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Character Scenarios
Enslaved African Americans
Storyline: Enslaving the Colonies
The cook in a Williamsburg gentry home, this enslaved woman produces three well cooked and varied meals a day for her master, mistress, and their children. She feeds the other domestic staff, and cares for and trains her own sons. Her children’s father lives ten miles away where he works the master’s tobacco and wheat fields from Monday morning until Saturday afternoon. They neither live together nor are they legally bound as a couple because slaves, being mere property, cannot marry. Saturday nights and Sundays the African-American father usually spends in town with his wife and children.
The new overseer at the outlying quarter seems to have it in for the father. Nothing he does is right, though he works hard all day and obeys every rule.
The parents worry about their future and their children’s. What would happen if one had a serious accident or illness? Might the overseer persuade the master to sell the field hand father to be rid of a worker he considers troublesome? The master’s daughter is to marry in a few months. Will the master split up the slave family to give a wedding present? What about their prospects upon the master’s death? How can the family negotiate the laws and conventions of slavery to ensure their well being?
Your students will enjoy an illustrated version of this Character Scenario in the KIDS ZONE.
Historic Triangle
