Slavery and Sugar: Molasses to Rum to Slaves
By Jean West

Overview

"Slavery and Sugar: Molasses to Rum to Slaves" is a lesson plan for students to use while studying about the slave trade. Between 1505 and 1888, approximately 12 million Africans were enslaved and transported to the New World for profit. Students will participate in a trade simulation based on values for slaves, sugar, wood, molasses, and rum around the year 1700 to identify how the sugar industry served as the "engine" of the Triangle Trade.

National Curriculum Standards met by this lesson

For a list of standards that this unit addresses, click here.

Time required

Anywhere from one class period to several days, depending on the number of rounds you wish to play and whether you want to play the rounds consecutively or one round per day.

Materials

• Essay, Sugar and Slavery essay


• Bag of hard candy (optional)


• Samples of white sugar and brown sugar in clear containers (ask school cafeteria manager)


• Bottle of molasses (ask school cafeteria manager or see baking section of grocery store)


• Empty bottle of extract of rum (see baking section at grocery store)


• Sugar cane (optional, based on seasonal availability at produce section at grocery store)


• Fake money (Monopoly money works just fine, otherwise denominations of £1, £5, and £10 notes)


• Black construction paper strips 1" x 8" (approximately 60 strips), stapler


• Wooden tongue depressors or popsicle-style sticks (two packages of 100= 200 pieces, possible donation item from hospital supply or craft store)


• Packets of white sugar (approximately 75 packets--for multiple classes, you can get

2,000 packets per case; possible donation item from restaurant or food distributor)

The Lesson

Anticipatory Set

1. Collect samples of sugar cane, brown sugar, white sugar, molasses, and one empty, rum extract bottle (to represent rum). Put the objects in random order on a desk or table in front of the classroom.


2. Ask students if they recognize all five items and what the items have in common. If they do not realize that all the items come from the sugar cane plant, inform them that they do and explain where each lies in the processing cycle.


3. Ask students to list the five items in order of their expense, beginning with the item they think is probably the most expensive and ending with the least expensive item. Swap a piece of hard candy (if you decide to purchase it) or call on volunteers to encourage students to share their lists and their reasoning for putting the items in the order they did.


4. Explain that Americans presently consume an average of 100 pounds of sugar per year. Ask students if they know whether sugar cane is harvested with machinery or by hand; explain that much of the world's sugar continues to be hand-cultivated and -harvested. Compare the current price of a pound of granulated sugar with the current minimum wage.


5. Discuss with students if there is a relationship between the price of the items and the amount of work needed to produce it. They may wish to consider not only sugar products but, for example, u-pick-it strawberries or produce and home-grown tomatoes.


6. Ask students whether the profits in the sugar industry would be greater if it was not necessary to pay people to raise and refine sugar. Explain that, for over 350 years, slave labor was used to raise sugar cane and refine it.

Procedures

1. Ask students to read the essay Sugar and Slavery. Obtain the song "Molasses to Rum" from the musical, 1776. (If a DVD, videotape, or audio CD of the song is not available, the lyrics are provided as a handout at the end of this lesson). Share the lyrics with students and ask why South Carolina's delegate to the Continental Congress, Edward Rutledge, accuses Rhode Island delegate Stephen Hopkins of hypocrisy over the slave trade.


2. Divide the class into three groups: Sugar Plantation Owners, New England Merchants, and African Traders. The teacher or a designated student will serve as simulation coordinator, making sure that each group gets the goods and cash it is due.


3. All rounds begin with the Sugar Plantation Owners. Before the preparatory round, provide the groups with material as follows:
   
   
   1. Sugar Plantation Owners with ten strips of black construction paper, 50 packets of sugar, and a bottle of molasses with a sticky note marked "2500 gallons."
   
   
   2. New England Merchants with 160 tongue depressors and £550.
   
   
   3. African Traders with 50 strips of black construction paper.


4. Preparatory Round


• Sugar Plantation Owners: You have ten slaves, represented by ten black strips of construction paper linked into a paper chain. Trade "2500-gallon" bottle of molasses with New England Merchants for 160 tongue depressors (1600 yards of wood) to produce sugar.


5. Round One


• Sugar Plantation Owners: Sell 50 packets (representing 50 hogsheads or roughly 80,000 pounds of sugar) for £550 to New England Merchants.


• New England Merchants: Refine "2500-gallon" bottle of molasses into "1700-gallon" rum container; ship to African Trader.


• African Trader: Trade slaves for rum at the rate of 130 gallons for a man, 110 gallons for a woman, and 80 gallons for a child. Provide New England merchants with a strip of black paper for each slave traded. Note the slaves you have traded; the simulation coordinator will give you £5 for each man, £4 for each woman, and £3 for each child so you have the cash value of the rum.


• New England Merchants: Staple the strips of black paper into links of a chain. Sail to the Sugar Islands. Before landing, remove the link for every seventh slave purchased in Africa: they died on the voyage as 10-20 percent of the slaves routinely did.


• Sugar Plantation Owners: Remove three links from your chain. You need to replace at least three slaves who have died this year due to illness, exhaustion, and a deadly accident at the mill. If you purchase three adults, you should be able to produce 50 hogsheads of sugar and 2,500 gallons of molasses next year. If you purchase more slaves, you will be able to produce more sugar and molasses. Buy slaves from New England Merchants at the rate of £80 for a man, £70 for a woman, and £30 for a child.

This is the end of Round One. Each group should count its cash, total it, and report it to the simulation coordinator. Have students answer the following: Which group made the most cash? Which group made the least cash?



6. Round Two


• Sugar Plantation Owners: For each adult slave, trade 250 gallons of molasses with New England Merchants for 16 tongue depressors per slave (160 yards of wood) to produce sugar.


• Sugar Plantation Owners: For each adult slave, sell five packets (representing five hogsheads or roughly 8,000 pounds of sugar) at the price of £11 per packet to New England Merchants. (If you have ten slaves, sell 50 packets for £550; if you have eight slaves, sell 40 packets for £440; but if you have 12 slaves, sell 60 packets for £660, and so on.)


• New England Merchants: For each of the 250 gallons of molasses that you purchased, refine it into 170 gallons of rum; ship all your rum to African Trader.


• African Trader: Trade slaves for rum at the rate of 130 gallons for a man, 110 gallons for a woman, and 80 gallons for a child. Provide New England merchants with a strip of black paper for each slave traded. Note the slaves you have traded; the simulation coordinator will give you £5 for each man, £4 for each woman, and £3 for each child so you have the cash value of the rum.


• New England Merchants: Staple the strips of black paper into links of a chain. Sail to the Sugar Islands. You decided to pack more slaves into the ship, but more of them died (typically 30-50 percent death-rates occurred on "tight-pack" slave ships). For every ten slaves you purchased, remove four links: they died on the voyage.


• Sugar Plantation Owners: Remove two links from your chain. You need to replace at least two slaves who have died this year. If you purchase more than two slaves, you will be able to produce more sugar and molasses. Buy slaves from New England Merchants at the rate of £100 for a man, £90 for a woman, and £40 for a child.

This is the end of Round Two. Each group should count its cash, total it, and report it to the simulation coordinator. Have students answer the following: Which group made the most cash? Which group made the least cash?



7. Round Three


• Sugar Plantation Owners: A drought shriveled the sugar cane crop. For each adult slave, trade 125 gallons of molasses with New England Merchants for 16 tongue depressors per slave (160 yards of wood) to produce sugar.


• Sugar Plantation Owners: For each adult slave, sell three packets (representing three hogsheads or roughly 4,800 pounds of sugar) at the price of £20 per packet to New England Merchants. (If you have ten slaves, sell 30 packets for £600; if you have eight slaves sell 24 packets for £480; but if you have 12 slaves, sell 36 packets for £720, and so on).


• New England Merchants: For each of the 250 gallons of molasses that you purchased, refine it into 170 gallons of rum; ship all your rum to African Trader.


• African Trader: Trade slaves for rum at the rate of 100 gallons for a man, 90 gallons for a woman, and 70 gallons for a child. Provide New England merchants with a strip of black paper for each slave traded. Note the slaves you have traded; the simulation coordinator will give you £5 for each man, £4 for each woman, and £3 for each child so you have the cash value of the rum.


• New England Merchants: Staple the strips of black paper into links of a chain. Sail to the Sugar Islands. You decided to purchase fewer slaves and provide them with slightly more space and exercise; historically this reduced death rates to between five-ten percent. For every ten slaves you purchased, remove one link; this slave died on the voyage.


• Sugar Plantation Owners: Remove two links from the chain. You need to replace at least two slaves who have died this year. If you purchase more than two slaves, you will be able to produce more sugar. Buy slaves from New England Merchants at the rate of £70 for a man, £60 for a woman, and £25 for a child.

This is the end of Round Three. Each group should count its cash, total it, and report it to the simulation coordinator. Have students answer the following: Which group made the most cash? Which group made the least cash? Will it be possible to continue this simulation, or has any group gone bankrupt?



8. Round Four


• Sugar Plantation Owners: The slaves on your island have organized a rebellion. Sugar fields have been burned and mills destroyed. For each adult slave, trade 50 gallons of molasses with New England Merchants for 16 tongue depressors per slave (160 yards of wood) to produce sugar.


• Sugar Plantation Owners: For each adult slave, sell one packet (representing one hogshead or roughly 1,600 pounds of sugar) at the price of £35 per packet to New England Merchants. (If you have ten slaves, sell ten packets for £350; if you have eight slaves sell eight packets for £280; but if you have 12 slaves sell 12 packets for £420, and so on.)


• New England Merchants: For each of the 250 gallons of molasses that you purchased, refine it into 170 gallons of rum; ship all your rum to African Trader.


• African Trader: Trade slaves for rum at the rate of 70 gallons for a man, 60 gallons for a woman, and 20 gallons for a child. Provide New England merchants with a strip of black paper for each slave traded. Note the slaves you have traded; the simulation coordinator will give you £5 for each man, £4 for each woman, and £3 for each child so you have the cash value of the rum.


• New England Merchants: Staple the strips of black paper into links of a chain. Sail to the Sugar Islands. Smallpox strikes your ship. For every ten slaves you purchased, remove eight links: these slaves died on the voyage.


• Sugar Plantation Owners: Remove ten links from your chain. You need to replace at least ten slaves who have run away to freedom this year. If you purchase more than ten slaves, you will be able to produce more sugar. Buy slaves from New England Merchants at the rate of £90 for a man, £80 for a woman, and £45 for a child. If you cannot purchase a slave, you will need to replace each one with two free laborers at the annual wage of £50.


9. This is the end of Round Four. Each group should count its cash, total it, and report it to the simulation coordinator. Have students answer the following: Which group made the most cash? Which group made the least cash? Will it be possible to continue this simulation, or have any of the groups gone bankrupt?

Assessment

Assess student participation in the classroom discussion using the following 25-point rubric that may be multiplied by four to convert to letter grades.

Books

Coughtry, Jay. The Notorious Triangle: Rhode Island and the African Slave Trade 1700-1807. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981.

Dodson, Howard. Jubilee: The Emergence of African-American Culture. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003.

Mintz, Sidney W. "Pleasure, Profit, and Satiation." In Seeds of Change, ed. Herman J. Viola and Carolyn Margolis, 112-129. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.

Articles

Heinl, Michael. "Birth of a Nation." Footsteps African American History. 2:4 pp. 24-27.

Internet Resources

"Bristol Slavery--Plantation Life." Online exhibition of the City of Bristol and its links to the Transatlantic Slave Trade
http://www.headleypark.bristol.sch.uk/slavery/tradetriangle/plantationlife.htm

"The Crooks' Cove Estate, Hanover, Jamaica"
http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~prcrooks/cous%20cove.htm

"Sugar House Inventories: Bristol 1690 and 1666"
http://www.mawer.clara.net/inventories.html

"Jamaican Sugar Cane"
http://wwwchem.uwimona.edu.jm:1104/lectures/sugar.html

"Northern Profits from Slavery" by Douglas Harper
http://www.slavenorth.com/profits.htm

"The Sugarhouse and Sugar Production at Ashland"
http://www.crt.state.la.us/crt/ocd/arch/greathou/sugar.htm

"Trade Goods on the Henrietta Marie and the Price of Men in 1699-1700" by Corey Malcom. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology Conference on Underwater Archaeology, January 1998
http://www.melfisher.org/research%20pdf/The%20Price%20of%20Men%20in%201699-1700%20-%20Updated%20Version.pdf

Interdisciplinary Links

• Art (visual arts): Students will illustrate the lyrics to Molasses to Rum in the form of a movie storyboard.


• English: Have students either write an abolitionist poem urging a sugar boycott, as Cowper did, or compose instructions for another four rounds of the simulation, adding new hazards (such as an Amistad-style slave revolt on a slave ship, a hurricane that flattens the sugar crop or mill, or a distillery fire that reduces the amount of rum that can be shipped).


• Mathematics or Economics: Although the simulation values of £13 as an average price of a slave bought in Africa or £11 for a hogshead of sugar are historical, what do they mean in modern terms? Students will look into the old English denominations of 240 pence (d) or 20 shillings (s) to the pound sterling (£). What did the price of sugar represent in relationship to annual wages for a footman? An artisan? The First Lord of the Treasury? The website of the Old Bailey Prison (http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/history/london-life/coinage.html) provides guidance on wages in London from the late 17^th century onward, while prices and wages of 1625-1630 can be found at http://www.portsdown.demon.co.uk/mark.htm. To show what the values of these prices are in current British pound sterling, have students visit http://www.eh.net/ehresources/howmuch/poundq.php. To convert from modern British pounds into dollars, students should use the rates from the finance section of the newspaper or an online currency calculator.


• Chemistry: What is the chemical equation for sugar (sucrose and glucose)? Students will express as an equation the photosynthesis of carbon dioxide and water in the sugar cane plant that produce sucrose and water. They will answer these questions: Can you calculate how many grams of oxygen must be inhaled to burn (digest) 10.0 grams of sucrose? Can you express as an equation the fermentation of glucose into ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide?


• Agriculture/Ecology: Have students visit the National Arboretum website at http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/ushzmap.html to identify the states with growing zones whose minimum average temperatures do not fall below 32º F or 0º C for sugar on the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. In what states can sugar be cultivated? In what states is it actually cultivated? What other factors besides temperature might explain why it isn't cultivated in all locations where the temperature is appropriate?

This lesson was submitted by Jean West, an education consultant in Port Orange, Florida.

Slavery and Sugar Lesson Plan

Handout: The musical 1776, lyrics by Sherman Edwards

Molasses to Rum
Rutledge
Mr. Jefferson, to us in South Carolina, black slavery is our peculiar institution and a cherished way of life.

Jefferson
Nevertheless, we must abolish it. Nothing is more certainly written in the Book of Fate than that this people shall be free.

Rutledge
I'm not concerned with the Book of Fate right now, sir. Slavery is the basis of our economy.

Adams
Economy. Always economy. There's more to this than a filthy purse-string, Rutledge. It's an offense against man and God.

Hopkins
It's a stinking business, Mr. Rutledge--a stinking business.

Rutledge
Is it really, Mr. Hopkins? Then what's that I smell? Floatin' down from the North--could it be the aroma of hy-pocrisy? For who holds the other end of that filthy purse-string, Mr. Adams? Our Northern brethren are feelin' a bit tender toward our slaves. They don't approve of slaves, no-o, but they're willin' to be considerable carriers of slaves--to others! They are willin', for the shillin' or haven't y'heard, Mr. Adams? Clink! clink!

Molasses to
Rum to
Slaves!
Oh, what a beautiful waltz!

You dance with us,
We dance with you, in
molasses and
Rum and
Slaves

Who sail the ships out of Boston,
Laden with Bibles and Rum?
Who drinks a toast
To the Ivory Coast,
"Hail, Africa! The slavers have come."
New England, with Bibles and Rum!

Then,
It's off with the Rum and the Bibles
Take on the Slaves, clink! clink!
Then,
Hail and farewell!
To the smell of the African
Coast!

Molasses to
Rum to
Slaves!
'Tisn't morals, 'tis money that saves!
Shall we dance to the sound
Of the profitable pound, in
Molasses and
Rum and
Slaves!

Who sail the ships out of Guinea,
Laden with Bibles and Slaves?
'Tis Boston can boast
To the West Indies coast:
"Jamaica! We brung what y'craves!
Antigua! Barbados!
We brung Bibles
And Slaves!"

Gentlemen! You mustn't think our Northern friends merely see our slaves as figures on a ledger. Oh, no, sir! They see them as figures on the block! Notice the faces at the auctions, gentlemen--white faces on the African wharves--New England faces, seafaring faces: "Put them in the ships, cram them in the ships, stuff them in the ships!" Hurry, gentlemen, let the auction begin!

Ya ha...
Ya ha...ha-ma-ha-cundahhh!

Gentlemen, y'hear?
That's the cry of the auctioneer!

Ya ha...
Ya ha...ha-ma-ha-cundahhh!

Slaves, gentlemen! Black gold! Livin' gold--gold!
From:
Annn-go-laah!
Guinea-Guinea-Guinea!
Blackbirds for sale!

Aaa-shan-tiiii!
Ibo! Ibo! Ibo! Ibo!

Blackbirds for sale!
Handle them!
Fondle them!
But don't finger them!
They're prime, they're prime!

Ya ha...
Ya ha...ha-ma-ha-cundahhh!

Bartlett
For the love of God, Mr. Rutledge, please!

Rutledge
Molasses to
Rum to
Slaves

Who sail the ships back to Boston,
Laden with gold, see it gleam?
Whose fortunes are made
In the triangle trade?
Hail, Slavery, the New England
Dream!

Mr. Adams, I give you a toast!
Hail Boston!
Hail Charleston!
Who stinketh the most?!