Plantations: Tobacco, Rice, Sugar Cane, and Cotton

Plantations were large farms found mostly in the southern United States (Cotton,2024), These farms focused on growing cash crops, crops that were sold for profit rather than eaten by the farmers themselves.

According to Malkamäk et al. (2018), Plantation owners wanted to make as much money as possible, they relied heavily on slave labor. Enslaved Africans were forced to work long hours in extremely harsh conditions, with little food, no pay, and constant supervision. Their labor helped build the wealth of plantation owners and supported industries across the world.

Each of these crops required hard physical labour, often under the hot sun, and slaves worked from sunrise to sunset.

   https://healthbunker.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/african-slaves-1050x650.jpg 

Activity 1

Instructions to Learners:

Investigate how the climate and geography of the American South made plantation farming possible. Choose one of the crops (tobacco, rice, sugar cane, or cotton) and write a paragraph explaining:

• What kind of climate it needs

• Why it was important to the global economy

• How slave labour helped produce and transport it

Use full sentences. Your paragraph must be at least 8–10 sentences."

Assessment Rubric (Out of 10)