Working on the Plantations

To the right you will find additional slave narratives and tips that will help you complete your research on your particular topic. Below are questions to get you started. Please read carefully!

Help each other in your team read the sections assigned and interpret any confusing dialect. Analyze and research topics like amateur historians. Look for themes and share what you find with group members, because they are looking at the same topic you are. WORK AS A TEAM!
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QUESTIONS TO GET YOU STARTED

What kinds of crops did slaves care for?

Did slaves have to work long hours?

Was this work physical?

Was there any kind of incentive for working well?

Did slaves only work in the fields?

Did slaves ever get time off from work, and if they did what did they do that particular day or days?

Did children work in the fields?

Were their consequences when work was not done the right way?

What would a typical day look like?

When slaves were working was it supervised?

RETURN TO MAIN INVESTIGATION

Lewis Clarke, Narrative of the Sufferings of Lewis Clarke

Henry Clay Bruce, The New Man: Twenty-Nine Years a Slave, Twenty-Nine Years a Free Man

Olaudah Equiano, The Life of Olaudah Equiano the African

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What are Primary Sources?
They enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period.  Primary sources were either created during the time period being studied, or were created at a later date by a participant in the events being studied (as in the case of narratives) and they reflect the individual viewpoint of a participant or observer.
What are historians?
A professional scholar who constructs the past from written, visual, oral and archaeological evidence.
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Questions to Think About


How much time had passed between slavery and the published narratives?

How might time lag affect their stories?

How old were the subjects when the narratives were written?

Does age affect memories?

How were these documents written, if most slaves had no formal education?