packaged them in woods barrels of shipment after six weeks. The tobacco colonies provided England with raw materials and natural resources and sold them back mainly to the colonies at a profit after turning them into finished products. The British discouraged cotton production in America during the colonial period to protect its linen and woolen manufacturers, and more tobacco was produced. Tobacco exports to England increased with an increase in populations in the tobacco colonies.
Labor force
During the eighteenth century, the slave population increased significantly in the Chesapeake due to a declining arrival of indentured servants ready to move from England and a demand for cheap tobacco labor. It is approximated that the Chesapeake African slave population rose to one million from 100,000 in this century, around 40% of the total population and a majority of the enslaved workforce (Hine et al. 64). White planters in tobacco plantations worked alongside their black slaves, and racial boundaries were less distinct before the slave doom. Intense racial contrasts emerged, and all-black labor units supervised by white planters replaced the mixed-race workforce as slaveholding increased.
Miscegenation
Africans interacted physically and culturally with American Indians and white indentured servants during the early seventeenth century when they first arrived in the Chesapeake. All the three groups changed due to the mixing and miscegenation or interracial produced people with mixed race (Hine et al., 70). Even though persons of mixed European and African ancestry or enslaved mulattoes enjoyed some advantages compared to pure Africans, mulattoes as a group did not receive better legal status. During the 17th and 18th centuries, miscegenation between white persons and Africans, and Indians and black people happened all over British North America. Nonetheless, it was less extensive and accepted compared to sugar colonies in French America or the Caribbean, Latin America, where Indian women got married to French men.
Approach to chattel slavery
During the 1960s, additional aspects of chattel slavery emerged in the Chesapeake colonies, according to the legal documents and statute books. Bills of sale started to stipulate that black females’ children would also be servants for life. The House of Burgesses declared that the condition of child-free or not was related to that of the other in 1662. However, this was contrary to the English common law that assumed the status of a father depicted a child’s status. Slavery in North America emerged with these laws in the form it maintained until the American Civil War (Vaughan 330). It was a system defined by the race of continuous involuntary servitude that compelled almost all Africans to work as tobacco laborers.
The House of Burgesses was further defined by slave codes between 1670 and 1710 as a system that sought to control African descent people to exploit their labor. Slaves were not allowed to own property, marry, testify against white people in court, bear arms or congregate in groups of more than three (Corbett et al. 840). A black person was no longer protected from enslavement by Christianity, nor did conversion lead to emancipation. By 1700 enslaved African Americans and Africans were reduced to domestic animals’ status just as the slave system expanded in the southern colonies.
Evolution of African-American culture
The Great Awakening and religion
The breakthrough in African American religion came with the religious revival known as the Great Awakening. In western Massachusetts, a Congregationalist minister named Jonathan Edwards established a participatory and emotional ministry to bring more people to the church during the early 1730s. George Whitefield, an Englishman who founded the Methodist Church along with John Wesley, carried a similar evangelical Christianity style to the mainland colonies later that decade (Vaughan 344). Whitefield appealed to emotions in his sermons, offered salvation to all who believed in Christ, and preached to black and white people even though he did not advocate for emancipation. Before Whitefield’s arrival in North America, some African descent people had converted to Christianity. However, two factors prevented extensive black conversion; the first was that several masters feared that converted slaves would consider their new religious status as a step to equality and freedom. Secondly, many slaves were not interested in Christianity as they continued their devotion towards their ancestral religions.
Music, musical instruments, songs, and dance
Music was also a significant part of West African life and remained so among African Americans who maintained an antiphonal, call –and-responsive singing style with stress on a strong beat, complex rhythms, and improvisation (Vaughan 343). They sang during religious ceremonies while working, and masters banned horns and drums due to their long-distance communication ability among slaves. However, the African banjo survived in America, and African Americans adopted the guitar and violin easily. Slaves accompanied these instruments with spoons and bones around communal fires and in their cabins. African-American music eventually influenced all American popular music forms.
Language and Folk literature
By the 18th century, African American languages contributed to the creolized and pidgins languages that became Black English even though the African Americans did not retain their languages. African American creoles lasted more in the low country with its isolated and large black populations (Hine et al. 74). Creole languages did not last long in other regions where black people were less numerous. They, however, contributed many words to American-specifically Southern English. Among them are tote, buckra (white man), goober (peanut), and nanse(spider).
West African folk literature survived in North America since African riddles, proverbs, and tales with accretions from European and American Indian stories were used to instruct, entertain and unite African Americans. The folklore literature of the black people on the sea islands of Georgia and South Carolina remained closest to its African counterpart the same way they could retain elements of the African language (Wright 288). Africans utilized tales of how small animals such as rabbits outwitted stronger animals such as lions and hyenas to symbolize the strength of ordinary people over unjust rulers.
African influence on colonial culture
Black musicians performed English ballads for white audiences in a uniquely African-American style as early as the 17th century. People of African descent helped determine how Americans celebrated in the Chesapeake and northern colonies. Slaves in these regions organized coronation festivals or black elections that lasted several days by the 18th century. At times known as Pinkster and eventually derived from Dutch American pre-Easter celebrations, these festivities comprised music, dance, athletics, parades, and mock coronations of kings and governors (Wright 260). They attracted white observers and a few white participants as much as African Americans dominated them. Generations of whites acquired African American speech intonations and patterns because black women mostly raised their master’s children; hence African Americans also impacted the growth of the white culture.
Conclusion
In conclusion, tobacco plantation was the main cash crop in the southern colonies, mainly Virginia and Georgia. However, more tobacco production was only made possible when The British discouraged the production of cotton. As a result, tobacco demand increased, which led to an increased workload to the slaves that they had to work beyond their limits to meet the demand. On the other hand, there was miscegenation among the slaves, but the children were still considered blacks. On the positive side, the African culture greatly influenced the American culture up to date. The generations of white acquired the African American speech patterns and used the African riddles, songs, and proverbs to learn or for entertainment.
Work sited
Corbett, P. Scott et al. U.S. History. Openstax, 2020.
Hine, Darlene Clark et al. The African-American Odyssey. 7th ed., Pearson, 2017.
Vaughan, Alan G. “African American Cultural History And Reflections On Jung In The African Diaspora”. Journal Of Analytical Psychology, vol 64, no. 3, 2019. Wiley, Web.
Wright, Donald R. African Americans In The Colonial Era. 4th ed., Wiley-Blackwell, 2017.