Running head: COLONIAL SOUTH CAROLINA SLAVERY UNIT PLAN 1

Colonial South Carolina Slavery:

An 8th Grade Social Studies Unit Plan to Foster Historical Literacy

Rebecca M. Sydow

The University of South Carolina

COLONIAL SOUTH CAROLINA SLAVERY UNIT PLAN

Rationale

In a South Carolina, all eighth graders take a South Carolina history course. This

necessitates lessons on how slavery was introduced to and shaped the colony and state, as it is

such a prominent historical affair to the region. In fact, several standards address slavery,

encouraging a primarily economic analysis. This is an important aspect of the history, but it is

not enough to foster a nuanced understanding. Classes should go beyond economics and study

how slavery affected various groups and perpetuated a silencing of African American history in

the state. This unit was created in order to promote this greater appreciation as well as to foster

important historical literacy and discipline-specific skills. The unit systematically addresses the

standards but also goes beyond them, encouraging knowledge of economic AND social history

of slavery, including slave life and potential agency through expertise in rice, domestic

economies, and rebellion. At the same time, a critical look at power relations and minority

narratives is promoted.

A trend in U.S. history classrooms is to teach slavery as a localized, separate chapter in

American history. In Looking at Slavery from Broader Perspectives, Davis (2000) comments

that the average American thinks exclusively of the South and the Civil War when hearing the

topic African-American Slavery. He suggests that to move beyond this demarcated narrative,

teachers should use comparative approaches and to take global view of the origins,

development, and abolition of racial slavery (Davis, 2000, p. 452). This unit aims to approach

slavery in this way. In order to meet the standards, several days are focused on South Carolina

specifically, but importantly, a lesson is devoted to comparing the Carolinian experience to

Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, and New England. While this is certainly a micro-scale of

the broad aims of Davis (he suggests a semester-long comparative course), it works with the
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middle school age group by introducing them to both their local history and a multinational

perspective. If teachers continue to advocate this broad view in other slavery units (this one only

covers the colonial, lowcountry-specific slavery centered on rice; another antebellum unit would

be required to cover the entirety of the eighth grade standards), then the idea of a global origins

and effects can be encouraged even more.

Moreover, this unit is centered around cultivating literacy skills in the social studies

classroom. Very often, students are not taught the domain-specific historical expertise until they

reach undergraduate levels. To break this pattern, middle school history lessons can begin to

introduce these skills, as this lesson does. Students are asked to understand and analyze

historiography, craft an historical argument, partake in sourcing and contextualization, and to

engage in both sophisticated primary and secondary source reading. Instead of just conveying

facts to be memorized, this unit aims to truly immerse students in the social studies.

Literacy Objectives

Note: These objectives are based on the South Carolina Literacy Skills for the Twenty-

First Century, grades 6-8.

Explain change and continuity over time and across cultures.

Evaluate multiple points of view or biases and attribute the perspectives to the influences

of individual experiences, societal values, and cultural traditions.

Analyze evidence, arguments, claims, and beliefs.
Compare the locations of places, the conditions at places, and the connections between

places.
Apply economic decision making to understand how limited resources necessitate

choices.
Explain why trade occurs and how historical patterns of trade have contributed to global

interdependence.
Elaborate and refine ideas in order to improve and maximize creative efforts.
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Articulate his or her own thoughts and ideas and those of others objectively through

speaking and writing.

Create a thesis supported by research to convince an audience of its validity.
Cite specific textual evidence to support the analysis of primary and secondary sources.
Integrate information from a variety of media sources with print or digital text in an

appropriate manner.

(South Carolina Social Studies Academic Standards, 2011, p. 126-129).

Standards

South Carolina State Content Standards

8-1: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the settlement of South Carolina

and the United States by Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans.

o 8-1.3 Summarize the history of English settlement in New England, the mid-

Atlantic Region, and the South, with an emphasis on South Carolina as an

example of a distinctly southern colony.

o 8-1.4 Explain the significance of enslaved and free Africans in the developing

culture and economy of the south and South Carolina, including the growth of the

slave trade and resulting population imbalance between African and European

settlers; African contributions to agricultural development; and resistance to

slavery, including the Stono Rebellion and subsequent laws to control slaves.
o 8-1.5 Explain how South Carolinians used their natural, human, and political

resources uniquely to gain economic prosperity, including settlement by and trade

with the people of Barbados, rice and indigo planting, and the practice of

mercantilism.
8-3: The student will demonstrate an understanding of South Carolinas role in the

development of the new national government.

o 8-3.1 Explain the tensions between the Upcountry and the Lowcountry of South

Carolina, including their economic struggles after the Revolutionary War, their
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disagreement over representation in the General Assembly, the location of the new

capital, and the transformation of the states economy.

(South Carolina Social Studies Academic Standards, 2011, p. 61-64)

Essential Background Content

Note: The following information is taken and adapated from the South Carolina 8th Grade

Social Studies Support Document. It is what the Department of Education suggests students

should know and provides a basic background. Because the students are going to engage in

sophisticated secondary literature and will thus go beyond the basics, teachers should do more

reading themselves. S. Max Edelsons Plantation Enterprise in Colonial South Carolina (2011)

is a substantial resource for teachers that the students will be reading from as well. For a more

general overview, Eric Nelliss Shaping the New World: African Slavery in the Americas, 1500-

1888 (2013) can be consulted. Students will be reading excerpts from that work, too.

South Carolina was founded as a proprietary colony. In the Fundamental Constitutions of

Carolina, commissioned by the Lords Proprietors and written by John Locke, there were

policies such as religious toleration designed to attract settlers. Provisions for establishing

a social class system based on the granting of titles to large landholders were also

included. While this never came to be, it demonstrates the proprietors intention in

making Carolina a society of elites and deference to themvery different from New

England or the middle colonies.

To bring in settlers and grant them land, a headright system was set up. The large

amounts of land led to large cash crop plantations, making South Carolina a distinctly

southern colony. The first settlers had experience with plantations; they came from

Barbados, another English colony, and brought experience with a slave-based labor

system.
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South Carolinas natural resources and unique landscape shaped the development of the

colony: the numerous waterways fostered transport and while initially the marshy areas

were avoided and industry focused on cattle and forestry, those swamps came to be

invaluable for rice. Later, indigo was introduced.

African Americans were an integral part of South Carolinas development. Because of the

plantation system and slavery, the economy was directly affected by their labor. Settlers

from Barbados brought slaves with them, then more were brought in through the forced

Middle Passage from west Africalarge scale importation of slaves began in the

1690s. Historians contend that the Africans brought agricultural knowledge of cattle and

rice with them, which was another direct affect of the slave community on the South

Carolina economy. They also brought cultural traditions, including language, dance,

music, food, and basket weaving, and these traditions can still be found in the lowcountry

today in the Gullah/Geechee community, as well as in the mainstream culture of

Charleston and the sea islands.

In the late 17th century, fears began to arise among white inhabitants of a black

overpopulation in the colony. They wanted to import more slaves because they were vital

to the economy, but hey were also concerned with control and the potential for rebellion.

This came to a head with the Stono Rebellion. A small group of slaves wanted to escape

to St. Augustine, Florida, because the Spanish colonists there claimed they would be free.

They summoned more slaves to join them and they met resistance, culminating the the

deaths of both white settlers and black slaves. As a result, the slave codes were

strengthened.

(Grade Eight Support Document, 2011).

Instructional Calendar
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Note: This calendar does not include every single activity done for each day, but instead

highlights one Historical Literacy Instructional Activity that the class day will center around.

Each of the instructional activities listed are intended to engage the students with both primary

sources and sophisticated secondary sources, as an alternative to relying on a textbook, and are

focused on fostering skills in historical literacy, not just conveying content. Teachers should

build-in necessary content lessons as well as customize the reading to the level of their students.

Some reading can be done as homework the night before the activity, some in class, and some as

a combination of both. Moreover, adjust the lessons for the time available. If the school is on a

block schedule, the reading and activities will fit in one class easily. If the school is on a period

schedule, with much less time per day, than the activities and readings could be spread over two

days.

Table 1

Instructional Calendar
Da Key Concepts, Topics, Literacy-Based Readings/Charts/Images

y and Categories Instructional Strategies

1 Incoming: Settlers and Role-play: Native All Groups: Edelson, pgs. 50-52

Slaves Americans, Africans, (starting at the section that begins,

Proprietors, & Planters Claims about Carolinas abundance

exposed a tension)
Group 1 (Native Americans):

Edelson, pgs. 24-26 (ending with

but in merriment and for

pastime.)
Group 2 (Africans): Edelson, pgs. 67-

68 (starting with, Making food,

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eating food, and expressing

preferences and ending with It

would have only taken a few to

produce AND pg. 85 (starting

with Unlike the Chesapeake and

Caribbean colonies and ending with

Independent production, a

distinctive freedom within

slavery...)
Group 3 (Lords Proprietors):

Edelson, pgs. 15-16 (starting with

Interpreting Signs of Abundance

and ending with individual

prosperity. AND 37-38 (starting

with Fostering a nearness of the

Neighborhood.... and ending with

and we shall not part it

Group 4 (Planters): Edelson, pgs. 41-

41 (starting with Settling a Planters

Landscape and ending with At

every turn in the settlement process,

planters challenged the

Proprietors

(Edelson, 2006)
2 Carolina Gold: Rice Secondary Source Edelson, pg. 188 (Figure 3.2: A
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and the Lowcountry Analysiswhat is lowcountry rice plantation, c. 1789).

Edelson, pgs. 59-60 (Top of page to
historiography?
Puncturing the planter elites self-

admiration) AND pgs. 89-91

(From The story of rices rise to

end of chapter).
Littlefield, 102-104 (starting with It

might seem strange to doubtless

heightened English perceptions of

those AND pgs. 113-114 (It is

clear, then to end of chapter).

The schools standard textbook (if

available).

(Edelson, 2006)

(Littlefield, 1991)
3 Plantation Case Study Creative Analysis: Table A.14: Estimated slave

Henry Laurens and his populations, Henry Laurenss

slaves plantation enterprise, 1766-c.1785

OR (pg. 285)
Edelson, pgs. 218-220 (Starting with
Field trip to Drayton
Providing and Consuming and
Hall
ending with Yet Laurens left the

needy childlike creatures of his

perception under the control of

overseers)
Africans in Carolina
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http://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/sh

ow/africanpassageslowcountryadapt/s

ectionii_introduction/africans_in_car

olina

(Edelson, 2006)

(Lowcountry Digital History Initiative)

4 The Stono Rebellion Read-Pair-Square- An Account of the Negroe

Sharecomparing Insurrection in South Carolina

A Family Account of the Stono
majority and minority
Uprising
voices
(National Humanities Center Resource

Toolbox)
5 The Atlantic Context Jigsaw Africa: Sparks, pgs. 37-44 (starting

and Comparative with Slavery was well

Perspectives: Slavery established and ending with The

in Africa, the evolution of such languages)

The Caribbean: Nellis, pgs. 76-83
Caribbean, Brazil, and
(The section Northern European
New England.
Initiatives and African Slavery)
Brazil: Nellis, pgs. 50-55 (The

section Slavery and the Shaping of

Colonial Brazil)
New England: Barsh, pgs. 463-467

(Beginning through American

Whaling and Whalemen)

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Historical Literacy Instructional Activities

Role-play: Native Americans, Africans, Proprietors, & Planters

Students will be split into four equal groups that correspond to the four different readings

listed. Within the groups, they will read the material with a partner, helping each other get

through the material. They will be instructed to write down and look up any unfamiliar

words. After reading with their partners, each group will put together a short role-playing

skit that exemplifies the group they read about. Students should have access to computers

(class set, or if a one-to-one school, their own devices) in order to look up extra

information that will help with their short skit, like images. If they do use an outside

source, they will be instructed to write down where they found the information.
Secondary Source Analysiswhat is historiography: In this assignment, the students are

going to engage in historiographya topic usually reserved for undergraduates, let alone

eighth graders. This does not mean that it is too advanced of a concept, though, just that

the lesson will require careful scaffolding. In fact, James Loewen, in Teaching What

Really Happened, advocates teaching historiography to students as young as fourth grade

(Loewen, 2010). Readings should be prefaced with a discussion of change and evidence.

The following questions might be asked:

o Is history fact?
o How do historians decide what is correct?
o Do all historians agree about what and why it happened?
o Do you think that opinions on what happened in the past can change? What about

with new evidence?

After this questioning and sharing with the the definition of historiography, students will

read short excerpts from both Littlefield (1991) and Edelson (2006) on the subject of rice

and slaves in the Lowcountry. If there is a classroom textbook that has writing on the

subject, that can be added into reading list (all of that reading will probably require
COLONIAL SOUTH CAROLINA SLAVERY UNIT PLAN

homework or a spaced out lesson). Reading independently but with the support of their

reading partner, they will work through a full-size version of this graphic organizer:

Figure 1

Historiography Graphic Organizer

Reading #1: Main points

and arguments

Similarities
Differences
between
between Main Idea (all
reading #1
readings #1 readings)
and reading
and #2
#2

Reading #2: Main points

and arguments

Following that process, they will be assigned a short (1-2) page analysis paper that would

ask them the following prompt: You have just read and compared several secondary

sources concerning rice and slaves in the colonial Lowcountry. Its time to turn your

graphic organizer into a historiographical essay. In 1-2 pages, describe and compare the

arguments of historians Littlefield and Edelson [and the author of your textbook]. How

do they agree? Disagree? Be sure to include a thesis statement.

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Note: This assignment can be part of a theme of critical analysis built upon throughout

the school year. If students engage in analyzing the accuracy of their textbook from the

beginning, this activity and the essay at the end will go smoothly because the scaffolding

will be developed from the start.

Creative AnalysisHenry Laurens and his slaves: The information on Henry Laurenss

plantations introduced in Edelson provides a jumping off point for learning about slave

life in the Lowcountry. The students will read through the information individually, with

their reading partner as support. After finishing their reading, students will craft a fact-

based fictional narrative using the information they have read. They will be asked write a

short story that attempts to portray the slave experience in the colonial Lowcountry using

the following prompt: Its time to create something new. Using the information you have

read today, write a short story that features a character experiencing slavery on one of

Henry Laurenss plantations. Who is he/she? What happens to him/her? Make sure your

story is based in fact and is true to the colonial time!

Field trip to Drayton Hall: If the funding and time is available, a day trip to a local

planation is a great opportunity for the students to really engage in the material. Drayton

Hall was chosen because of its focus on teaching and preserving history, not on tourism.

If a different colonial/pre-Revolutionary dated plantation is more accessible, than it

would work well, especially if it includes educational programming. After the field trip,

students will write a Creative Analysis (like they would have if they had done the Henry

Laruenss and his slaves reading), wherein they create a fact-based fictional narrative.
Read-Pair-Square-Sharecomparing majority and minority voices: These two primary

sources are juxtaposed in order to give an account the Stono Rebellion from both the

white and black perspective. [Read] Students will read the two sources individually.
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[Pair] Then, they will pair up and go over what they read, focusing on what was difficult

for each of them. [Square] They will then join a larger grouptheir square of four

studentsand answer the following questions. [Share] After the square group discussion,

the class will discuss the readings and questions as a whole.

o What does one learn from each account? From reading both accounts?
o What is the primary tone and message of each account?
o What is responsible for the differences between the two?
o Compare the accounts to the historical marker on page 2 of the document. How

are they different? The same?

o Why is it important to read both of these, not just one or the other?
Jigsaw: In this classic activity, students will be split into four groups that align with the

four different comparative locationsAfrica, the Caribbean, Latin America, and New

England. This will be their expert group. With these students, they will read the

corresponding material (note: this material could also be read for homework the night

before). Then they will be expected to do research and each come up with a novel fact

about slavery in this region that was NOT included in their initial reading. There should

be one novel fact for every student in the group and any sources they use should be

written down and evaluated for trustworthiness. Then, the groups will be rearranged, so

that each new group will be made up of one student from each region. This will be their

comparative group. In the comparative group, each expert will have the chance to share

the information they learning from their expert reading and research so that everyone in

the group learns about each of the four regions.

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References

Barsh, R. L. (2005). Colored seamen in the New England whaling industry: An Afro-Indian

consortium. In T. Straus (Ed.), Race, roots, & relations: Native and African Americans

(463-490). New York, NY: Albatross Press.

Davis, D. B. (2000). Looking at slavery from broader perspectives. The American Historical

Review 105(2), 452-466.

Edelson, S. M. (2006). Plantation enterprise in colonial South Carolina. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press.

Littlefield, D. C. (1991). Rice and slaves: Ethnicity and the slave trade in colonial South

Carolina. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Loewen, J. W. (2010). Teaching what really happened. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Lowcountry Digital History Initiative. Africans in Carolina. In African passages, lowcountry

adaptations. The College of Charleston. Retrieved from

http://ldhi.library.cofc.edu/exhibits/show/africanpassageslowcountryadapt/sectionii_intro

duction/africans_in_carolina

National Humanities Center Resource Toolbox. Two views of the Stono slave Rebellion: South

Carolina, 1939. In Becoming American: The British Atlantic Colonies, 1690-1763.

Research Triangle Park: National Humanities Center. Retrieved from

http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/peoples/text4/stonorebellion.pdf

Nellis, E. (2013). Shaping the new world: African slavery in the Americas, 1500-1888. Toronto:

University of Toronto Press.

South Carolina Department of Education. (2011). South Carolina social studies academic

standards. Columbia, SC: South Carolina Department of Education. Retrieved from

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https://ed.sc.gov/scdoe/assets/file/agency/ccr/Standards-

Learning/documents/FINALAPPROVEDSSStandardsAugust182011.pdf

South Carolina Department of Education. (2011). Grade eight support document. Columbia, SC:

South Carolina Department of Education. Retrieved from

http://ed.sc.gov/instruction/standards-learning/social-studies/resources/

Sparks, R. J. (2004). The two princes of Calabar: An eighteenth-century Atlantic odyssey.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Appendix

Sample of Modified and Adapted Secondary Text

Different Groups in the Colonial Lowcountry (Edelson, 2006, p. 50-52). Directions given to

students: Read the following passage from Edelsons Plantation Enterprise in Colonial South

Carolina. Some difficult words and phrases are highlighted and defined below. If you run into

anything you do not understand, consult with your reading partner and look it up. If you still are

having trouble, come to me.

Claim about Carolinas abundance exposed a tension at the heart of early plantation

society. Carolina plantations, no matter how different in appearance from English farms,

followed a basic principle of arable-pasture land use. Such farmsteads, reconstructed out of the

materials at hand in subtropical America, however, were to produce goods that no English farmer

could. Reconciling the familiar potential of lowcountry land with its exotic promise demanded a

new kind of knowledge about agriculture. The planters landscape, even as it supplanted the

environmental visions of Carolinas founders and indigenous inhabitants, was a product of

cultural and agricultural synthesis.

Four groups sought to shape Carolinas seventeenth-century landscape. Native Americans

parlayed their knowledge of the land and their presence on it into a short-term tactical

advantage, steering settlers to establish a colonial outpost in the midst of Cusabo country. As

officials gain independent access to the Indian interior and colonists took up lowcountry land

beyond the Ashley and Cooper rivers, this short-term advantage disappeared, leaving the

Cusabos in a position of long-term geographic and strategic vulnerability. Within a few years

planters had learned to grow what they called Indian corn for themselves, and their dependence

on Indian agricultural knowledge subsided. As outsiders to the English colonizing process,

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coastal Indians failed to sustain the influence that came with their long occupation of the

Lowcountry, a position of strength that native groups deeper in the interior, such as the Catawbas

and the Cherokees, were able to put to use diplomatically to survive the colonial period.

As racial outsiders relegated to the status of dependent subjects, enslaved Africans

influenced the character of this emerging plantation society without official power. As

environmental agents who stood between planters and land, however, slaves assumed a

customary scope of influence over the cultivation of crops. This practical control over planting

shaped the domestic economies that sustained black families. As rice became more important as

an article of trade than as an article of consumption, Africans set precedents for slave labor that

ordered plantation work long after planters claimed slaves agricultural experience with wetland

agriculture as their own.

The colonys Proprietors exercise their legal title to Carolina as if the scope of their

official authority conveyed the power to implement their schemes for settlement, society and

product. Their dilated visions of exotic commodities, new-world aristocrats, and village

communities failed to appreciate how little settlers wish to be subjects. As the primary agents of

colonization, planters united explicit authority as owners of land and masters of dependents with

the practical authority that came with living on the land and directing plantation settlement and

production. They succeeded where others failed by integrating the environmental visions of

their rivals into a plantation system under their command.

Word Bank:

Arable: suitable for growing crops

Reconstructed: build or form again with different materials
Reconciling: bringing together in harmony
Indigenous: native
Synthesis: combination; bringing together
Parlayed: transform into something greater or more valuable
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Tactical: actions carefully planned to gain an advantage

Vulnerability: easily hurt or attacked
Diplomatically: managing international relations
Agents: persons who have the ability to act and use power
Scope of influence: area in which the influence of one group is important
Domestic economies: household management of money and goods
Consumption: the using up of a resource
Precedents: earlier events that are examples for future events
Wetland: marshes or swamps
Conveyed: transport to a place and make something known
Dilated: larger
Exotic commodities: foreign or new agricultural products that can be bought and sold
Aristocrats: nobleman
Explicit: stated clearly and in detail with no confusion
Integrating: bringing together