SAMPLE Document Assessment - Indigo (2)
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Texas A&M University, Kingsville *
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Course
2322
Subject
History
Date
Feb 20, 2024
Type
docx
Pages
4
Uploaded by ChiefGooseMaster1087
1
American History I
NOTE: This is just a SAMPLE project so you can see how one student did a great job analyzing documents. This is NOT the project you have been assigned.
Document Project on the Cultivation of Indigo
1.
What seems to be the biggest challenges that indigo planters faced, and how did they overcome those challenges?
Indigo planters in the seventeenth century faced many challenges when it came to the cultivating of indigo. The cultivation of indigo is a long, tedious and costly process which includes having good irrigation systems, open land, processing vats, and drying sheds. Having these things made growing indigo a financially strenuous investment on top of the fact that the process is extremely labor intensive and also very dangerous. What may be the biggest problem when cultivating indigo is the health risks that one would face; when indigo is fermented it produces sickening fumes that could easily put one in danger. As a result, most indigo planters would avoid this challenge by only investing in indigo if they were confident in their slave labor.
However, even then certain circumstances could still hinder the production of indigo. For example, weather. Most of the time indigo only grew in tropical climates. All of these ramifications were possible challenges that indigo planters could encounter and tried their best to
avoid.
2.
What advantages did indigo production have for planters and for American colonies?
Indigo was a very popular plant that was very profitable during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Since indigo could only be grown in certain climates it made the supply of
indigo rare at the same time as it was in demand. When planters began to invest in indigo production and saw how profitable it was, they began to clear more land to cultivate more indigo.
The fact that American colonies had a crop that most others did not, made them really popular amongst most other colonies. Now colonies would specifically be looking to trade or buy goods from the American colonies. This helped to make valuable relationships between other countries and the American colonies that otherwise may have never been made. Also this made the American colonies pretty stable and well off. 3.
How would you compare the descriptions of growing indigo by Eliza Lucas Pinckney (Document 3.6), George Milligen-Johnson (Document 3.7) and the London pamphleteer (Document 3.8)? What different insights do you gain about the importance of slave labor in these three documents, and why does only the London pamphleteer mention slave labor directly?
The description of growing indigo differs in each document and describes the process of growing indigo in different ways. Eliza Lucas Pinckney does not describe growing indigo very well. She mostly covers surface details like the original seeding and observations she made from watching Mr. Cromwell. Where George Milligen-Johnson and the London pamphleteer do a really good job at describing the process and step that was taken in order to successfully grow indigo. I believe George Milligen-Johnson does the best job at describing growing indigo because he describes every detail and precaution that must be made in order to successfully grow
indigo and all the possible problems that one could face. Almost all of the documents reference
to the fact that in order to produce indigo one must have the proper slave labor. It is evident to me that no one was willing to risk their life on account of producing indigo. Instead they let the slaves be exposed to the dangerous fumes of indigo while they supervised. In the London
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pamphleteer they mention slave labor directly because the pamphlet was directly written on the cultivating of indigo and the author observed the slaves performing this labor up-close.
4.
On what ground does James Habersham (Document 3.10) promote the introduction of indigo into Georgia?
James Habersham wishes to promote the introduction of indigo in Georgia with hope for more profit into Georgia but also to prevent Georgia from having to rely on someone else for it. Mr. Habersham observed how much profit other colonies like England and French were making from producing their own indigo and wished to do the same. At the time, Georgia was depending on the French to get their indigo. According to Habersham, only one of their planters had even attempted to produce the crop and he didn’t necessarily have all the materials necessary
to do it. Mr. Habersham believes that everyone is looking away from growing indigo because it’s
not of their culture. However, he wants to change that but he says, there is no forcing it and he hopes that in time they change their interest and began to attempt to produce indigo in Georgia.
5.
What does the image of slaves working on an indigo plantation (Document 3.9) convey about indigo’s production and about the experience of slaves? How would you compare it
with the written descriptions in Documents 3.7 and 3.8? The image conveys how complicated and complex the process of cultivating indigo really was
back in that time period. The image shows multiple slaves performing hard labor in order to produce indigo. This strenuous process requires multiple stations to be operated during the multiple steps indigo must undergo. What the slaves must have endured during this time is almost unimaginable. Considering how fragile and unpredictable producing indigo could be one could only imagine the pressure and stress these slaves experienced. The descriptions in
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Documents 3.7 and 3.8 compared to the picture seem to differ. The picture shows slaves working
in a system that resembles to the modern day assembly line style of work. The slaves are using mostly built plantation tools, whereas the documents 3.7 and 3.8 describe the process as a more day-to-day, hands-on hard labor process. However, I believe that after examining both the documents and picture that in actuality the process was both a hands-on process as well as a plantation tools process. What these slaves had to experience was both a lengthy and difficult process in order to grow indigo.
NOTE: THIS SAMPLE EXERCISE DOES NOT INCLUDE THE ESSAY PORTION…