tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/plantations-1598/articlesPlantations – The Conversation2024-02-07T17:30:31Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2220302024-02-07T17:30:31Z2024-02-07T17:30:31ZTrees can make farms more sustainable – here’s how to help farmers plant more<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574054/original/file-20240207-16-9k2z5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5760%2C3837&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tree-field-565422556">Allgord/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Imagine making one change to a farm field so that as well as producing food, it also generated building materials, fuel and fodder. At the same time, this change would nourish the health of the soil, regulate the micro-climate and support pest-controlling wildlife. In fact, it could even produce a whole other crop.</p>
<p>All these things could be possible by simply planting trees amid crops – and not just trees, but also shrubs, palms and bamboo. </p>
<p>This approach to farming is known as agroforestry, and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01810-5">experts believe</a> it could improve the sustainability of agriculture worldwide. On a large scale, it could help mitigate climate change by <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01810-5">storing more carbon</a> in land that can still serve other purposes. Countries can even <a href="https://cgspace.cgiar.org/items/11af0804-3829-417c-9735-b72fdf45c89b">count trees planted on farmland</a> towards their reforestation commitments. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378022001297">a lot of scope</a> for planting trees on farms in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. But a lot of these plots <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/12/124010/meta">are small</a> – on average, less than 2 hectares (or two football fields). Any use of space has to really earn it.</p>
<p>So, how do we ensure trees work for farmers and the planet? India, where the last two decades have seen phenomenal changes in agroforestry, offers some insight. </p>
<h2>India’s agroforestry experiment</h2>
<p>India’s first effort to get more trees on farms started in 1999 with the Lok Vaniki scheme in Madhya Pradesh, a state in central India. The state government started the scheme to help farmers with degraded land secure additional income from timber and provided them with saplings of teak.</p>
<p>The scheme had a troubled start. The Indian supreme court had banned all tree felling except that permitted under the forest working plan three years earlier. Before farmers could sell the timber they grew, their request to fell the tree would need to be approved by the government. </p>
<p>Farmers were apprehensive about planting something they may not get permission to harvest, and teak trees take 20 years to yield timber. A cumbersome process for obtaining permits and high transport costs for small and marginal farmers scuppered the scheme. </p>
<p>The state responded by exempting certain trees from felling regulations. By 2014, India had a national agroforestry policy that offered farmers saplings and simpler procedures for harvesting and transporting trees. Still, the tree cover on farms didn’t budge. In fact, the last decade has seen <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373888557_Severe_decline_in_large_agroforestry_trees_in_India_over_the_past_decade">a severe decline</a> in trees on farms in India, according to a study I contributed to. </p>
<p>The decline was pronounced among mature trees. Once these gnarled veterans had shaded open wells on farms and kept water from evaporating in the sun’s glare. Now deeper bore wells could be dug, rendering such trees obsolete. </p>
<p>The expansion of mechanised farming put a premium on treeless fields where tractors and farm vehicles could easily manoeuvre. Attacks by fungal parasites claimed other trees. </p>
<p>Some farmers were unsentimental. In interviews, many said they saw few benefits from trees, which could prevent sunlight from reaching crops. But the decline of native trees on farms like neem, mahua and jamun, once prized for their medicinal oils and nutritious fruit, <a href="https://www.cell.com/one-earth/pdf/S2590-3322(22)00581-4.pdf">threatened rural diets</a>, particularly in the poorest regions. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A farm field with scattered trees." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574044/original/file-20240207-18-g80oer.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574044/original/file-20240207-18-g80oer.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574044/original/file-20240207-18-g80oer.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574044/original/file-20240207-18-g80oer.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574044/original/file-20240207-18-g80oer.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574044/original/file-20240207-18-g80oer.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574044/original/file-20240207-18-g80oer.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Native trees can be useful sources of medicine and food.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sandip Chowdhury</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Trees on farms, not tree farms</h2>
<p>While farmland trees dwindled across India, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00904-w">block plantations expanded</a>. These are essentially farms growing <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-022-00904-w">nothing but trees</a>. </p>
<p>These plantations largely comprise exotic and fast-growing trees like eucalyptus, poplar and casuarina, which are all exempt from felling regulations. Enticed by the prospect of generating carbon credits on the international carbon market, and by demand for pulpwood for making paper, farmers with some of the smallest plots in India tried switching their crops to block plantations.</p>
<p>When the price of carbon credits dropped with the <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/collapse-clean-development-mechanism-scheme-under-kyoto-protocol-and-its-spillover">collapse</a> of the UN’s clean development mechanism in 2012, these small farmers were left with little to show for it. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837719317272#bib0185">A study</a> later confirmed that many would have been better off keeping their land for agriculture. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Rows of spindly trees with white bark." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574045/original/file-20240207-16-r6tsf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574045/original/file-20240207-16-r6tsf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574045/original/file-20240207-16-r6tsf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574045/original/file-20240207-16-r6tsf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574045/original/file-20240207-16-r6tsf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574045/original/file-20240207-16-r6tsf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574045/original/file-20240207-16-r6tsf8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A plantation of eucalyptus trees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sandip Chowdhury</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although there is <a href="https://teaknet.org/download/IndiaTimber%2520Supply%2520and%2520Demand%25202010%25E2%2580%25932030.pdf">increasing demand</a> for pulpwood and timber in India, it is likely to favour farmers who can plant in large areas, cover harvest and transit costs, and wait for returns from plantations – a situation small and marginal farmers can ill afford. </p>
<p>These exotic plantations are <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Getachew-Kassa-4/publication/340663658_ECOLOGICAL_AND_SOCIAL_IMPACTS_OF_EUCALYPTUS_TREE_PLANTATION_ON_THE_ENVIRONMENT/links/5e97f8214585150839e02fa8/ECOLOGICAL-AND-SOCIAL-IMPACTS-OF-EUCALYPTUS-TREE-PLANTATION-ON-THE-ENVIRONMENT.pdf">no boon for the environment</a> either. For instance, eucalyptus consumes a lot of water and soil nutrients, leaving the land less fertile for future cultivation. Its leaves and flowers are less useful to birds than many native trees. </p>
<p>There is a rush globally to plant more trees on farms without considering what farmers will do with the tree in 20 years, or how it may interfere with crop production. This problem is not unique to India and has been noted elsewhere, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989421000640">including Kenya</a>. </p>
<p>Trees should still be encouraged on farms; preferably native trees that are beneficial for local diets and medicine. So far, though, the trend in India and elsewhere has been towards block plantations of exotic trees – a phenomenon largely driven by the lure of carbon credits.</p>
<p>The focus should be on supporting small and marginal farmers to grow native trees sustainably. Scattered trees of many species on small farms have bigger benefits for farmers and the environment than single-species plantations. </p>
<p>For that to happen, though, there has to be some way of financing this process. If carbon credit mechanisms can recognise this model of agroforestry and help small farmers add trees to their cropland, it would be a big shift in the right direction.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dhanapal Govindarajulu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Incentives have so far benefited large landowners and created lifeless plantations.Dhanapal Govindarajulu, Postgraduate Researcher, Global Development Institute, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2142332023-09-26T12:26:05Z2023-09-26T12:26:05ZWhy separating fact from fiction is critical in teaching US slavery<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550107/original/file-20230925-19-upjed7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=453%2C137%2C2320%2C1717&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Black actor in 1974 impersonating an enslaved man in Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/high-stepping-team-of-carriage-horses-drawing-sightseers-news-photo/502825763?adppopup=true">George Bryant/Toronto Star via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Of all the debate over teaching U.S. slavery, it is one sentence of Florida’s <a href="https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/20653/urlt/6-4.pdf">revised academic standards</a> that has <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/17/us/florida-black-history-backlash-reaj/index.html">provoked particular ire</a>: “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”</p>
<p>Does this sentence constitute “propaganda,” as <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/07/21/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-on-the-florida-state-board-of-education-curriculum-updates/">Vice President Kamala Harris</a> proclaimed, “an attempt to gaslight us?”</p>
<p>Or is it a reasonable claim in a discussion of a difficult topic?</p>
<p>Whatever it is, the sentence is of a sort not unique to the teaching of enslavement in Florida. It is, instead, an example of how some Americans transform the racist history of this country into an uplifting – and sanitized – moral lesson.</p>
<h2>Truth or fiction?</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://anthropology.as.virginia.edu/people/richard-handler">our view</a> as <a href="https://cas.umw.edu/sociologyanthropology/eric-gable/">cultural anthropologists</a>, the disputed sentence is true as <a href="https://ncph.org/what-is-public-history/how-historians-work/">historians define facts</a> – tiny nuggets of truth one can find in archives, artifacts and diaries.</p>
<p>It is a fact that small numbers of the enslaved <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/life-culture/history/2023/07/27/did-floridas-enslaved-learn-beneficial-skills-heres-what-they-said/#:%7E:text=Margarett%20Nickerson%20spoke%20of%20skills,hired%20farmhands%20and%20the%20enslaved.">acquired skills</a> that allowed them to earn money, to save it and to <a href="https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/emancipation/text1/text1read.htm">buy their freedom</a> and the freedom of family members. </p>
<p>It is also a fact that <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/free-blacks-in-the-antebellum-period.html">freed Black people in the antebellum era</a> helped other Black people to also acquire skills and became part of a segregated Black middle class in many Southern cities.</p>
<p>One might argue that such a sentence, because it is true, should not give rise to protest. But as scholars who have studied how history is taught in America, we learned that this particular nugget is neither trivial nor insignificant.</p>
<p>Instead, the one sentence in <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/floridas-new-education-standards-says-slavery-had-personal-benefits/">Florida’s new standards</a> allows Americans to transform a story about what we today call <a href="https://abc7news.com/systemic-racism-definition-structural-institutionalized-what-is/6292530/">structural racism</a> into an apocryphal story about <a href="https://time.com/6305543/horatio-alger-myth-american-dream/">Horatio Alger</a> and America’s rags-to-riches melting pot. </p>
<p>As this line of thinking goes, enslaved ancestors of contemporary African Americans labored just as most contemporary Americans’ ancestors labored: at the bottom, but able to climb up the social ladder with hard work and discipline. </p>
<p>And this is the problem: To portray enslaved people as laborers like free laborers is exactly how not to teach about slavery. </p>
<p>But it is a commonly used method that is called a “switching mechanism.” In this example, the story about the horrors of the slave system is transformed into a story about opportunity, success and the American dream. </p>
<h2>Switching the story at Colonial Williamsburg</h2>
<p>Thirty years ago, when we <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-new-history-in-an-old-museum">conducted anthropological research</a> at Colonial Williamsburg, we encountered the same narrative switching mechanism that is occurring now in Florida. </p>
<p>At that time, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/slavery-is-a-tough-role-hard-sell-at-colonial-williamsburg/2013/03/08/d78fa88a-8664-11e2-a80b-3edc779b676f_story.html">world-famous Virginia outdoor history museum</a> depicting a genteel, colonial America was trying to present the public with a truer picture of the past by incorporating the history of what they called “the Other Half” – the enslaved people who had been all but absent from the museum’s past portrayals.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three Black men holding axes are appearing to work as carpenters." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550104/original/file-20230925-17-3x87w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550104/original/file-20230925-17-3x87w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550104/original/file-20230925-17-3x87w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550104/original/file-20230925-17-3x87w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550104/original/file-20230925-17-3x87w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550104/original/file-20230925-17-3x87w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550104/original/file-20230925-17-3x87w9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this 2001 photograph, Black ‘interpreters’ are acting as carpenters in Colonial Williamsburg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/virginia-colonial-williamsburg-carpenters-news-photo/454431615?adppopup=true">Education Images/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But it was difficult, <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-new-history-in-an-old-museum">we found</a>, for the museum to sustain a narrative about the evils of the slave system. That’s because much of its paying audience of white middle-class tourists did not want to dwell on such tales, and second, its “interpreters,” or guides, found ways to switch the narrative. </p>
<p>Starting from a story about the enslaved being someone else’s property, they would transition to one suggesting the enslaved were working for their own advancement.</p>
<p>We heard stories <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-new-history-in-an-old-museum">during our research</a> like this: </p>
<p>• Don’t imagine that 18th century Williamsburg was like mid-19th century Mississippi cotton plantations, with families torn apart by avaricious masters, whippings, shackles and rape. Instead, in Williamsburg, slaves were valuable property. </p>
<p>• Consider that your average white yeoman farmer of the time had an annual income of about 20 pounds. Now consider that a highly trained slave cook was worth 500 pounds. Would your average owner be likely to abuse such a valuable piece of property? No! They’d treat that slave like an NFL quarterback! </p>
<p>Such stories conflated an enslaved laborer’s monetary value to his owner and the income of a white laborer. And that is how many visitors we listened to interpreted what they were hearing.</p>
<p>In other instances, we found conflicting messages. </p>
<p>In a skit that took us to the basement of an elite white Williamsburg household during Christmas, we witnessed Black interpreters portraying enslaved houseboys, maids and cooks complaining that they had to work harder than ever to create the festive atmosphere their owners desired. Meanwhile, upstairs, white interpreters portraying gentlemen conversing waxed philosophical about the evils of slavery coupled with the impossibility of getting rid of it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Black man dressed in an apron and carrying a stick is walking past a small house." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550098/original/file-20230925-17-bllutu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/550098/original/file-20230925-17-bllutu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550098/original/file-20230925-17-bllutu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550098/original/file-20230925-17-bllutu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550098/original/file-20230925-17-bllutu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550098/original/file-20230925-17-bllutu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/550098/original/file-20230925-17-bllutu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Black actor playing a slave walks past a farmhouse in Colonial Williamsburg in 1995.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/an-actor-playing-a-slave-walks-past-a-farmhouse-in-colonial-news-photo/521786056?adppopup=true">Nik Wheeler/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At the conclusion of the story, we talked to two members of the audience who, it turns out, had learned different lessons. </p>
<p>One concluded that she had witnessed a universal story because workers everywhere grumble about their bosses. The other pointed out that if she disliked her boss, she could quit her job – something the enslaved couldn’t do.</p>
<p>Still, both were relieved to hear that slavery did not sit easy on the consciences of the white elite.</p>
<h2>Structural inequality or Horatio Alger?</h2>
<p>Switching mechanisms such as these are hard to dislodge. They remake the worst parts of the American story into a story consonant with the American Dream.</p>
<p>Today, not much has changed in Williamsburg. <a href="https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/20653/urlt/6-4.pdf">In Florida</a> and many other states, switching allows designers of history curricula to avoid discussions on the lasting effects of racialized slave labor. They avoid discussing what that has meant to millions of people who did not, will not and cannot start on the same rung of the ladder of upward mobility that is available to other Americans who do not share a history of enslavement.</p>
<p>In our view, that is not a story that many Americans want to tell, teach or hear. </p>
<p>And so they switch to a different one, in which equal opportunity has been achieved, every one of us is capable of overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds, and failure to rise must be a result of individual weakness and vice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214233/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Though it is a fact that some enslaved people learned valuable skills, it’s a myth that they had the same path of upward mobility that white laborers enjoyed.Eric Gable, Professor of Anthropology, University of Mary WashingtonRichard Handler, Professor of Anthropology, University of VirginiaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2112262023-08-10T14:03:20Z2023-08-10T14:03:20ZIndia was a tree planting laboratory for 200 years – here are the results<p>Allowing forests to regenerate on their own has been championed as a strategy for reducing planet-heating carbon in the atmosphere while also boosting biodiversity, the benefits ecosystems offer and even the fruitfulness of livelihoods. </p>
<p>But efforts to increase global tree cover to limit climate change have <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01026-8">skewed</a> towards erecting plantations of fast-growing trees. The reasons are obvious: planting trees can demonstrate results a lot quicker than natural forest restoration. This is helpful if the objective is generating a lot of timber quickly or certifying carbon credits which people and firms buy to supposedly offset their emissions.</p>
<p>While plantations on farms and barren land can provide firewood and timber, easing the pressure on natural forests and so aiding their regeneration, ill-advised tree planting can unleash invasive species and even dispossess people of their land. </p>
<p>For more than 200 years India has experimented with tree plantations, offering important lessons about the consequences different approaches to restoring forests have on local communities and the wider environment. This rare long-term perspective should be heeded by foresters today to prevent past mistakes being repeated.</p>
<h2>Plantations in colonial-era India</h2>
<p>Britain extended its influence over India and controlled much of its affairs via the East India Company from the mid-18th century onwards. Between 1857 and 1947, the Crown ruled the country directly and turned its attention to the country’s forests.</p>
<p>Britain needed great quantities of timber to lay railway sleepers and build ships in order to transport the cotton, rubber and tea it took from India. Through the Indian Forest Act of 1865, forests with high-yielding timber trees such as teak, sal and deodar became state property. </p>
<p>To maximise how much timber these forests yielded, British colonial authorities restricted the rights of local people to harvest much beyond grass and bamboo. Even cattle grazing was restricted. Indian communities <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4372653">retaliated</a> by burning down some of the forests.</p>
<p>Meanwhile plantations of teak (<em>Tectona grandis</em>), a species well adapted to India’s hot and humid climate and a source of durable and attractive timber, spread aggressively. Pristine grasslands and open scrub forest gave way to teak monocultures.</p>
<p>Eucalyptus and other exotic trees which hadn’t evolved in India were introduced from around 1790. British foresters planted pines from Europe and North America in extensive plantations in the Himalayan region as a source of resin and introduced acacia trees from Australia for timber, fodder and fuel. One of these species, wattle (<em>Acacia mearnsii</em>), first introduced in 1861 with a few hundred thousand saplings, was planted in the Nilgiris district of the Western Ghats. </p>
<p>This area is what scientists call a biodiversity hotspot – a globally rare ecosystem replete with species. Wattle has since become <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320717321638?via%3Dihub">invasive</a> and taken over much of the region’s mountainous grasslands. </p>
<p>Similarly, pine has spread over much of the Himalayas and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13280-017-0947-1">displaced native oak trees</a> while teak has <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4372653">replaced sal</a>, a native hardwood, in central India. Both oak and sal are valued for fuel, fodder, fertiliser, medicine and oil. Their loss, and <a href="https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol25/iss4/art1/">the loss of grazing land</a>, impoverished many.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Mountains with a bank of clouds in the distance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542121/original/file-20230810-15-wtnbsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542121/original/file-20230810-15-wtnbsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542121/original/file-20230810-15-wtnbsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542121/original/file-20230810-15-wtnbsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542121/original/file-20230810-15-wtnbsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542121/original/file-20230810-15-wtnbsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542121/original/file-20230810-15-wtnbsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Western Ghats is a mountain range which runs 1,600 km along India’s west coast.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ilan Kumaran</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Restoring forests in India today</h2>
<p>India has <a href="https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1574780">pledged</a> to restore about 21 million hectares of forest by 2030 under the Bonn Challenge. <a href="https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.CH.2018.12.en">A progress report</a> released by the government of India and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2018 claimed around 10 million hectares was under restoration.</p>
<p>This focus on increasing the area of land covered with trees is reflected in India’s national forest policy, which aims for trees on 33% of the country’s area. Schemes under this policy include plantations consisting of a single species such as eucalyptus or bamboo which grow fast and can increase tree cover quickly, demonstrating success according to this dubious measure.</p>
<p>Sometimes these trees are planted in grasslands and other ecosystems where tree cover is naturally low. The <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/70/11/947/5903754">result</a> is that afforestation harms rural and indigenous people who depend on these ecosystems for grazing and produce. The continued planting of exotic trees risks new invasive species, in a similar way to wattle 200 years ago. </p>
<p>There are positive case studies too. The Forest Rights Act of 2006 empowered village assemblies to manage forest areas which had once been in traditional use. Several assemblies (known as <em>Gram Sabhas</em>) in the Gadchiroli district of central India have restored degraded forests and managed them as a sustainable source of <a href="https://india.mongabay.com/2022/06/low-prices-offered-by-the-government-pushes-tendu-leaf-collectors-to-explore-open-market/">tendu leaves</a>, which are used to wrap bidi (Indian tobacco). In the Kachchh grasslands of western India communities were able to restore grasslands by removing the invasive <em>gando bawal</em> (meaning “mad tree”) first introduced by British foresters in the late 19th century.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A hand holding a stack of hand-rolled cigarettes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542152/original/file-20230810-23-zw8b0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542152/original/file-20230810-23-zw8b0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542152/original/file-20230810-23-zw8b0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542152/original/file-20230810-23-zw8b0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542152/original/file-20230810-23-zw8b0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542152/original/file-20230810-23-zw8b0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542152/original/file-20230810-23-zw8b0m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tendu leaves can be rolled into thin cigarettes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/burhanpur-madhya-pradesh-india-05-jan-1903477330">Parikh Mahendra N/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Future forests</h2>
<p>The success of forest restoration efforts cannot be measured by tree cover alone. The Indian government’s definition of “forest” still encompasses plantations of a single tree species, orchards and even bamboo, which actually belongs to the grass family. </p>
<p>This means that biennial forest surveys cannot quantify how much natural forest has been restored, or convey the consequences of displacing native trees with competitive plantation species or identify if these exotic trees have invaded natural grasslands which have then been falsely recorded as restored forests. </p>
<p>Natural forest regeneration and plantations for timber and fuel should both be encouraged, but with due consideration of how other ecosystems and people will be affected. This includes carefully choosing plantation species to ensure they don’t become invasive. </p>
<p>The objective of increasing tree cover should be assessed in terms of its implications for forest rights, local livelihoods, biodiversity and carbon storage. Some of the best practices on restoration through communities such as Gadchiroli should be studied and scaled up.</p>
<p>Planting trees does not necessarily mean a forest is being restored. And reviving ecosystems in which trees are scarce is important too. Determining whether local people and the environment are benefiting is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.12489">a more helpful</a> measure of success than simply scanning a forest canopy from above.</p>
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<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dhanapal Govindarajulu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Plantations of exotic trees from the mid-19th century onwards devastated Indian ecosystems.Dhanapal Govindarajulu, Postgraduate Researcher, Global Development Institute, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2099292023-07-27T21:43:43Z2023-07-27T21:43:43ZPalm oil: The myth of corporate plantation efficiency is failing Indonesians and furthering inequality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539564/original/file-20230726-21-lzwu10.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5610%2C3618&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Malaysian worker harvests palm fruits from a plantation in peninsular Malaysia, on Wednesday, March 6, 2019. Though labour issues have largely been ignored, the punishing effects of palm oil on the environment have been decried for years.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/palm-oil-the-myth-of-corporate-plantation-efficiency-is-failing-indonesians-and-furthering-inequality" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Palm oil is <a href="https://orangutancanada.ca/palm-oil/">found in half the products sold in supermarkets</a> and in biofuels. Around 50 per cent of the world’s supply is grown in Indonesia, mostly on massive plantations. </p>
<p>Government land concessions granted to oil palm corporations now <a href="https://chainreactionresearch.com/report/28-percent-of-indonesias-palm-oil-landbank-is-stranded/">cover a third of Indonesia’s farmland</a>, depriving many villagers of access to resources that once sustained them. </p>
<p>Indonesia’s governments have consistently supported plantation corporations at the expense of smallholder farms (defined as farms with less than 25 hectares). As the <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2021/06/final-court-ruling-orders-indonesian-government-to-publish-hgu-palm-oil-plantation-data/">land minister stated in 2019</a>, “if (the lands) aren’t productive in the hands of the people, then we will take away the lands…The fact is that the fastest machine to generate wealth is corporate.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539209/original/file-20230725-29-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map showing land concessions by the Indonesian government to corporate palm growers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539209/original/file-20230725-29-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539209/original/file-20230725-29-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539209/original/file-20230725-29-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539209/original/file-20230725-29-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=328&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539209/original/file-20230725-29-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539209/original/file-20230725-29-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539209/original/file-20230725-29-yy0hdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Corporate entities now control over a third of Indonesia’s farmland, primarily for the growing of palm for palm oil.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Chain Reaction Research)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Officials assume that plantation corporations are efficient “machines” but our <a href="https://www.taniali.org/book-posts/plantation-life">research indicates that corporate plantation efficiency is a dangerous myth</a>. </p>
<h2>Plantations out-competed</h2>
<p>Globally, crops such as cacao, coffee, tea and rubber previously grown on plantations are now grown mainly by smallholders because they can produce <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/land3030574">similar yields with lower costs</a>.</p>
<p>Some observers argue that oil palm is different. They note that <a href="https://www.yieldgap.org/indonesia-oil-palm">average yields</a> are higher on plantations than smallholdings, but averages mask significant variations. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.academia.edu/34111743/Indonesian_Palm_Oil_Production_Sector_A_Wave_of_Consolidation_To_Come">Industry analysts tracking 18 major plantation corporations</a> found yields ranging from 14 to 26 tons of fresh fruit per hectare; the range among hundreds of smallholders in our research site was similar. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/growing-palm-oil-on-former-farmland-cuts-deforestation-co-and-biodiversity-loss-127312">Growing palm oil on former farmland cuts deforestation, CO₂ and biodiversity loss</a>
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<p>A key reason that some smallholders have low yields is their lack of access to the high quality seeds used on plantations — seeds that <a href="https://www.neliti.com/publications/94380/analisis-kelayakan-finansial-penggunaan-bibit-bersertifikat-kelapa-sawit-di-prov">yield up to 66 per cent more tons of fruit</a>. Yet a government program to supply smallholders with high-yielding seeds has stalled: after five years it has <a href="https://jp.reuters.com/article/indonesia-palmoil-idUSKBN2V10EI">achieved barely 10 per cent of its target</a>. </p>
<p>If oil palms grow just as well on small fields as on big ones (given the same seeds, like for like), how do other dimensions of efficiency compare? </p>
<h2>Efficiency in land use</h2>
<p>Of the <a href="https://chainreactionresearch.com/report/28-percent-of-indonesias-palm-oil-landbank-is-stranded/">22 million hectares</a> the government has granted to oil palm plantation corporations, only <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266178">10 million hectares </a> have been planted. </p>
<p>Much concession land is steep, peaty and ecologically fragile. Oil palm can be grown there but <a href="https://jopeh.com.my/index.php/jopecommon/article/view/60">costs are high and yields low</a>. Nevertheless, managers pressed to meet corporate targets often plant palms on unsuitable land. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A worker sharpens the blade of a sickle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539561/original/file-20230726-25-pkn3es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539561/original/file-20230726-25-pkn3es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539561/original/file-20230726-25-pkn3es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539561/original/file-20230726-25-pkn3es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539561/original/file-20230726-25-pkn3es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539561/original/file-20230726-25-pkn3es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539561/original/file-20230726-25-pkn3es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A worker sharpens the blade of his sickle used for cutting down palm oil fruit from tall trees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indonesia’s smallholders and Indigenous communities do not proceed so wastefully. They make sustainable use of forest resources and select crops suited to each patch of land, while making wise use of their money and effort. As a result they can respond more flexibly to the changing climate. Yet they are <a href="https://doi.org/10.21307/borderlands-2021-002">barred from making any use</a> of the land plantation corporations hold in their concessions, much of it unplanted, and many go hungry.</p>
<h2>Saving on labour costs</h2>
<p>Growing oil palm is simple. Men harvest the fruit manually with a sharp knife attached to a long pole; women spread fertilizers and herbicides from containers carried on their backs. </p>
<p>Field tasks are carried out in the same way on plantations and smallholdings. The difference is that plantations also need managers, accountants, overseers and guards, incurring high costs.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/major-palm-oil-companies-broke-their-promise-on-no-deforestation-recovery-is-needed-198399">Major palm oil companies broke their promise on No Deforestation – recovery is needed</a>
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<p>Seeking to reduce their wage bill, <a href="https://www.abacademies.org/articles/precarious-and-neglected-indonesias-oil-palm-workers-ten-years-after-the-ungps-11078.html">plantation corporations</a> increasingly replace full-time employees with casual and outsourced workers who do not qualify for pensions, health care, family housing or other benefits. </p>
<p>Yet plantation labour “efficiencies” come with a price: in the plantations we studied, inconsistent labour supply led to poor maintenance and unharvested fruit. </p>
<h2>The challenge of transportation and milling</h2>
<p>Transportation and milling loom large in industry narratives about the superior efficiency of the plantation format, as palm fruit must reach the mill within 48 hours before it spoils. But the large size of plantations creates challenges of its own.</p>
<p>A private plantation we studied built 258 kilometres of roads to collect palm fruit but during the rainy season many roads became impassable; for months, tons of fruit were left to rot. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Smoke rises from a palm oil mill." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539562/original/file-20230726-21-92rfig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539562/original/file-20230726-21-92rfig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539562/original/file-20230726-21-92rfig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539562/original/file-20230726-21-92rfig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539562/original/file-20230726-21-92rfig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539562/original/file-20230726-21-92rfig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539562/original/file-20230726-21-92rfig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Smoke rises from a processing mill in Indonesia. These mills are a considerable bottleneck in the production of palm oil.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There was also a bottleneck unloading the palm fruit at the mill where trucks waited, sometimes overnight. And the mill operated at less than half its capacity — a common problem in Indonesia where corporations have built mills that are <a href="https://medium.com/trase/transparency-gaps-in-indonesian-palm-oil-supply-chains-106777d8942e">much bigger than needed</a>.</p>
<p>In Thailand, where <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/land3030574">smallholders grow 80 per cent</a> of the oil palm, and in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-9552.12163">parts of Sumatra</a> where independent smallholders are well established, villagers use local roads and small trucks to transport their fruit to small mills located nearby. However in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266178">Kalimantan where 86 per cent</a> of the palms are grown on giant plantations, giant inefficient mills are the norm.</p>
<h2>Principals and agents</h2>
<p>Plantations also suffer from what economists call the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2096404">principal-agent problem</a>”: the principals (corporations and their shareholders) must rely on agents (managers and workers) to carry out production, but their interests are often distinct. </p>
<p>Corporations seek profit, shown on company balance sheets. Managers and workers seek to capture some of the money that circulates through and around plantations before it flows away. We saw this problem enacted in the form of widespread theft.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A truck loaded with cut palm fruits." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539566/original/file-20230726-19-stn6k1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539566/original/file-20230726-19-stn6k1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539566/original/file-20230726-19-stn6k1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539566/original/file-20230726-19-stn6k1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539566/original/file-20230726-19-stn6k1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539566/original/file-20230726-19-stn6k1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539566/original/file-20230726-19-stn6k1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workers load palm oil fruit weighing up to 50 pounds (22 kilograms) each into a truck to send to the mills on roads which can become impassable in rainy seasons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>From plantation directors and managers through to field workers, “agents” found ways to supplement their incomes. Managers inflated contract prices, foremen stole their workers’ pay, and fruit, fuel and equipment disappeared at night. Villagers also stole from the plantations and sometimes blockaded roads or mills to protest corporate unfairness and neglect.</p>
<p>Conflict and theft create inefficiency. So long as they farmed on their own land, smallholders in our study did not have these problems. While not perfect, moral codes supplied forms of social control that were lacking in relations between principals and agents on nearby plantations. </p>
<h2>If Indonesia’s plantations are not efficient, why do they survive?</h2>
<p>In the 1930s, the Dutch colonial government protected struggling rubber plantations by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/702877">suppressing competition</a> from smallholders. Today’s oil palm smallholders are suppressed indirectly by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12162">government policies</a> that favour corporations. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-palm-oil-became-the-worlds-most-hated-most-used-fat-source-161165">How palm oil became the world's most hated, most used fat source</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In our research area, five corporations occupied most of the farmland, leaving smallholders who wanted to grow oil palm without access to this lucrative crop. They calculated that adding six hectares of oil palm to their mixed farms would enable them to feed their families, maintain their farms and invest in education. </p>
<p>Making corporate plantations more efficient would not address this fundamental unfairness. Only by challenging the myth of corporate efficiency can we hope to provide better opportunities, and a more prosperous future, for Indonesian farmers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209929/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tania Li receives funding from Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She is currently a visiting research fellow at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pujo Semedi receives funding from Universitas Gadjah Mada. </span></em></p>Palm oil is used in half the products sold in global supermarkets. Much of the oil comes from Indonesia where it is grown on plantations that are relatively inefficient, but occupy huge areas of land.Tania Li, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of TorontoPujo Semedi, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Universitas Gadjah Mada Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2022742023-05-19T10:57:29Z2023-05-19T10:57:29ZBeatrix Potter’s famous tales are rooted in stories told by enslaved Africans – but she was very quiet about their origins<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525902/original/file-20230512-19-gzwp6j.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C2%2C1979%2C1407&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An illustration by Beatrix Potter from The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/image/218381001">The Trustees of the British Museum</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Peter Rabbit, the cute and wily bunny who wears a bright blue jacket, is the best-selling creation of English author Beatrix Potter. Originally published in 1902, the Tale of Peter Rabbit – the first of <a href="https://toppsta.com/books/series/6474/beatrix-potter-originals">23 tales</a> in the series – has since been translated into more than 45 languages and sold over 45 million copies.</p>
<p>Peter’s home is the Lake District in north-west England, among ancient stone walls and picturesque rolling hedgerows that crisscross emerald fields. Heralded as <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/introducing-beatrix-potter#:%7E:text=Beatrix%20Potter%20remains%20one%20of,than%20250%20million%20copies%20worldwide.">Britain’s best-loved children’s author</a>, Potter received much praise for her originality as well as her artistic and literary skills during her lifetime, and these “thoroughly English” tales continue to captivate young readers all over the world. The author was a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11750877/New-20-bank-note-Beatrix-Potter-must-be-Britains-next-woman-of-note.html">frontrunner to appear on the UK’s latest £20 note</a>, but was beaten by the painter J.M.W. Turner.</p>
<p>It is popularly held that Potter conceived of her tales in 1893, <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/peter-rabbit-the-tale-of-the-tale">while writing to the sickly son</a> of her friend and former governess, Annie Moore. In these letters she <a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1247436/peter-rabbit-picture-letter-correspondence-beatrix-potter/?gclid=CjwKCAjwx_eiBhBGEiwA15gLN9Lw8L_ohRFJW1DXBdx2BpfSYbLpS7h_z6aLDBjgpktow9Sj33Pm6BoCvRcQAvD_BwE">wrote and illustrated stories</a> featuring her pet rabbit, Peter Piper.</p>
<p>As a scholar of folktales and postcolonial literature, however, I spend a lot of time tracing the roots of stories and examining the impact of colonial legacies on them. While rereading another collection of children’s stories featuring the “trickster hero” Brer Rabbit – for <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781783481101/American-Trickster-Trauma-Tradition-and-Brer-Rabbit">my own book</a> on how these folktales were introduced to North America by enslaved Africans – it became clear to me that the similarities between Beatrix Potter’s tales and the Brer Rabbit stories demand further consideration. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/288776/original/file-20190820-170910-8bv1s7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><strong><em>This article is part of Conversation Insights</em></strong>
<br><em>The Insights team generates <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/insights-series-71218">long-form journalism</a> derived from interdisciplinary research. The team is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects aimed at tackling societal and scientific challenges.</em></p>
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<p>The tales of Brer Rabbit can be traced back to pre-colonial Africa, from where they were transported to the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Sources_and_Analogues_of_the_Uncle_Remus.html?id=fh_XAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">plantations of America by enslaved people</a>. The stories were first adapted for a white audience in the late 19th century by the American journalist and folklorist <a href="http://www.wrensnest.org/history-of-joel-chandler-harris-chandler-circle/">Joel Chandler Harris</a>.</p>
<p>Harris created a fictional African American narrator for his stories, <a href="https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/uncle-remus-tales/">Uncle Remus</a>, whose name became the popular title for his collections. Brer Rabbit is a cunning trickster who lives in a briar (bramble) patch and outwits larger animals using his brains rather than his brawn. </p>
<p>In her 2008 biography of Potter, <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Beatrix_Potter/lXG5bFER1FoC?hl=en&gbpv=1">A Life in Nature</a>, <a href="http://www.lindalear.com/beatrix_potter__a_life_in_nature_56797.htm">Linda Lear</a> notes that while the author’s “first audience was British”, her work was strongly influenced by Harris – “whose Brer Rabbit stories she had loved as a child”. Lear also writes that Potter’s tales “were favourably compared to Uncle Remus in early reviews of her work”.</p>
<p>And yet, I was amazed to realise how little comment there has been over the years about the many similarities between Potter’s tales and the Africa-originated Brer Rabbit folktales. Indeed, one of the most striking references, cited in Lear’s biography, is found in a letter that Potter herself wrote to her publisher, Harold Warne, on <a href="http://www.lindalear.com/beatrix_potter__a_life_in_nature_56797.htm">November 18 1911</a>. The letter is about her new Peter Rabbit story The Tale of Mr Tod, and directly refers to her use of the Uncle Remus folktales in this work:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think the story is amusing; its principal defect is its imitation of ‘Uncle Remus’. It is no drawback for children, because they cannot read the Negro vernacular. I hardly think the publishers could object to it? I wrote it some time ago. I have copied it out lately.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We don’t know how Warne responded to this letter. However, having analysed the plotting, language and characters in Potter’s tales, it’s clear that she was more than just inspired by these folktales. Her tales owe a debt to the Brer Rabbit stories told by enslaved Africans working on American <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation_complexes_in_the_Southern_United_States">plantations</a> that needs to be fully acknowledged.</p>
<h2>Early encounters with Brer Rabbit</h2>
<p>Potter knew Harris’s Brer Rabbit folktales as a child, having first encountered them in her father Rupert Potter’s library in their grand London home. Copies of the collections <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2306">Songs and Sayings</a> and its sequel <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24430/24430-h/24430-h.htm">Night with Uncle Remus</a> were found at her farmhouse home in Sawrey in the Lake District after she died in 1943. Each bore her father’s bookplate.</p>
<p>These stories had not been published in the UK when Beatrix Potter was a child. It is therefore likely that her early contact with the Brer Rabbit tales (in comparison with the rest of the British public) was a result of her family roots in the cotton industry.</p>
<p>Her grandfather, Edmund Potter (1802–1883), was a Manchester cotton mill owner and industrialist. He became wealthy in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico">calico</a> printing business, a cotton cloth originating from India.</p>
<p>Under the British East India Company (1600-1874), the cotton industry was an exploitative one. Cotton was grown by “peasant cultivators” in India who were heavily taxed. At the same time, the growth of demand in Britain and the development of British weaving techniques <a href="https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1329&context=tsaconf">destroyed the traditional Indian cotton manufacturing industry</a>.</p>
<p>In Manchester, Edmund Potter introduced precision machinery to his calico printing process. By 1883, his mill employed 350 workers – <a href="http://www.lindalear.com/beatrix_potter__a_life_in_nature_56797.htm">many of them children</a>, according to Lear’s biography – and was the world’s largest calico printing factory. </p>
<p>A great portion of Edmund Potter’s wealth was passed on to Beatrix’s father, Rupert, a lawyer and photographer. He married a wealthy heiress, Helen Leech, whose family had also made a <a href="https://britishphotohistory.ning.com/profiles/blogs/exhibition-the-world-of-rupert-potter-photographs-of-beatrix-mill">fortune in Manchester’s cotton industry</a> by owning several <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton-spinning_machinery">cotton-spinning</a> mills. By the early 19th century, the raw cotton used in these mills was sourced from the Americas, including from the <a href="https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/fe657536-3f54-4a5b-a75c-1fd5f28181ea">Sea Islands</a> region and Charleston in <a href="https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/39e0b77d-9bde-478d-a39f-3277630111b7">South Carolina</a>.</p>
<p>This was the time of Manchester’s emergence as the world’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2023/apr/03/cotton-capital-how-slavery-made-manchester-the-worlds-first-industrial-city">cotton capital</a>”. The city’s economic success was deeply connected to the enslavement of African people. Its industry predominantly involved the production of cloth made from raw cotton that had been picked by enslaved people on plantations in the Caribbean and US. </p>
<p>Many of the dyes such as <a href="https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Nineteenth+Century+Calico+Printer.-a0660701065">logwood</a> used in the printing of cotton were also imported from places such as Belize (known then as British Honduras) in the British Caribbean, and would have been <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25765830">harvested by enslaved people</a>.</p>
<p>So, was it the Potter family’s connections with the cotton industry, the US, and the slave trade that brought a plantation Brer Rabbit into the Potter household? </p>
<h2>How Potter fell in love with the Uncle Remus stories</h2>
<p>As noted in my book, <a href="https://ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2021/02/11/that-wascally-wabbit-review-of-american-trickster-trauma-tradition-and-brer-rabbit-by-emily-zobel-marshall/">American Trickster: Trauma, Tradition, and Brer Rabbit</a>, there are only two detailed pieces of research connecting Potter’s tales with Harris’s earlier folktales. </p>
<p>The first is children’s author John Goldthwaite’s 1996 book, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3V30DAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">The Natural History of Make-Believe</a>. This was used as a key source in the other important contribution, literary critic Peter Hollindale’s (unpublished) lecture Uncle Remus and Peter Rabbit, delivered in 2003 at the Beatrix Potter Society’s annual general meeting. </p>
<p>I found the title of Hollindale’s lecture on the society’s website and wrote to ask if he would share its contents. His wife typed up the lecture from his handwritten notes, and I am grateful for their assistance with my research. </p>
<p>From her earliest creative forays, the influence of Brer Rabbit on Potter was evident in her work. In 1893, when establishing herself as an illustrator for her writing, she did the <a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1263147/brer-fox-and-brer-rabbit-drawing-beatrix-potter/">first of eight Uncle Remus drawings</a> – presumably having been inspired by A.B. Frost’s illustrations in Harris’s books. More followed in <a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1263169/brer-fox-goes-a-hunting-drawing-beatrix-potter/">1895</a> and <a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1263296/brer-rabbit-steals-brer-wolfs-drawing-beatrix-potter/">1896</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An illustration of a rabbit in human clothes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525906/original/file-20230512-20526-qjsrry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525906/original/file-20230512-20526-qjsrry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525906/original/file-20230512-20526-qjsrry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525906/original/file-20230512-20526-qjsrry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525906/original/file-20230512-20526-qjsrry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525906/original/file-20230512-20526-qjsrry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525906/original/file-20230512-20526-qjsrry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration of Brer Rabbit by A.B. Frost, from Brer Rabbit and Tar Baby.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%27er_Rabbit#/media/File:Brer_Rabbit_and_the_Tar_Baby.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Potter illustrated Harris’s tales for fun, it seems, and to stretch her artistic talent. She was not commissioned to do so, and there’s no indication that Harris was aware of her drawings or ever saw them. </p>
<p>There are, however, clear resemblances between Potter’s Uncle Remus illustrations and those in her tales of Peter Rabbit. For example, her illustration of Brer pretending to be Mr Billy Malone in the Remus tale <a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1372604/what-kind-of-lookin-man-drawing-beatrix-potter/">In Some Lady’s Garden</a> is very similar to her drawing of Peter and Benjamin in The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny, with both rabbits wearing fitted jackets and hats in an English country garden. </p>
<p>There are also similarities in her illustration of the Remus tale <a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1263161/brer-rabbit-rescues-the-terrapin-drawing-beatrix-potter/">Brother Rescues Brother Terrapin</a> with those she did of the fox character, Mr Tod, and the interior of his home for The Tale of Mr Tod.</p>
<p>Potter never publicly admitted the source of any inspiration for her drawings, plotlines or protagonists. But in his lecture, Hollindale argued that she “misunderstood her own talent and, to the end of her life, was afraid of being caught out as a cheat”. </p>
<p>Indeed, in a diary entry in 1883, Potter wrote as <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Natural-History-Make-Believe-Principal-Britain/dp/0195038061">if plagiarism were a viral illness</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a risky thing to copy. Shall I catch it?</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The African roots of the Peter Rabbit tales</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095526252;jsessionid=DCE76F7AEFD79AB9D89AA674CB888E15">Brer Rabbit folklore character</a> originated from the hare trickster figure of the Bantu-speaking peoples of south, central and east Africa. We know the origins of the tales through careful comparisons of plot, structure, language and characters in the stories. Brer was brought to the Americas by enslaved people and became a well-known folk figure across the French-speaking Caribbean and US. </p>
<p>In the Francophone Caribbean and American states, in particular Louisiana, the African hare was called <em>Compère Lapin</em> (Brother Rabbit), while in the <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/132155121.pdf">English-speaking US he was known as Brer Rabbit</a>.</p>
<p>This cunning trickster was known for outwitting his often more powerful animal adversaries using brains rather than brawn. The tales came to embody the tactics of resistance that enslaved people implemented to survive the brutality of plantation life. Harris adapted them while living on the Turnwold cotton plantation in the southern US state of Georgia in the late 19th century. He would spend his evenings in the quarters of the enslaved workers, listening to them <a href="https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/arts-culture/on-the-plantation/">share these stories</a>.</p>
<p>Harris’s fictional narrator, Uncle Remus, was a formerly enslaved old man who was content with plantation life and for whom everything was “satisfactory”. Remus was based on, and propagated, a <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2015/07/tracking-tricksters-in-washington-dc/">racist, minstrel-style stereotype</a> that was deeply embedded into white American culture and consciousness.</p>
<p>Harris’s versions of the Brer Rabbit tales were sanitised to entertain white readers. The violence and injustice at the heart of both plantation life and the traditional folktales were tempered. Instead, Harris’s stories offered a more benign view of slavery.</p>
<p>Following on from the US’s <a href="https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation">emancipation proclamation</a> of 1863, Harris’s portrayal of Uncle Remus, the “happy slave”, fed a <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/704960">white American nostalgia</a> for its plantation past as a time when everybody knew their place. In this fantasy, unruly or child-like enslaved people were guided and cared for by benevolent white masters.</p>
<p>In an angry 1981 essay, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23268234">Uncle Remus, No Friend of Mine</a>, the African American author Alice Walker accused Harris of stealing part of her heritage and making her “feel ashamed of it”. Walker described feeling “separated from [her] own culture by an invention”, adding: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Even our folklore has been ridiculed and tampered with. And this is very serious, because folklore is at the heart of self-expression, and therefore at the heart of self-acceptance.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Poaching plantation stories</h2>
<p>One of the key elements that Harris preserved in his retellings of the oral plantation folktales was the African American vernacular. And some of these turns of phrases and ways of speaking found their way directly into Potter’s stories.</p>
<p>Terms like “rabbit tobacco”, “puddle-duck”, “lickety-split” and “cottontail” are not English at all, but have been lifted from the African American vernacular she learned and enjoyed in the Remus tales.</p>
<p>And when <a href="https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/literary-musings/letters-to-children-from-beatrix-potter-a-path-to-her-books/">writing about the success</a>) of her tales, Potter referenced a “mischievous” enslaved character, Topsy, from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s plantation novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have never quite understood the secret of Peter’s perennial charm. Perhaps it is because he and his friends keep on their way, busily absorbed with their own doings. They were always independent. Like Topsy, they just “grow’d”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are also numerous similarities in the plots of Harris’s and Potter’s tales. In Some Lady’s Garden (1883), for example, Brer Rabbit tricks Miss Janey into letting him into her father’s vegetable garden to steal English peas, sparrow grass (asparagus) and goobers’(peanuts) by pretending to be a friend of her father, Mr Man, from the big white (master’s) house. </p>
<p>This plot is the main storyline in most of Potter’s tales and is directly linked to the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/American-Trickster-Trauma-Tradpb-Zobel-Marshall/dp/1783481102">need for enslaved people to steal food from their masters to survive</a>. In the most famous of Potter’s tales, Peter Rabbit repeatedly tries to steal vegetables from Mr McGregor’s garden.</p>
<p>But her <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_Mr._Tod">Tale of Mr Tod</a> is the one most clearly based on Harris’s narratives. Its plot centres on overcoming neighbourhood bullies, the badger Tommy Brock and the fox Mr Tod. In her biography of Potter, Lear explains that she copied the tale out from Uncle Remus, then changed the setting to the Lake District’s Sawrey countryside.</p>
<p>In his book, Goldthwaite traces the close connections between this tale and Harris’s Brother Rabbit Rescues Brother Terrapin (1883), which features a kidnapping, rescue and fight. Mr Tod follows a very similar narrative arc and, in some sections, exactly the same action plays out – for instance, a fight in the kitchen featuring crashing furniture. </p>
<p>For the average British reader, the vernacular in Harris’s tales would have been challenging to understand, and perhaps Potter’s knack for translation helped her cover her tracks. Take that kitchen fight. Harris’s story reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dey year de cheers a-fallin’, en de table turnin’ over, en de crock’ry breakin’, en den de do’ flew’d open, en out come Brer Fox, a-squallin’ lak de Ole Boy wuz atter ‘im.</p>
<p>[They hear the chairs falling, and the tables turning over, and the crockery breaking, and then the door flew open, and out comes Brer Fox, squalling like the Old Boy was after him.]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Compare this with Potter’s tale:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There was a terrific battle all over the kitchen […] Everything was upset except the kitchen table. […] The crockery was smashed to atoms. […] The chairs were broken. […] </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The environment Potter creates in her tales shares similarities to that of a plantation – a dangerous world where the fight for food and survival is paramount. Despite the backdrop of gentle Lake District landscapes and an English cottage garden, her tales are set in a context of merciless repercussions for those who don’t have the wits to avoid capture – including Peter Rabbit’s father, who we discover has been baked in a pie. </p>
<p>In a 2006 article entitled <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/dec/07/booksforchildrenandteenagers">The Ugly Truth of Peter Rabbit</a>, journalist Stuart Jeffries asked: “Should we be celebrating this creator of a dark, sadistic, bloodthirsty world?” He argued that Potter’s stories are a bad influence on children, but did not mention that the stories are drawn straight out of an American slave plantation environment.</p>
<h2>‘Pretence of absolute originality’</h2>
<p>Potter’s use of the Brer Rabbit stories as the basis of her tales is not the main issue here. This is the traditional way that folktales travel across cultures and geographies. As Goldthwaite puts it, Harris’s series was the “base camp” from which Potter could work.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An illustration of a fox in human clothing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525912/original/file-20230512-17-ymzyoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525912/original/file-20230512-17-ymzyoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525912/original/file-20230512-17-ymzyoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525912/original/file-20230512-17-ymzyoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525912/original/file-20230512-17-ymzyoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525912/original/file-20230512-17-ymzyoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525912/original/file-20230512-17-ymzyoq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Potter’s illustration of the fox Mr Tod.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_Mr._Tod#/media/File:The_tale_of_mr_tod.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, the steps Potter took to steer readers away from her sources are problematic. She appears to have been keen to claim the stories as her own, while ensuring that readers didn’t make the connection between Peter Rabbit and the stories narrated by Uncle Remus. Potter used the introductions to some of her tales to emphasise her authorship, using phrases such as “I remember” and “I can tell you” as if taking the place of Harris’s fictional narrator. </p>
<p>In the introduction to The Tale of Mr Tod, the darker sequel to The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Potter writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have made many books about well-behaved people. Now, for a change, I’m going to make a story about two disagreeable people, called Tommy Brock and Mr Tod.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In his book, Goldthwaite writes of Potter’s “deception”, suggesting that those of Potter’s tales that were the most heavily indebted to Harris’s stories open with “pretence of absolute originality”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Once satisfied that her translation from Uncle Remus has “grow’d” sufficiently, Potter stamps it officially as hers in the first person singular … What these introductions imply is that fresh work is being undertaken here, and that is the deception. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Goldthwaite adds that Potter’s “fear of being exposed as copyist would lead to a lifelong silence about Uncle Remus”. </p>
<p>It seems that the only references Potter herself made to her stories being drawn from Harris’s Brer Rabbit tales were in that single journal entry and letter. In his lecture to the Beatrix Potter Society, Hollindale commented on the oddity of this omission:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Strange, isn’t it, when you think that Black Rabbit, as in Mr Tod, is a glance at Brer Rabbit, and Cottontail is an Uncle Remus name, and an animal running “lippity lippity” first does so in Uncle Remus, and rabbit tobacco […] comes from there, not to mention some important elements of plotting? But [Potter] didn’t say much [about this]. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>At the same time, however, she did embed little clues regarding her Uncle Remus sources, making reference to “a fox coming up the plantation” in The Tale of Mr Tod, for example. In Goldthwaite’s view, these hints could be interpreted as a “careless shoplifter who secretly wants to get caught”. </p>
<p>I suspect Potter struggled to steer her work away from Harris’s tales. They absorbed her, they were central to her work in every way, and she enjoyed them. Rather than “clues”, these may be slippages – moments when Potter forgot to recast the story in her Lake District setting and slipped back into the world of Brer Rabbit. </p>
<p>At the same time, Potter expressed some strong ideas about other copycats – once accusing the children’s writer and illustrator <a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1315781/illustrated-letter-to-nancy-nicholson-illustrated-letter-beatrix-potter/">Ernest Aris of plagiarism </a>. At first she was, according to Lear’s biography, “strangely” defensive of Aris and his portrayal of a rabbit who happened to be named Peter. But later, Potter had a change of heart and wrote to him claiming his work had “no originality” and that “coincidence has a long arm, but there are limits to coincidences”. </p>
<p>This seems an ironic statement in light of Potter’s own silence around Brer Rabbit and the Uncle Remus tales.</p>
<h2>Another famous Brer Rabbit fan</h2>
<p>By their nature, stories constantly change to suit the needs of their audiences, and this is particularly the case with oral storytelling. Prior to Harris’s adaptations, the Brer Rabbit tales had already been remoulded to an American plantation environment by enslaved people from Africa. As such, there are no “authentic” versions of these folktales, which will continue to be told and adapted to new environments, moulded by the needs of the people that tell the tales.</p>
<p>Another British children’s author, Enid Blyton, also wrote <a href="https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/book-details.php?id=383&title=Heyo%2C+Brer+Rabbit%21">versions of the Brer Rabbit stories</a>, many of which were first published in magazines from the late 1930s onwards. Like Potter, Blyton understood the attractiveness of these folklore-based tales to British children – their delight in scams and tricking grown ups. However, Blyton acknowledged her sources. </p>
<p>Blyton began creating her Brer Rabbit stories in 1934 when she lived in Buckinghamshire. A big fan of Harris’s versions, she adapted them to a middle-class English country setting, further tempering the violence and adding some new characters, including her own beloved dogs and even unicorns. In all, Blyton wrote 338 Brer Rabbit tales as well as a play in 1939 and a cartoon strip. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Book cover featuring rabbits in clothing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526602/original/file-20230516-33484-sbmw2v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526602/original/file-20230516-33484-sbmw2v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526602/original/file-20230516-33484-sbmw2v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526602/original/file-20230516-33484-sbmw2v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=874&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526602/original/file-20230516-33484-sbmw2v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1099&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526602/original/file-20230516-33484-sbmw2v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1099&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526602/original/file-20230516-33484-sbmw2v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1099&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Egmont Books Ltd</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the introduction to her collection <a href="https://stellabooks.com/books/enid-blyton/heyo-brer-rabbit-610911/1507449">Heyo, Brer Rabbit: Tales of Brer Rabbit and His Friends Retold From the Original</a> (1938), Blyton describes the spread of the trickster rabbit figure around the world under different names, but insists the most delightful is his incarnation as Brer Rabbit – folktales she attributes to “the American Negro’s Friend and Brother Creature”. </p>
<p>Blyton explains that Harris’s stories were told in “difficult negro vernacular”, so she set about the “delightful” task of retelling the stories in her own way while retaining the “raciness” of the original stories, claiming that “Brer Rabbit has always been my favourite character”. </p>
<p>Like Potter, Blyton includes many phrases from Harris’s African American vernacular in her stories, such as “bless gracious”, “lay low”, “lippity, clippity” and “a-going”. Blyton’s collection <a href="https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/book-details.php?id=1884">The Wonder Book for Children</a> (1948) includes three stories entitled Brer Rabbit Tales by Enid Blyton After J.C. Harris. They are illustrated by the artist behind Harris’s later editions, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Rountree">Harry Rountree</a>, with Brer Rabbit smoking a pipe or cigar.</p>
<h2>Ending the silence and changing the narrative</h2>
<p>Both Potter and Blyton, constrained by patriarchal power and middle-class social etiquette, may have revelled in fantasies of breaking through the social boundaries and rules that constrained most women to roles as wives and mothers during their lifetimes. Perhaps they found a sense of freedom in the Brer Rabbit stories and the trickster’s anarchic antics. </p>
<p>Goldthwaite argues that Potter was drawn to these folktales as they enabled her to resist and subvert her “domestic plight” as a young woman living with her father and having to adhere to strict Victorian patriarchal codes of conduct. In Brer Rabbit, he suggests that Potter found what she loved: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The sheer joy of wiliness, the world of the trickster and subversive mischief-maker.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Literary critics have argued that Potter’s tales are anti-imperialist or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/10/beatrix-potter-tales-britain-capitalism">anti-capitalist</a>, highlighting the problems of private property and the struggles of the dispossessed. It has also been said that Potter created a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.1976.9975447?journalCode=cjms19">sexist world</a> in which only men have adventures and can misbehave.</p>
<p>But above all, Peter Rabbit and the rest of Potter’s tales are viewed as quintessentially English stories about characters conjured from Potter’s brilliant mind and inspired by her life in rural England. Yet her tales are, at heart, folktales that originated in Africa before being adapted to expose and reflect the violence, resistance and survival tactics of the plantation life of enslaved people in the Americas.</p>
<p>While Potter, according to the letter and diary entry mentioned earlier, was, at least initially, anxious about imitating Harris, both Hollindale and Goldthwaite ultimately concluded that she felt needlessly guilty about her “borrowing” and “deception” tactics, obvious as they felt these were. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photo of a woman sitting with a dog outside a house." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525896/original/file-20230512-8698-46kdhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525896/original/file-20230512-8698-46kdhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525896/original/file-20230512-8698-46kdhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525896/original/file-20230512-8698-46kdhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525896/original/file-20230512-8698-46kdhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525896/original/file-20230512-8698-46kdhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525896/original/file-20230512-8698-46kdhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Beatrix Potter is remembered as one of Britain’s most beloved children’s writers and also for being a fervent conservationist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O176536/beatrix-potter-1866-1943-with-photograph-potter-rupert-1832/?carousel-image=2016JC9406">Victoria and Albert Museum, London</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both academics are clearly great admirers of Potter, who is considered a national treasure – not only for her tales but for her <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/people/beatrix-potter">conservation work</a> and the bequeathing of her extensive land and property <a href="https://beatrixpottersociety.org.uk/beatrix-potter/the-preservationist/">to the National Trust</a>. She has very few critics.</p>
<p>However, in my view, Hollindale and Goldthwaite miss the point in their conclusions. Potter’s actions in shielding the reading public from her sources have fed into a damaging and reoccurring appropriation of black cultural forms that continues today.</p>
<p>The Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit brands are highly lucrative. Yet I have found no references to the black American sources of these tales in any of the Beatrix Potter museums and experiences in the UK and US, which attract hundreds of thousands of visitors yearly. There is similarly no mention of these sources in any of the films of her tales, nor in the 2006 Hollywood biopic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Potter">Miss Potter</a>.</p>
<p>While Harris moved the stories out of the reach of many African Americans and created a damaging minstrel stereotype in Uncle Remus, he did at least credit enslaved black Americans as the storytellers – while describing himself as a “<a href="https://dlg.usg.edu/record/dlg_zlgb_gb0412">humble compiler and transcriber</a>”). </p>
<p>In contrast, through Potter’s silence concerning her sources, the African American tales that helped create her stories are passed over without acknowledgement or celebration. Brer Rabbit must be firmly reasserted into our understanding and appreciation of Beatrix Potter’s tales. For far too long, they have been stealing from his briar patch.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=112&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/313478/original/file-20200204-41481-1n8vco4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Zobel Marshall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Beatrix Potter’s silence concerning her sources means the Brer Rabbit folktales that helped create her stories are passed over without acknowledgement or celebration.Emily Zobel Marshall, Reader in Postcolonial Literature, Leeds Beckett UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2000542023-03-16T20:10:24Z2023-03-16T20:10:24ZUncovering the violent history of the Canadian sugar industry<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514332/original/file-20230308-20-sn5ci6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=130%2C8%2C2784%2C1818&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">By reflecting on sugar's origins, we can trace the pathways that have made this commodity so abundant.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/uncovering-the-violent-history-of-the-canadian-sugar-industry" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Sugar, we are often told, is bad for us. According to <a href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/the-sweet-danger-of-sugar">recent health advice</a>, adults should restrict their sugar intake to between six and nine teaspoons daily. But what is more upsetting about sugar is its atrocious history. </p>
<p>Western Europe’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/322123/sweetness-and-power-by-sidney-w-mintz/">appetite for “sweetness</a>” helped fuel the horrific transatlantic trade of enslaved peoples, in which at least 15 million enslaved people from Africa were forced to work on <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469663685/capitalism-and-slavery-third-edition/">plantations in the Americas</a>. To this day, working conditions in sugar <a href="https://theconversation.com/child-labour-poverty-and-terrible-working-conditions-lie-behind-the-sugar-you-eat-95242">are among the world’s worst</a>.</p>
<p>Given its heinous human rights record, the question becomes: why do we continue to eat sugar? The answer is complicated. Crucial, however, are <a href="https://sugar.ca/international-trade/canadian-sugar-market/value-of-sugar-to-the-canadian-economy">the significant profits that sugar represents</a>, together with the low prices that sugar commands. </p>
<h2>History of sugar</h2>
<p>For nearly five centuries, European planters made dizzying fortunes in sugar, made possible by <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469663685/capitalism-and-slavery-third-edition/">enslaving workers in colonized lands</a>. Sugar became so integral to European profiteering that it started <a href="https://doi.org/10.7312/beck18524-016">being produced on a global scale</a>. Canadian investors, too, have reaped massive sugar profits.</p>
<p>During the 1700s and 1800s, most Europeans, in what is now Canada, were implicated in the transatlantic sugar and slave trades. Not only did many consume the fruits of the enslaved sugar industry — including molasses and rum, in addition to sugar, <a href="https://cha-shc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/The-Enslavement-of-Africans-in-Canada.pdf">as historian Afua Cooper writes</a> — but some also invested in Caribbean trade, itself powered by enslaved sugar work. </p>
<p>Several Canadian banks — including the Imperial Bank of Commerce and the Bank of Nova Scotia (now known as Scotiabank) — have their origins in the West Indies, where their forerunners <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-2642737">established themselves early in the 19th century</a>. According to Cooper, the Bank of Nova Scotia exists “in the shadow of West Indian slavery.”</p>
<p>Western Canadians have also profited from unfree sugar labour. The famed western Canadian brand, Rogers Sugar, was established by American Benjamin Tingley Rogers who moved to Canada in 1889. Having grown up in the sugar industry, <a href="http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=7676">Rogers had both sugar connections and expertise</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photo of old factory bulidings" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514551/original/file-20230309-2232-l3hp15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514551/original/file-20230309-2232-l3hp15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514551/original/file-20230309-2232-l3hp15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514551/original/file-20230309-2232-l3hp15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=465&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514551/original/file-20230309-2232-l3hp15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514551/original/file-20230309-2232-l3hp15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514551/original/file-20230309-2232-l3hp15.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Original B.C. Sugar refinery buildings in Vancouver in 1892.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(City of Vancouver Archives)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Building <a href="https://blogs.ubc.ca/buildingempire/2021/02/21/rogers-sugar-vancouver-1981/">a refinery in Vancouver</a>, a city newly constructed on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, Rogers created a western Canadian sugar empire — one that sourced raw sugar cane through the Pacific, refined it in British Columbia and sold it throughout the Canadian West. </p>
<p>Railway magnate <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sir-william-cornelius-van-horne">William Cornelius Van Horne</a>, together with noted investors such as <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/richard-bladworth-angus">Richard Bladworth Angus</a>, Edmund Boyd Osler and <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/donald-alexander-smith-1st-baron-strathcona-and-mount-royal">Donald Alexander Smith</a>, were among the ventures’ early shareholders. By the time of his death in 1918, <a href="http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id_nbr=7676">Rogers had become “quite wealthy</a>.”</p>
<p>Now owned by Lantic Inc., <a href="https://www.lanticrogers.com">Rogers Sugar remains a recognized Canadian brand</a>. Less well known, though, is Rogers Sugar’s violent past.</p>
<h2>Sugar plantations</h2>
<p>To make the refined sugar that is so familiar to Canadians today, B.C. Sugar (the name of the company that owned Rogers Sugar) sourced both beet and cane sugars. Canadian beet sugar has its own atrocious labour history, as <a href="https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/thesescanada/vol2/002/NR33801.PDF?is_thesis=1&oclc_number=530949579">University of Saskatchewan professor Ron Laliberté</a>, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-journal-of-law-and-society-la-revue-canadienne-droit-et-societe/article/abs/cartographies-of-violence-women-memory-and-the-subjects-of-the-internment/F291FCC6A7EC2F460E89E7C3CE07E610">York University professor Mona Oikawa</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0829320100006360">other experts</a> have demonstrated. </p>
<p>Refined predominantly in Vancouver, Rogers Sugar was made mostly from raw cane sugar. Since sugar cane cannot grow in Canada, <a href="https://worldcat.org/en/title/20094617">B.C. Sugar sourced internationally</a> from places including Mauritius, Java, Peru, Hawaii, Cuba, Fiji and the Dominican Republic. </p>
<p>B.C. Sugar also ventured into sugar cane plantation ownership: in Fiji between 1905 and 1922, and in the Dominican Republic between 1944 and 1955. Notably, it purchased the latter from the Bank of Nova Scotia.</p>
<p>In both cases, workers reported horrendous conditions. The pay was so low and the work was so menial in the Dominican Republic that, as historian Catherine C. Legrand points out, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-75.4.555">workers left the plantation whenever they could</a>.</p>
<p>In Fiji between 1905 and 1920, B.C. Sugar employed <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/001946468502200103">indentured workers from India</a> who migrated to the colony on five-year contracts. As on other Fiji plantations, workers were subject to numerous atrocities and treated in ways similar to how enslaved and indentured people <a href="https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/chalo-jahaji">were treated on plantations globally</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white photo of rows of tram cars full of sugar cane. In the distance a factory building can be seen." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514535/original/file-20230309-305-61e1pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514535/original/file-20230309-305-61e1pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514535/original/file-20230309-305-61e1pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514535/original/file-20230309-305-61e1pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514535/original/file-20230309-305-61e1pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514535/original/file-20230309-305-61e1pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514535/original/file-20230309-305-61e1pd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sugar cane cars lined up in front of a cane factory in Fiji in the early 20th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(City of Vancouver Archives)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Forced into hard physical labour with little time for sleep, indentured workers at B.C. Sugar’s Fiji plantation endured sickness, confinement, hunger, abuse, injuries, whippings, beatings and more, all for below subsistence pay and the <a href="http://girmit.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/vnaidu_violence_preface.pdf">eventual chance to move out of indentured work</a>. </p>
<p>Conditions were so dire that some workers <a href="https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p212781/pdf/16.-Death-On-Fiji-Plantations-1900-1909-Nicole-Duncan.pdf">tragically perished in B.C. Sugar’s cane fields</a>. When Fiji de-criminalized the desertion of indenture contracts in 1916, it is little wonder that hundreds of workers left the colony’s sugar plantations. These <a href="https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/132695/1/PRM_05.pdf">included plantations operated by B.C. Sugar</a>.</p>
<h2>Understanding Canadian history</h2>
<p>Refined sugar is now so common it is difficult to imagine life without it. But, by reflecting on its origins, we can trace the pathways that have made this commodity so abundant. Canadian sugar was built upon violence, including upon enslaved and indentured labour. </p>
<p>By building upon <a href="https://teaching.usask.ca/indigenoussk/import/grab-a-hoe_indians.php">existing research</a> into <a href="https://doi.org/10.24908/ss.v7i1.3305">Canadian</a> <a href="https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/llt/1978-v3-llt_3/llt3art05.pdf">sugar</a>, and by continuing to probe <a href="https://worldcat.org/title/281643610">Canadian sugar companies’ local</a> and <a href="https://worldcat.org/en/title/988075349">global</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00223349508572786">histories</a>, we can gain a clearer picture of how sugar became central to the Canadian diet. </p>
<p>And we can also work toward greater recognition for those who have laboured in the local and global Canadian sugar industry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200054/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Donica Belisle currently holds an Insight Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for the project, "Canadian Sugar: A Local and Global History."</span></em></p>By reflecting on the violent origins of the Canadian sugar industry, we can bring wider attention to the exploitation underpinning the history of Canadian cuisine.Donica Belisle, Professor of History, University of ReginaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1923872022-11-29T13:35:04Z2022-11-29T13:35:04ZWhite landowners in Hawaii imported Russian workers in the early 1900s, to dilute the labor power of Asians in the islands<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495424/original/file-20221115-10481-n96l4s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2705%2C1773&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A newspaper headline and photo show the arrival of the Molokans in Hawaii.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015415/1906-03-16/ed-1/seq-5/">The Hawaiian Star via Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Feb. 19, 1906, the mail steamer China pulled into the harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. It had made the voyage from San Pedro, California, many times before, but this trip made front-page news. Local newspapers heralded the arrival of “<a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025121/1906-02-20/ed-1/seq-1/">one hundred and ten white men, women and children</a>, the vanguard of what promises to be an influx of settlers for the Hawaiian Islands.” </p>
<p>A reporter from the Hawaiian Gazette recorded that they “<a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025121/1906-02-20/ed-1/seq-5/">looked to be a healthy, moral, God-fearing people</a>.” By contrast, in 1856, some of the first Chinese contract laborers to work in Hawaii had been <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/10524/131">described</a> as a “turbulent, stubborn, reckless class” in need of “influences tending to their improvement and conversion to Christianity” so that there might be “a blessing in store for the Chinese in the Sandwich islands,” a former name for Hawaii.</p>
<p>These white Christians were originally from central southern Russia and were part of a decadelong effort by the wealthy white men who owned Hawaii’s sugar plantations to find laborers who would work hard for little money. But as I have learned during my <a href="https://blogs.iu.edu/russianstudiesworkshop1/2020/08/17/americanization-russification-and-the-contradictory-promises-of-modernity-a-sectarian-groups-great-migration/">research into Russian migration</a> to the U.S. in the early 20th century, their racial background was key to their arrival in Hawaii: They were white immigrants whom the supporters could liken to American Colonial-era settlers and those expanding west across the Great Plains.</p>
<h2>Shifting power in the islands</h2>
<p>Since <a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/from-king-cane-to-the-last-sugar-mill-agricultural-technology-and-the-making-of-hawaiis-premier-crop/">the 1830s</a>, white planters had run massive sugar plantations on the Hawaiian Islands. At first they employed Native Hawaiians. However, the demand for labor grew fast, and as some of the Native population died from European-introduced diseases, there were not enough workers for the industry. In addition, Hawaiians began to organize against meager pay and harsh working conditions <a href="https://www.hawaii.edu/uhwo/clear/home/HawaiiLaborHistory.html">as early as 1841</a>. Faced with a possibility of large-scale unrest, the planters started to recruit contract laborers from Asia in the thousands, especially from China.</p>
<p>White elites, like those who <a href="https://libcom.org/article/us-annexation-hawaii-1893">overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893</a>, wanted Hawaii to eventually become a state. But opponents, like Humphrey Desmond, editor of the Catholic Citizen newspaper, feared that the Asians living there would become U.S. citizens and “<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674951914">dilute the citizenship</a>” of the rest of the white-dominated U.S.</p>
<p>Since the 1880s, Hawaiian elites had tried bringing in workers from Portugal and Norway. They received much higher wages than the Asian laborers and were promoted to skilled occupations faster. A few white farmers also made it on their own to Hawaii, but most of them quickly gave up, their efforts defeated by the harsh tropical climate.</p>
<p>In 1898, the U.S. <a href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/gp/17661.htm">agreed to annex Hawaii</a>, whose population was just over one-fifth European or American in ethnic background. But that meant the plantations could no longer import Asian workers. They were banned under the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/chinese-exclusion-act">Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882</a>, which now applied to Hawaii as a U.S. territory.</p>
<p>In addition, the planters now came under pressure from the growing power of the Asian workers already in the islands. In 1904 and 1905, Japanese laborers led strikes on several plantations across Hawaii, in some cases <a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/pau-hana-plantation-life-and-labor-in-hawaii-1835-1920/">winning increased pay and other concessions such as firing of negligent overseers</a>.</p>
<p>Enter the Russians.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495427/original/file-20221115-25-5qe958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People of varying ages look over the rails of a ship." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495427/original/file-20221115-25-5qe958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495427/original/file-20221115-25-5qe958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495427/original/file-20221115-25-5qe958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495427/original/file-20221115-25-5qe958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495427/original/file-20221115-25-5qe958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495427/original/file-20221115-25-5qe958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495427/original/file-20221115-25-5qe958.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Molokans’ arrival was much hailed as an opportunity for Hawaii, as well as for them.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85047084/1906-02-21/ed-1/seq-6/">The Pacific Commercial Advertiser via Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Moving from the Caucasus</h2>
<p>The new arrivals to Hawaii were known as Molokans. A Christian group that had emerged in the 18th century in central southern Russia, they rejected the teachings of the Orthodox Church, which was closely tied to the Russian government.</p>
<p>Starting in the 1830s, they were <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9780801477461/heretics-and-colonizers/">exiled to the Caucasus region</a>, where Russia had been expanding its empire through conquest. Though they were considered dangerous heretics in Russia itself, in the Muslim-majority borderlands they became indispensable allies of the czar’s government.</p>
<p>Their rejection of alcohol, their strong work ethic and their considerable skill as farmers won the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=AnhBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA163#v=onepage&q&f=false">admiration</a> of officials, travelers and scholars. But in the 1880s they were subjected to a military draft for the first time. They objected and in 1900 began a campaign to leave for North America – where, again, they became viewed as ideal settlers, once they started arriving in 1904-1905. The Molokans found a temporary home in Los Angeles.</p>
<p>But then, as I have learned by studying contemporary press accounts and primary sources from the <a href="https://ags.hawaii.gov/archives/">Hawaii State Archives</a>, they caught the attention of the Hawaiian planters.</p>
<p>One of their champions, Peter Demens, a California lumber merchant with Russian roots, described their life in the Caucasus to Hawaiian planters and media audiences as one of unending triumph of industry over nature: “<a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85047084/1905-11-26/ed-1/seq-1/">In every place they had to do the work of primitive pioneers</a>; to acclimatize themselves, to acquire the knowledge of local conditions, of local customs, usages, and agricultural methods. From the fertile black earth Steppes of central Russia they were moved into the dry, salty deserts of Crimea, which they quickly transformed into blooming gardens.”</p>
<p>Comparing them to European settlers in early America, Demens further highlighted their moral qualities, such as <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85047084/1905-11-26/ed-1/seq-3/">prohibitions on liquor, tobacco and divorce</a>. He exhorted them as “the only part of the masses who know how to think and who do think.”</p>
<p>In January 1906, the archives reveal, the territorial government and the Molokan leaders signed a land deal. It allowed the Molokans to come to Hawaii to work on a plantation in a land subdivision called Kapa'a on the island of Kauai, learning to cultivate sugar cane and bringing their relatives to join them. When the current plantation company’s lease expired in 1907, the deal pledged that the Molokans could take over, not as wage laborers but as settlers with their own lease rights to 5,000 acres on which to live and work.</p>
<h2>Starting to work the land</h2>
<p>Within a few hours of landing in Honolulu in February 1906, the advance party of 39 families of Molokan settlers set out for Kauai. Once there, they began building houses. The archives show the manager of the Kapa'a plantation was hopeful, calling their effort “a good augury.”</p>
<p>But once they began to learn to farm sugar cane, trouble followed. The hundreds of longtime Japanese, Hawaiian and Portuguese employees were angry that these strangers, fresh off the boat, were in line to receive a lease over the whole plantation. The longtime workers began to find employment elsewhere, leaving the plantation short of labor.</p>
<p>For the Japanese workers, in particular, being displaced by Russians stung: They had won the Russo-Japanese War <a href="https://history.state.gov/milestones/1899-1913/portsmouth-treaty">just months before</a>. Some Japanese workers refused to work with the Russians, citing the recent conflict as the reason in conversations with the plantation manager. Others reported being the objects of Russian aggression, even saying they had been told, “You Japs drove us out of Manchuria, but we will now drive you out of Kapa’a.”</p>
<p>As indicated by plantation manager George Fairchild’s letters to the settlement’s chief supporter, James B. Castle, the Russian settlers then started to act as if they already owned the lease to the Kapa’a lands. They even told other laborers that the other laborers would soon be working for the Russians and tried to sublease local rice paddies to small farmers.</p>
<p>Making matters worse, the Molokans were used to the cool, arid mountains of the Caucasus, not the hot, humid slopes of Hawaii. Archival records show they also resented the strict labor discipline the sugar cane plantation managers required and refused to work more than 10 hours a day, <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015415/1906-03-28/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=03%2F25%2F1906&index=0&date2=03%2F28%2F1906&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=sn82015415&words=Molokan+MOLOKAN+Molokans&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=Molokans&dateFilterType=range&page=1">earning derision from the locals</a>, who were accustomed to 12-to-14-hour days. And they tried to plan for their eventual takeover of the lease, proposing to the manager that each family work a separate section of cane.</p>
<h2>A short-lived effort</h2>
<p>Having hoped for a peaceful and prosperous settlement, the Molokans faced open resentment by other plantation workers, who likely feared being displaced as more Molokans arrived, and constant complaints from managers about the quality of their work.</p>
<p>Most of them left Kauai, and even Hawaii altogether, by early July 1906 – less than six months after their much-heralded arrival. The failed experiment laid bare the flawed concept of Americanizing the islands by increasing the white population. While other labor migrants, such as Portuguese, earned a better reputation with the planters and remained in numbers sufficient to establish a significant cultural presence in the islands, the demographic makeup of the islands would change little in the coming decades.</p>
<p>The plantations went back to relying on the labor of people already in Hawaii, as well as people arriving from the Philippines, which had <a href="https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/APA/Historical-Essays/Exclusion-and-Empire/The-Philippines/">recently become a U.S. colony</a>.</p>
<p>But for a brief moment, thanks to widely shared notions of white supremacy and colonization as a positive force, even people as different as the Russian Molokans could be likened to the Pilgrim fathers of American settler myth: people who simply by virtue of their looks and background symbolized civilization, progress and a powerful connection with an imagined past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192387/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stepan Serdiukov does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a territory landowners wanted to become a state, white immigrants were less threatening to American nativists on the mainland.Stepan Serdiukov, Ph.D. Candidate in U.S. History, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1819292022-06-01T12:13:28Z2022-06-01T12:13:28ZModern-day struggle at James Madison’s plantation Montpelier to include the descendants’ voices of the enslaved<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464532/original/file-20220520-16-5xelh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C1073%2C561&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reconstructed slave cabins at James Madison's Montpelier in Virginia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen P. Hanna</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On May 17, 2022, after weeks of negative stories on Montpelier in the national press, the foundation that operates the Virginia plantation home of James Madison finally made good on its <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/05/16/madison-montpelier-descendant-community-foundation-board/">promise to share authority</a> with descendants of people enslaved by the man known as “the father” of the U.S. Constitution.</p>
<p>This agreement is the result of a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/04/22/james-madison-montpelier-plantation-descendants/">long struggle by this descendant community</a> to make enslaved people more prominent in the history Montpelier offers the public.</p>
<p>Though presidential plantation museums began addressing the topic of enslavement over 20 years ago, descendants were not given power over their ancestors’ stories.</p>
<p>In 2018, provoked by years of slavery’s being taught in <a href="https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/publications/teaching-hard-history-american-slavery">erroneous ways</a>, a summit of educators, museum professionals and descendants gathered at Montpelier to define a <a href="https://montpelierdescendants.org/rubric/">set of best practices</a> for how historic sites should work with descendant communities. </p>
<p>Ensuring that enslaved people’s descendants have power and authority within these institutions is central to the guide. </p>
<p>Working toward that goal in 2021, Montpelier announced a historic agreement giving descendants equal representation on its board of directors.</p>
<p>These innovations made Montpelier a leader in slavery interpretation. </p>
<p>But that status was threatened earlier this year when Montpelier <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/20/1093673939/montpeliers-fight-with-descendants-of-the-enslaved-brings-employee-firings">dissolved its power-sharing agreement</a> with the descendant community. </p>
<p>The foundation’s chairman said the board “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/03/25/james-madison-montpelier-enslaved-vote/">has found the committee (representing descendants) difficult to work with</a>.”</p>
<p>Montpelier also fired senior staff who protested this decision, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/20/1093673939/montpeliers-fight-with-descendants-of-the-enslaved-brings-employee-firings">accusing them of speaking</a> “disparagingly, even hatefully, of the volunteer Board that governs this historic American Treasure.”</p>
<p>A firestorm of protest erupted.</p>
<p>Thousands signed petitions urging Montpelier to live up to its promise to work with the descendants. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which owns Montpelier, <a href="https://nthp-savingplaces.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/03/28/17/41/34/452/NTHP%20Letter%20to%20Eugene%20Hickock%203-24-2022%20(002).pdf">stated that the foundation’s actions</a> “would set back Montpelier’s efforts to continue the necessary work of uplifting descendant’s voices.”</p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/17506980221094515">Our research at Montpelier</a> and at George Washington’s Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello suggests descendant community involvement with the operations of a site affects what visitors learn about slavery at these museums. </p>
<p>As cultural geographers studying how <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820360935/remembering-enslavement/">enslavement is presented at historic sites</a>, we realize the importance of creating bonds between visitors and the struggles of enslaved communities at these historic homes. </p>
<p>Such bonds help the public understand slavery’s role in the lives of the Founding Fathers and in the creation of the American nation.</p>
<h2>Descendant voices at plantation museums</h2>
<p>Montpelier, Monticello and Mount Vernon are popular tourist destinations in Virginia where the public can experience, interpret and identify with historical figures and events.</p>
<p>Before the pandemic in 2020, staff estimated that each year 125,000 people <a href="https://www.willistonobserver.com/six-reasons-to-visit-james-madisons-montpelier/">visited Montpelier</a>, over 400,000 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/16/us/sally-hemings-exhibit-monticello.html">visited Monticello</a> and <a href="https://www.mountvernon.org/about/">over 1 million</a> visited Mount Vernon.</p>
<p>Some of these visitors find it <a href="https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2013/09/06/ask-a-slave">hard to reconcile</a> the Founding Fathers’ contributions to American democracy with their enslavement of Black men, women and children.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People standing in line in front of George Washington's Mount Vernon" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464524/original/file-20220520-20-xv0uq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464524/original/file-20220520-20-xv0uq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464524/original/file-20220520-20-xv0uq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464524/original/file-20220520-20-xv0uq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464524/original/file-20220520-20-xv0uq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464524/original/file-20220520-20-xv0uq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464524/original/file-20220520-20-xv0uq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A crowd waits to tour George Washington’s Mount Vernon outside Alexandria, Va.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen P. Hanna</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For most of their histories, presidential sites catered to mostly white visitors by <a href="https://www.smithsonianbooks.com/store/anthropology-archaeology/representations-slavery/">downplaying slavery</a> to maintain the <a href="https://online.ucpress.edu/tph/article-abstract/36/1/36/90579/Ask-a-Slave-and-Interpreting-Race-on-Public?redirectedFrom=fulltext">reputations of national heroes</a>. </p>
<p>Descendant communities increasingly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/07/us/politics/monroe-slavery-highland.html">claim presidential plantations</a> as sites where they can incorporate their historical struggles and contributions into the nation’s story.</p>
<p>This places them front and center in the ongoing battle over how slavery is remembered at the homes of America’s first presidents. </p>
<p>Anthropologist Antoinette Jackson argues that descendant community involvement with plantation museums helps the public understand the diversity of <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2011.01353.x">Black lives before and after emancipation</a>.</p>
<p>Her research also suggests that <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Speaking-Enslaved-Interpretation-Antebellum-Plantation/dp/1598745492">descendant voices disrupt</a> the long-standing white-centric history told at historic sites that has downplayed the everyday practices of living, resisting and surviving that characterized enslaved communities.</p>
<h2>Studying visitor experiences</h2>
<p>To determine the effect that descendant community involvement had on visitor experiences at Montpelier, Monticello and Mount Vernon, we <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F17506980221094515">surveyed 1,386 adult visitors</a> when they first arrived in 2019 and 2020.</p>
<p>We also documented the three museums’ tours and exhibits and surveyed 1,033 adult visitors as they left. The overwhelming majority of visitors – 86% – identified as white, suggestive of how uninviting these sites have been to people of color. </p>
<p>On the pre-visit survey, 81% of visitors said they were very to extremely interested in learning about Madison, Jefferson and Washington. In comparison, only 57% said they were very or extremely interested in learning about enslavement. </p>
<p><iframe id="sVyQb" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/sVyQb/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Over 90% of visitors took tours of the presidents’ mansions. While enslavement was mentioned on these tours, guides pointed at antique desks and painted portraits to emphasize that Washington, Jefferson and Madison were key players in America’s founding. </p>
<p>According to staff we interviewed, descendants had little say over the content of mansion tours.</p>
<p>Descendant involvement in the sites’ slavery tours and exhibits varied across the the three sites. </p>
<p>The “Slavery at Monticello” tour included enslaved people’s biographies drawn from the oral history project <a href="https://www.monticello.org/getting-word?ref=oralhistories.">Getting Word</a>, in which descendants shared their stories and those of their ancestors with museum staff. </p>
<p>On the tour, guides mention that members of the Fossett family, for instance, <a href="https://www.monticello.org/getting-word/people/joseph-fossett">purchased their freedom</a>, moved to Cincinnati and helped fugitive slaves find freedom.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Crowd of visitors listening to a tour guide during the Slavery at Monticello Tour" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464525/original/file-20220520-18-6zj9k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464525/original/file-20220520-18-6zj9k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464525/original/file-20220520-18-6zj9k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464525/original/file-20220520-18-6zj9k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464525/original/file-20220520-18-6zj9k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464525/original/file-20220520-18-6zj9k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464525/original/file-20220520-18-6zj9k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Slavery at Monticello Tour.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen P. Hanna</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Full-sized photograph of Ms. Leontyne Peck with text describing her enslaved ancestors" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464526/original/file-20220520-24-wkor54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464526/original/file-20220520-24-wkor54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464526/original/file-20220520-24-wkor54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464526/original/file-20220520-24-wkor54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=852&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464526/original/file-20220520-24-wkor54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464526/original/file-20220520-24-wkor54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464526/original/file-20220520-24-wkor54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1071&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Panel with audio of Leontyne Peck speaking about her enslaved ancestors at Montpelier.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen P. Hanna</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At Montpelier, descendants helped design “<a href="https://www.montpelier.org/resources/mere-distinction-of-colour">The Mere Distinction of Colour”</a> exhibit. It featured the voices of descendants who connected the facts of slavery in America’s past to its legacy in the nation’s present. </p>
<p>At Mount Vernon, the material presented on tours and exhibits that focused on enslavement was thorough and well researched, but contributions of descendants were not featured as much as at the other two museums. </p>
<p>After their visits, people at all three sites reported learning more about Washington, Jefferson and Madison than about enslaved people.</p>
<p>They also stated that these three men had a greater impact on the development of the United States than slavery did.</p>
<p>These results are not surprising. </p>
<p>Visitors arrived more interested in learning about the presidents and almost all took the mansion tours where guides talked more about the Founding Fathers’ accomplishments than enslavement.</p>
<h2>The impact of different voices</h2>
<p>Between 40% and 70% of surveyed visitors experienced tours or exhibits about enslaved people, but the voices of descendants made visitor experiences at Montpelier and Monticello much different than at Mount Vernon.</p>
<p><iframe id="bnZc0" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/bnZc0/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Forty percent of 140 Montpelier visitors surveyed reported learning a great deal about enslaved people. </p>
<p>In comparison, 32% of 389 Monticello respondents and only 16% of 504 Mount Vernon visitors said they learned a great deal.</p>
<p>Descendant voices at Montpelier and Monticello also helped visitors understand slavery’s impacts on the development of the United States. Fifty-seven percent of respondents at these sites stated that slavery had a great deal of impact on the nation. Only 42% of Mount Vernon visitors said the same.</p>
<p>Finally, visitor experiences are influenced by how much they <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258193993_Tour_Guides_as_Creators_of_Empathy_The_Role_of_Affective_Inequality_in_Marginalizing_the_Enslaved_at_Plantation_House_Museums">engage emotionally</a> with what is said in museum tours and exhibits.</p>
<p>The voices of descendants made a difference in this regard. </p>
<p>At Montpelier and Monticello, over 80% said felt more empathy for enslaved people because of their visit. In contrast, just over 70% of Mount Vernon visitors said their empathy increased.</p>
<h2>Tough choices</h2>
<p>Presidential sites of the Founding Fathers are popular destinations that help people form their understanding of American history. </p>
<p>Their plantations are key elements for the public to put presidential reputations in conversation with the struggles of enslaved people and the voices of their descendants. </p>
<p>But as presidential museums try to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10598650.2016.1275468">redress their longtime neglect of enslaved Black people</a>, a few vocal visitors accuse guides <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/08/plantations-are-talking-more-about-slavery-grappling-with-visitors-who-talk-back/">of attacking the reputations of the white founders</a>.</p>
<p>In our view, <a href="https://www.museumsarenotneutral.com/learn-more/we-are-stronger-together">museums must be mindful</a> of the roles they play in either reproducing or challenging racial exclusions still found in American understanding of history. </p>
<p>Intensive public criticism helped make the Montpelier Foundation choose to challenge such exclusions. </p>
<p>On May 25, 2022, the new governing board, half of whose members are now enslaved people’s descendants, named Elizabeth Chew as new interim president. Along with two others, Chew had been fired on April 18, 2020, as chief curator of the presidential home. </p>
<p>While accepting the new position <a href="https://www.montpelier.org/learn/montpelier_statement_25may2022">she said</a>, “We must embrace history’s complexity and welcome the leadership of the living voices for those who were silenced here.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181929/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen P. Hanna is affiliated with American Association of Geographers</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Potter receives funding from National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek H. Alderman receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is affiliated with the American Association of Geographers.. </span></em></p>Once owned by James Madison, the Montpelier plantation remains a model for presenting a full depiction of the life of the former president as well as the lives of those he enslaved.Stephen P. Hanna, Professor of Geography, University of Mary WashingtonAmy Potter, Associate Professor of Geography, Georgia Southern UniversityDerek H. Alderman, Professor of Geography, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1821452022-05-12T04:05:15Z2022-05-12T04:05:15Z4 reasons why the Morrison government’s forestry cash splash is bad policy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462384/original/file-20220511-22-m7tp0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C0%2C2261%2C1704&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This federal election campaign has involved very little discussion of environmental or natural resource policies, other than mining. An exception is a A$220 million Morrison government pledge for the forestry industry.</p>
<p>The money will <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/morrison-makes-219m-pitch-to-woo-tasmanian-forestry-workers-20220413-p5ada5">be invested</a> in new wood-processing technology and forest product research, and used to extend 11 so-called “regional forestry hubs”. Some $86 million will aid the establishment of new plantations. </p>
<p>Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he would not support “any shutdown of native forestry” and claimed the funding would secure 73,000 existing forestry jobs. The spending on native forests, however, is problematic. In 2019-20, <a href="https://www.agriculture.gov.au/abares/research-topics/forests/forest-economics/forest-wood-products-statistics">87% of logs harvested</a> in Australia came from plantations, and more investment is needed to bring this to 100%. </p>
<p>Here, we show how directing public funds to native forest logging is bad for the economy, the climate and biodiversity, and will increase bushfire risk.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="logging truck in plantation timber forest" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462385/original/file-20220511-16-y0hnv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462385/original/file-20220511-16-y0hnv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462385/original/file-20220511-16-y0hnv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462385/original/file-20220511-16-y0hnv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462385/original/file-20220511-16-y0hnv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462385/original/file-20220511-16-y0hnv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462385/original/file-20220511-16-y0hnv1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Money for plantation timber operations is welcome.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. Economics</h2>
<p>Native forest logging has long been a marginal economic prospect. The Western Australian government has recognised this, electing to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/08/western-australia-to-ban-native-forest-logging-from-2024-in-move-that-blindsides-industry">halt</a> the practice by the end of 2023. It will instead create sustainable forestry jobs by spending $350 million expanding softwood timber plantations.</p>
<p>The move followed Victoria’s promised end to native forest logging in 2030.</p>
<p>In Victoria, native forest logging has repeatedly incurred <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/logging-agency-blames-lawsuits-after-losing-4m-despite-state-grants-20211122-p59b7e.html">substantial losses</a> across large parts of the state. Data from the state’s Parliamentary Budget Office in 2020 show Victoria would be more than $190 million better off without its native forest logging sector.</p>
<p>Native forest logging sustains <a href="https://www.fwpa.com.au/images/OtherReports/Vic_Report_FINAL.pdf">far fewer</a> jobs than the plantation sector, and does not produce substantial employment opportunities in any mainland Australian state.</p>
<p>For example, only <a href="https://www.frontier-economics.com.au/comparing-the-value-of-alternative-uses-of-native-forests-in-southern-nsw/">about 300</a> direct and indirect jobs are sustained by native forest logging in southern NSW. </p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.frontier-economics.com.au/comparing-the-value-of-alternative-uses-of-native-forests-in-southern-nsw/">economic analysis</a> showed ceasing native forest harvesting in that region would bring $62 million in economic benefits – a result likely to be repeated in native forestry areas across Australia.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiRu4e0s9b3AhUjR2wGHcBqCs0QFnoECAcQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aph.gov.au%2F-%2Fmedia%2FEstimates%2Frrat%2Fbud1819%2FTabled_Documents%2FAgriculture_and_Water_Resources%2FAg_Tabled_5.pdf%3Fla%3Den%26hash%3D8467BE6D9B8DB76782D1E147025A94C571C9D62C&usg=AOvVaw3jENvR6xz8OhTk4V9lxB58">About 87%</a> of sawn timber used in home construction is derived from plantations. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/logged-native-forests-mostly-end-up-in-landfill-not-in-buildings-and-furniture-115054">vast majority</a> of native forest logged in Victoria and southern NSW goes into woodchips and paper pulp. </p>
<p>Victoria exports 75% of plantation-derived eucalypt pulp logs. A small percentage of this diverted for domestic use would readily <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/3/407">replace</a> native forest wood at Victoria’s biggest paper mill at Maryvale. The feasibility of this has been known for years.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/logged-native-forests-mostly-end-up-in-landfill-not-in-buildings-and-furniture-115054">Logged native forests mostly end up in landfill, not in buildings and furniture</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="stacks of milled timber" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462391/original/file-20220511-20-3sn5jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462391/original/file-20220511-20-3sn5jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462391/original/file-20220511-20-3sn5jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462391/original/file-20220511-20-3sn5jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462391/original/file-20220511-20-3sn5jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462391/original/file-20220511-20-3sn5jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462391/original/file-20220511-20-3sn5jc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jobs in plantation timber far outweigh those in native logging.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Climate change</h2>
<p>Native forest logging in Australia generates <a href="https://law.anu.edu.au/sites/all/files/allfiles/wp2011_1_credits_from_reduced_native_forest_harvesting.pdf">around 38 million tonnes</a> of carbon dioxide (CO₂) a year. </p>
<p>Victoria’s phase-out of native forest logging by 2030 will <a href="https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/protecting-victorias-forests-and-threatened-species-0">reduce emissions</a> by 1.7 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent gases each year for 25 years, equivalent to taking 730,000 motor vehicles off the road annually. </p>
<p>Ending native forest logging in southern NSW would likely be the <a href="https://www.frontier-economics.com.au/documents/2021/11/comparing-the-value-of-alternative-uses-of-native-forest-in-southern-nsw.pdf/">biggest</a> carbon abatement project in that state.</p>
<p>These benefits also bring economic value. Even under relatively low market prices for carbon, the value of <em>not</em> logging, in terms of reducing greenhouse gases, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0309-1">far exceeds</a> the economic benefits of native forest logging.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/decaying-forest-wood-releases-a-whopping-10-9-billion-tonnes-of-carbon-each-year-this-will-increase-under-climate-change-164406">Decaying forest wood releases a whopping 10.9 billion tonnes of carbon each year. This will increase under climate change</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>3. Bushfire risk</h2>
<p>There’s now unequivocal evidence that logging native trees makes forests prone to more severe bushfires. <a href="https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/logging-amplified-severity-of-black-summer-bushfires">Analysis</a> of the 2019-20 Black Summer fires showed logged forests always burn more severely than intact ones. </p>
<p>Under moderate fire weather conditions during Black Summer, logged forests burned at higher severity than intact forests burning under extreme fire weather.</p>
<p>These logging-generated risks were particularly pronounced in southern and northern NSW. Importantly, they were also <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.12122">evident</a> in Victoria’s 2009 Black Saturday fires in Victoria.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coming-of-age-research-shows-old-forests-are-3-times-less-flammable-than-those-just-burned-179571">Coming of age: research shows old forests are 3 times less flammable than those just burned</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="smoke and fire in native forest" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462389/original/file-20220511-18-dcgp6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462389/original/file-20220511-18-dcgp6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462389/original/file-20220511-18-dcgp6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462389/original/file-20220511-18-dcgp6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462389/original/file-20220511-18-dcgp6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462389/original/file-20220511-18-dcgp6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462389/original/file-20220511-18-dcgp6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Logging makes forests more prone to severe fires.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Darren Jennings/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Biodiversity conservation</h2>
<p>Numerous studies have demonstrated the damage native forest logging causes to biodiversity. In Victoria, for example, a 2019 analysis of areas proposed for logging <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aec.12805">showed</a> it would negatively affect 70 threatened forest-dependent species, such as the Leadbeater’s possum.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that ongoing logging will drive yet further declines of Australia’s threatened species and add to the nation’s sad record on biodiversity loss. </p>
<h2>The upshot</h2>
<p>The empirical evidence points in one direction: ending native forest logging in Australia would bring substantial and multiple benefits to society and nature.</p>
<p>We welcome the Morrison government’s spending on supporting new plantations. To create the most positive return on taxpayer investment, however, the bulk of other industry funding should be directed to enhancing manufacturing and markets for high-value wood products from plantation timber.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182145/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Lindenmayer receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Government, and the Victorian Government. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brendan Mackey receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the federal government. He is on the board on the not-for-profit organisation Great Eastern Ranges and is a member of the Queensland government's Native Timber Advisory Panel.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Keith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Directing public funds to native forest logging is bad for the economy, the climate and biodiversity, and will increase bushfire risk.David Lindenmayer, Professor, The Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National UniversityBrendan Mackey, Director, Griffith Climate Action Beacon, Griffith UniversityHeather Keith, Senior Research Fellow in Ecology, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1817022022-04-22T05:25:37Z2022-04-22T05:25:37ZIn the wake of the China-Solomon Islands pact, Australia needs to rethink its Pacific relationships<p>Like the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai volcano that triggered a massive tsunami and sent shockwaves around the world when it erupted on January 15, the recently signed security deal between the Solomon Islands and China has also unleashed geopolitical convulsions of immense magnitude. </p>
<p>The source of the spectacular volcanic eruption that was <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00394-y">visible</a> from space came from deep below the surface. Similarly, the controversial security deal, and Australia’s alarmed response to it, also goes deep into history. </p>
<p>Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has repeatedly described the China deal as an assertion of <a href="https://solomons.gov.sb/pm-sogavare-not-a-secret-deal-but-a-sovereign-issue/">sovereignty</a>. (<a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/solomon-islands-asserts-its-sovereignty-china-and-west">Critics</a> say it is the opposite.) China added to this discourse by accusing the Australian government of “<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10666583/China-takes-aim-Australia-controversial-Solomon-Islands-security-deal.html">disrespectful colonialism</a>” in its unsuccessful attempts to dissuade Sogavare’s government from formalising the deal. </p>
<p>Yet Prime Minister Scott Morrison defended Australia’s response, claiming his government did not want to repeat the “long history” of telling Pacific nations what to do. Morrison <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-20/solomon-islands-china-pact-failure-foreign-policy-labor/101000878">added</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m not going to act like former administrations that treated the Pacific like some extension of Australia. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Morrison is absolutely right about one thing – there is a long history shaping the recent deal. But were the Solomons treated like an extension of Australia? Did Australia exercise colonial power over the nation? Most crucially, how can Australia correct past mistakes and move forward given the new regional reality? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459237/original/file-20220422-11033-wikwf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459237/original/file-20220422-11033-wikwf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459237/original/file-20220422-11033-wikwf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459237/original/file-20220422-11033-wikwf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459237/original/file-20220422-11033-wikwf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459237/original/file-20220422-11033-wikwf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459237/original/file-20220422-11033-wikwf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There is a long history shaping the China-Solomon Islands deal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/AP/Cpl. Brandon Grey</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The 19th-century sugar plantations</h2>
<p>Britain colonised the Solomon Islands from 1893. Unlike British New Guinea, where Britain transferred colonial control to <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-papua-new-guinea-really-is-part-of-australias-family-wed-do-well-to-remember-our-shared-history-159528">Australia</a> after Federation in 1901, the Solomons stayed under British control until 1978, when the islands gained independence. </p>
<p>That Britain was taking control of the Solomons at the end of 19th century was a comfort to Australians in ways that echo the present. At the time, Australia was deeply “concerned” about “Great Powers […] now established in the South Seas within a few days’ steaming distance from Eastern Australia, especially Queensland”, wrote Brisbane’s <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/3644577?searchTerm=British%20Solomon">Courier Mail</a>.<br>
It continued: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is a great pity […] that the colonial statesmen of former days had not foresight enough to grasp the importance of these South Seas territories and secure them, for their strategic as well as productive value. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And in words that sound remarkably like those being articulated now, the article predicted “we will have to spend millions […] because of the nearness of bases of possible hostile operations”. </p>
<p>The “Great Powers” in question in 1898 were France, which was attempting to control all the islands south of the Solomons (present-day Vanuatu and New Caledonia) and Germany, which had claimed the arc of islands from the northern Solomon Islands into New Guinea (excluding British New Guinea in the southeast).</p>
<p>Australian politicians had aspired to Britain controlling all South Pacific islands on their behalf from the 1870s. This was articulated by Australia’s <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2146220">Monroe Doctrine</a>, which held that Australia, backed by Britain, exclusively presided in its region. France and Germany challenged it in the 19th century, but the notion persisted along with Australian security concerns. </p>
<p>Although Australia did not officially colonise the Solomons, Australians exercised colonial powers there in other ways. The most egregious and devastating was through labour recruiting, which began in the islands around the 1870s. </p>
<p>It is estimated some 19,000 Solomon Islanders worked on Queensland sugar plantations before most were <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10314617208595469?journalCode=rahs19">repatriated</a> in 1902. Recruiter mistreament sparked cycles of violence in which <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/123670895?searchTerm=British%20Solomon">white people</a> were killed and then these killings were avenged with official and unofficial <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/655208">punitive expeditions</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459234/original/file-20220422-22-o34c92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459234/original/file-20220422-22-o34c92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459234/original/file-20220422-22-o34c92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459234/original/file-20220422-22-o34c92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459234/original/file-20220422-22-o34c92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459234/original/file-20220422-22-o34c92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459234/original/file-20220422-22-o34c92.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=569&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Solomon Islanders were among the South Pacific Island workers brought to Australia to work on sugar plantations in the 19th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Museum of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>During - and after - the second world war</h2>
<p>Small numbers of traders and planters, many from Australia, established enterprises in the islands. Missionaries came too. But it was not until the Battle for the Solomons, which stretched from August 1942 to December 1943, that Solomon Islanders experienced colossal intrusions into their island homes. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.navy.gov.au/history/feature-histories/australians-guadalcanal-august-1942">Australians</a> participated in this epic episode, but it was predominantly US forces fighting to halt the Japanese advance on Australia. The importance of these islands to Australia’s security was horrifically demonstrated. </p>
<p>After the war, and with decolonisation happening at a rapid pace, Australian politicians thought about how this wave of independence would affect the islands and how Australia might shape that change to preserve its security. </p>
<p>The idea of a “Melanesian Federation” was suggested. This would bind Dutch New Guinea (which became part of Indonesia in 1969), Papua New Guinea and “The British Solomons”. But this idea relied on the new nations buying into it. They did not. </p>
<p>Another idea was incorporating New Guinea, and possibly the Solomons too, as a “seventh state” of Australia. Future Australian governor-general John Kerr plainly articulated in 1958 the sticking point for this security guarantee. Australia would have deal with “racial problems” that “we would have to solve on the basis of equality and genuine acceptance of New Guinea people in Australia”. </p>
<p>These ideas did not happen and many Pacific nations have remained closed off from economic opportunities that would have drastically improved lives and permanently bound Australia to Pacific nations through transnational communities. </p>
<h2>Economics is key</h2>
<p>The root causes of the Solomon Islands’ problems since independence can be found in economics. Australia may have played a leading role in peacekeeping through the 2003-17 <a href="https://www.ramsi.org">RAMSI Mission</a>, but it did not take bold action on economic issues. </p>
<p>Almost 13% of Solomon Islanders <a href="https://www.adb.org/offices/pacific/poverty/solomon-islands">live below the poverty line</a> and just 70% has access to electricity. China now seems to be offering an economic panacea that Australia did not.</p>
<p>Australia has to shed its longstanding aversion to Melanesian migration. Economic (rather than racial) exclusion is now the barrier keeping Pacific Islanders out of Australia. Communities have come via “the New Zealand pathway”, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji, and established themselves in Australia. They have created a vital remittance economy that has been even more important during COVID with the collapse of island economies. </p>
<p><a href="https://devpolicy.org/2016-census-reveal-about-pacific-islands-communities-in-australia-20170928/">Very few Australian residents</a> originate from the strategic islands that arc around Australia’s north. If people from these nations do come to Australia, it is through temporary means such as educational programs or the <a href="https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/pacific/engagement/pacific-labour-mobility">Pacific Labour Scheme</a>, which allows for employment in meat works, agriculture, trades and cooking, hospitality and care. </p>
<p>Recently, this scheme has suffered terrible publicity with many workers claiming they were subjected to “<a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/australia-pacific-islands-seasonal-farm-workers-allege-slave-like-conditions-in-govt-aid-programme-recruitment-agent-unlikely-to-pay-fine-or-compensation/">slave-like conditions</a>”, bringing to mind the Queensland plantation labour history. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459236/original/file-20220422-13-a9bl5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459236/original/file-20220422-13-a9bl5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459236/original/file-20220422-13-a9bl5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459236/original/file-20220422-13-a9bl5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459236/original/file-20220422-13-a9bl5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459236/original/file-20220422-13-a9bl5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/459236/original/file-20220422-13-a9bl5i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The impact of climate change is a major concern for Pacific Island nations, including the Solomons.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Now the geopolitical situation has become precarious, Australian politicians are again thinking about the islands and how major adjustments are needed to the ways things are done. A parliamentary committee reported in March 2022, suggesting ideas about compacts of free association, similar to those the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia have with the United States. It also suggested more Pacific-friendly migration policies like that of New Zealand. The impacts of climate change are going to make all the pressures of life on Pacific islands more acute in the coming years. </p>
<p>Australia must take bold steps to reinforce its Pacific relationships and secure its strategic interests. Taking the humanitarian approach and integrating with the Pacific islands is not only right – it is also the best way to support Australia’s interests and shed its colonial legacies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181702/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patricia A. O'Brien received funding from the Australian Research Council as a Future Fellow, the Jay I. Kislak Fellowship at the John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. and New Zealand's JD Stout Trust. </span></em></p>There is a long history shaping the recent pact between China and the Solomons- and it should jolt Australia into rethinking its relationships in the Pacific region.Patricia A. O'Brien, Faculty Member, Asian Studies Program, Georgetown University; Visiting Fellow, Department of Pacific Affairs, Australian National University; Adjunct Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC., Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1789052022-03-15T12:14:01Z2022-03-15T12:14:01ZPlantations could be used to teach about US slavery if stories are told truthfully<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452026/original/file-20220314-118322-1dz0lej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C1058%2C698&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hundreds of plantation museums dot the South.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amy Potter</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>State legislatures across the United States are <a href="https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/map-where-critical-race-theory-is-under-attack/2021/06">cracking down</a> on discussions of race and racism in the classroom. School boards are attempting to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/30/books/book-ban-us-schools.html">ban books</a> that deal with difficult histories. Lawmakers are <a href="https://www.ajc.com/education/georgia-lawmaker-targets-work-focused-on-anti-racism-social-justice/A7ZDE6Q7GNE3HGUU5MPY3KJFZU/">targeting initiatives that promote diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education</a>.</p>
<p>Such efforts raise questions about whether students in the U.S. will ever be able to engage in free and meaningful discussions about the history of slavery in America and the effect it had on the nation.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xoubpW0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">cultural</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=t3rLgnkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">geographers</a>, we see a potential venue for these kinds of discussions that we believe to be an overlooked and poorly used resource: plantation museums.</p>
<p>If slavery is, as <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674016248">historian Ira Berlin argues</a>, “ground zero for race relations,” then the hundreds of plantation museums that dot the southeastern U.S. landscape seem like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/2373566X.2018.1486723">natural places</a> to confront the difficult history of America’s slave-owning past.</p>
<p>Exploring that possibility is one of the reasons why – along with fellow <a href="https://www.tourismreset.com">tourism scholars</a> <a href="https://www.umw.edu/directory/employee/steve-hanna/">Stephen Hanna</a>, <a href="https://www.depts.ttu.edu/geosciences/geog/people/faculty/carter.php">Perry Carter</a>, <a href="https://www.etsu.edu/cas/sociology-anthropology/facultystaff/bright.php">Candace Bright</a> and <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/faculty/david-butler">David Butler</a> - we received a <a href="https://nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1742890">federal grant</a> to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1743873X.2015.1100629">research plantation museums across the U.S. South</a>. </p>
<p>We think these plantation museums could be important sites for an educational <a href="https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/clint-smith/how-the-word-is-passed/9780316492935/">reckoning</a> with this difficult aspect of America’s past. But that’s only if the people who run these museums are committed to telling the truth about what took place, rather than perpetuating <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2011.624280">myths about Black life in America under white domination and oppression</a>. This is particularly important as policymakers seek to curtail discussions about racism – or even <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/02/09/florida-history-discomfort/">themes that make people feel “discomfort”</a> – in America’s K-12 schools and colleges and universities.</p>
<p>Usages of these sites have traditionally <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/17/style/despite-everything-people-still-have-weddings-at-plantation-sites.html">romanticized</a> life before the Civil War and <a href="https://www.smithsonianbooks.com/store/anthropology-archaeology/representations-slavery/">ignored or trivialized the horrors of slavery</a>. They have also downplayed the resistance and resilience of enslaved communities, thus preventing the nation from getting a fuller and more accurate picture of American slavery.</p>
<h2>Reforms needed</h2>
<p>In order to make better use of plantation museums as places to learn about racism and slavery, the museums must be reformed in a major way and do more than just <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429055737-1/give-dollar-amy-potter-stephen-hanna-perry-carter-arnold-modlin">entertain tourists and sell a heritage experience</a>. Rather, this reform demands a reworking of almost every facet of the museum – from misguided tours that gloss over the harsh living conditions of the enslaved to artifacts and marketing materials that emphasize the opulent and picturesque mansions that belie the horrors of what took place on the surrounding grounds. In <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820360935/remembering-enslavement/">our research</a>, we discovered plantation museums where 50% of the tours never mentioned slavery. Our work provides practical guidance to the changes that need to happen.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451996/original/file-20220314-131692-1vry3dz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A map that represents the number of slave plantation museums in the American south." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451996/original/file-20220314-131692-1vry3dz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451996/original/file-20220314-131692-1vry3dz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451996/original/file-20220314-131692-1vry3dz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451996/original/file-20220314-131692-1vry3dz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451996/original/file-20220314-131692-1vry3dz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451996/original/file-20220314-131692-1vry3dz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451996/original/file-20220314-131692-1vry3dz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many former plantations are now museums.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Hanna</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Problematic places of learning</h2>
<p>Within the United States, there are at least 375 plantations open for public tours scattered across 19 states. Based on nearly 2,000 surveys our research team conducted, visitors have indicated that they go to plantations to “learn about history.” The general public considers historical sites, such as plantation museums, to be <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780759123267/Interpreting-Slavery-at-Museums-and-Historic-Sites">trusted sources for historical information</a>. Therefore, they deserve to be held accountable for the educational experience they provide.</p>
<p>School field trips are an important revenue source for these often <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/622286">cash-strapped sites</a>. </p>
<p>At Shirley Plantation in Virginia, field trips <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429055737-1/give-dollar-amy-potter-stephen-hanna-perry-carter-arnold-modlin">accounted for over 15% of total visitors</a>. At Meadow Farm, near Richmond, Virginia, <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429055737-1/give-dollar-amy-potter-stephen-hanna-perry-carter-arnold-modlin">40% of the site’s visitors are school children</a>. At Boone Hall in South Carolina, <a href="https://nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1742890">14,000 school children</a> visit the site annually.</p>
<h2>Whitewashing of history</h2>
<p>At one Virginia plantation museum, we observed school children go on <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429055737-1/give-dollar-amy-potter-stephen-hanna-perry-carter-arnold-modlin">scavenger hunts</a> where they take on the roles of white slave owners. In one case, the children deliver a message between the white slave owner’s son – a Confederate soldier – and his sick mother while their plantation was occupied by Union troops. This, we believe, leads the children to identify and empathize with the white slave-owning family as opposed to the individuals they enslaved.</p>
<h2>Toward reparative education</h2>
<p><a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820360935/remembering-enslavement/">Our work</a> calls for plantation museums to engage in a more <a href="https://www.futurelearn.com/info/courses/decolonising-education-from-theory-to-practice/0/steps/189484">reparative</a> form of education. This education would come to terms with the injustices of the past and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15575330.2016.1146783">correct the way enslavement is actively misremembered</a> in the present, which in turn harms <a href="https://www.learningforjustice.org/magazine/fall-2019/black-students-and-educators-at-confederatenamed-schools">Black well-being</a> and <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Speaking-for-the-Enslaved-Heritage-Interpretation-at-Antebellum-Plantation/Jackson/p/book/9781598745498">sense of belonging</a>.</p>
<p>Repairing these historical fallacies is not just about getting the facts correct about the enslaved and the enslavers. It also requires the public to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1468797611412007">learn certain emotional and social truths</a> about how slavery is a source of pain and tension in America. Lessons should show how this tension continues to impact <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/most-americans-say-the-legacy-of-slavery-still-affects-black-people-in-the-u-s-today/">race relations</a>. Often <a href="https://theconversation.com/slave-built-infrastructure-still-creates-wealth-in-us-suggesting-reparations-should-cover-past-harms-and-current-value-of-slavery-153969">overlooked is how enslaved labor was used</a> to construct buildings, roads, ports and rail lines we use in America.</p>
<p><a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820360935/remembering-enslavement/">Our research</a> found that many plantation museums were reluctant to highlight Black lives and histories. But there is promising evidence of change at sites like McLeod Plantation on James Island in Charleston, South Carolina, which opened in 2015, less than a year after the more well-known <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/13/the-u-s-has-35000-museums-why-is-only-one-about-slavery/">Whitney Plantation</a> in Louisiana.</p>
<p>We see both museums – Whitney and McLeod – as exceptional in plantation tourism. Combined, our research found these two sites attract a more racially diverse visitorship than many other plantations because of the inclusive stories being told. Our surveys with visitors suggest public interest in the topic of slavery increased after taking guided tours that focused on the experiences of enslaved communities. In our view, this is a needed counterpoint to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/08/plantations-are-talking-more-about-slavery-grappling-with-visitors-who-talk-back/">media reports</a> of some visitors pushing back against hearing these sober discussions. For instance, tour guides at McLeod reported white visitors yelling at them, claiming the tour <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820360935/remembering-enslavement/">attacked</a> their ancestors.</p>
<p>Both of these plantations represent a new way of educating the public about the realities of slavery. Here are three things that stood out during our assessment of the Whitney and McLeod plantations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451895/original/file-20220314-16-bk073s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C4587%2C3456&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Large marble tablets are set along a green pasture." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451895/original/file-20220314-16-bk073s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C0%2C4587%2C3456&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451895/original/file-20220314-16-bk073s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451895/original/file-20220314-16-bk073s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451895/original/file-20220314-16-bk073s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451895/original/file-20220314-16-bk073s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451895/original/file-20220314-16-bk073s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451895/original/file-20220314-16-bk073s.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">At the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana, marble walls memorialize those who were enslaved.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amy Potter</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. They incorporate slavery and the lives of the enslaved throughout the tour</h2>
<p>We think it’s important to feature slavery and the lives of the enslaved <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1743873X.2018.1459628">during all aspects of the tour</a> and not keep it separate in a special exhibit.</p>
<p>Visitors should be given an opportunity to make thoughtful connections to those who were once enslaved by learning names and details about their lives. At Whitney, for example, visitors are encouraged to make emotional connections. One way they do this is by receiving a lanyard at the start of the tour that features the words and image of a formerly enslaved child.</p>
<h2>2. They provide visitors a space to contemplate</h2>
<p>We know the plantation can be an especially fraught and emotional experience, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/12/19/we-are-our-ancestors-wildest-dreams-photo-black-medical-students-former-slave-cabin-sends-message-progress/">particularly for Black visitors</a>. During our fieldwork, Black visitors would often describe the land as sacred and a powerful place to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/2373566X.2018.1486723">connect to the ancestors</a>. Some of these plantations have even hosted <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9780807848432/somerset-homecoming/">Black family reunions</a>. Whitney Plantation provides opportunities for visitor reflection and contemplation throughout the tour, such as benches near a wall that memorializes and honors all of the people who were enslaved there.</p>
<h2>3. Tour guides were well prepared</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451969/original/file-20220314-119657-1xktw24.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man holds up a photo of an enslaved woman named Hannah Kelly" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451969/original/file-20220314-119657-1xktw24.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451969/original/file-20220314-119657-1xktw24.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451969/original/file-20220314-119657-1xktw24.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451969/original/file-20220314-119657-1xktw24.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451969/original/file-20220314-119657-1xktw24.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451969/original/file-20220314-119657-1xktw24.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451969/original/file-20220314-119657-1xktw24.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man visiting the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana holds up a lanyard featuring an image of an enslaved child named Hannah Kelly.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amy Potter</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>McLeod’s management purposely hired guides who would disrupt romantic notions of the plantation and engage meaningfully with themes of slavery, race and social justice. They also <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780759123267/Interpreting-Slavery-at-Museums-and-Historic-Sites">provided ongoing training and support</a> to guides doing the <a href="http://interpretingdifficulthistory.com">difficult work</a> of challenging or complicating long-held plantation myths.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Managers at McLeod acknowledged the stress experienced by their tour guides when they focused on enslavement and its aftermath. They took extra steps to ensure that their guides were supported by initiating a “golden hour.” This was a time for staff to come together and reflect on difficult encounters with the visitors, who sometimes challenged guides’ historical knowledge and fairness. It was also a time for the guides to develop strategies to cope with the <a href="http://www.interpretingslavelife.com/who-am-i/">emotional toll</a> of the hostility they faced while doing their jobs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178905/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Potter receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Derek H. Alderman receives funding from National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities. </span></em></p>Plantation museums could be ideal venues for students to learn about the nation’s history of race-based slavery, but only if they stop whitewashing the horrors of what took place on their grounds.Amy Potter, Associate Professor of Geography, Georgia Southern UniversityDerek H. Alderman, Professor of Geography, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1756562022-01-27T15:13:29Z2022-01-27T15:13:29ZBook review: how Africa was central to the making of the modern world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442723/original/file-20220126-21-hadgbf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mansa Musa, the king of Mali, approached by a Berber on camelback, from The Catalan Atlas, 1375</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Attributed to Abraham Cresques/Bibliothèque Nationale de France/Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Journalist, photographer, author and professor Howard W. French’s <em><a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631495823">Born in Blackness</a>: Africa, Africans, and the Making of the Modern World, 1471 to the Second World War</em>, is the most recent in a long career of thoughtful and significant literary and journalistic interventions. It demands an account of modernity that reckons with Africa as central to the making of the modern world.</p>
<p>The book’s main aim, French explains early on, is to restore those key chapters which articulate Africa’s significance to our common narrative of modernity to their proper place of prominence. </p>
<p>French intricately traces, from the early 15th century through the Second World War, the encounters between African and European civilisations. These, he argues, were motivated by Europe’s desire to trade with West Africa’s rich, Black <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/06/27/medieval-africa-lost-kingdoms/">civilisations</a>. These included the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Ghana-historical-West-African-empire">Ghanaian</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/empire-mali-1230-1600">Malian</a> empires. The ancient West African region was perceived as an <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/africa_caribbean/west_africa.htm">abundant source</a> of both gold and slaves. French argues that it is the “intertwined background of gold and slavery” which would eventually birth the transatlantic slave trade of the early 16th century. </p>
<h2>A 600 year journey</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442726/original/file-20220126-17-vg5rdr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover with an illustration that is detail of The Catlan Atlas showing a king greeting a berber on camel back, lines and buildings in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442726/original/file-20220126-17-vg5rdr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442726/original/file-20220126-17-vg5rdr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442726/original/file-20220126-17-vg5rdr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442726/original/file-20220126-17-vg5rdr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442726/original/file-20220126-17-vg5rdr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442726/original/file-20220126-17-vg5rdr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442726/original/file-20220126-17-vg5rdr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Liveright/W.W. Norton & Company</span></span>
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<p><em>Born in Blackness</em> sprawls approximately 600 years. It traverses geographies from the edge of Europe, across Africa and the Americas. It follows the long history of the age of European “discovery” beginning with <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/africa-portugal">Portugal’s early ventures</a> into Africa and Asia in the late 1400s and early 1500s, through the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/transatlantic-slave-trade">Atlantic slave trade</a>’s “modest” start in Barbados in the 1630s to the <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/haitian-revolution-1791-1804/">Haitian Revolution</a>. </p>
<p>Then it moves to London’s <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/tradeindustry/slavetrade/overview/parliament-abolishes-the-slave-trade/">abolishment</a> of the transatlantic trafficking of humans in 1807 and the introduction of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/cotton-harvester">mechanical cotton picker</a>. This invention “could do the work of fifty sharecropping Blacks, a fact not lost on the white planters of the (Mississippi Delta)”. French’s historical tracing of the crafting of the modern world through the oppression and subjugation of Black persons continues on through the Second World War and beyond.</p>
<p>Citing Simeon Booker, a noteworthy African-American journalist whose work concerned the American <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/American-civil-rights-movement">civil rights movement</a> and the murder of <a href="https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/articles-and-essays/murder-of-emmett-till/">Emmett Till</a>, an African-American teenager accused of offending a white woman, French notes that in the early 1960s, “Mississipi could easily rank with South Africa, Angola or Nazi Germany for brutality and hatred”. </p>
<p>His careful weaving together of how gold and slavery became intertwined over centuries and continents makes one thing abundantly clear. Without the trade of persons belonging to African civilisations across the globe, but particularly the Atlantic, the modern world would not have been made.</p>
<h2>A reckoning with slavery</h2>
<p>As the author explains, the boom of the cotton, sugar and tobacco industries of the colonial US simply would not have happened without the trade of slaves from Africa. Without this “capitalist jolt” as French puts it, what we know now as the United States of America would have remained relatively obscure. It would not likely have become the superpower state it is today.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-lives-matter-but-slavery-isnt-our-only-narrative-137016">Black Lives Matter but slavery isn't our only narrative</a>
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<p>In this way <em>Born in Blackness</em> challenges emphatically the deliberate forgetting of European contests over control of African resources. This process of erasure, French explains, began with Europe’s “Age of Discovery” (1400s-1600s). The improperly explained rationale for this era was that European civilisations wanted to form trading ties with Asia. To do so, they reached across continents, including Africa, for territory – and, later, subjects. </p>
<p>But French insists that the real rationale was Europe’s earnest desire to establish economic ties with Africa, and in particular West Africa with its resource-rich civilisations and resource-based economies. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442730/original/file-20220126-19-om9dcg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portrait of a man in a blue shirt with a brown jacket, wearing glasses, his beard unshaven." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442730/original/file-20220126-19-om9dcg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442730/original/file-20220126-19-om9dcg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442730/original/file-20220126-19-om9dcg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442730/original/file-20220126-19-om9dcg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442730/original/file-20220126-19-om9dcg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442730/original/file-20220126-19-om9dcg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442730/original/file-20220126-19-om9dcg.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Howard W. French.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">W.W. Norton & Company</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The intervention of <em>Born in Blackness</em>, then, is to insist on reckoning with the role played by the brutal bond between Europe and Africa. This was forged through slavery. It is what drove the birth of a truly global capitalist economy; it hastened the processes of industrialisation and revolutionised the world’s diets by facilitating the globalisation of the consumption of sugar. </p>
<p>It is also important to mark, as French does, that the centrality of enslaved Africans’ labour extends beyond the mining of plantation crops to the very creation of the plantations themselves. It was the slaves who prepared the land for planting: they removed plants and rocks, but most importantly displaced indigenous peoples from their territories. </p>
<h2>A world born in Blackness</h2>
<p>In marking this, <em>Born in Blackness</em> demonstrates how the displacement to which African persons taken as slaves is mirrored in the making of modern-day America and echoed in the displacement of first nations or indigenous Americans.</p>
<p>What is at stake in the intervention of the book is precisely what is gestured toward by its title: that modernity and the modern world was indeed born in Blackness. The civilisational transformations the author traces – economic, spatial and most importantly cultural in their texture – are a product of Blackness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175656/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren van der Rede receives funding from the Early Career Academic Development programme of the Division of Research Development, Stellenbosch University.</span></em></p>Born in Blackness by Howard W. French is a towering work. It argues that, because of gold and slavery, Africa is central to creating the modern world.Lauren van der Rede, Lecturer, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1738312022-01-13T13:01:50Z2022-01-13T13:01:50ZMaking sugar, making ‘coolies’: Chinese laborers toiled alongside Black workers on 19th-century Louisiana plantations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439550/original/file-20220105-25-x462d2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C93%2C3128%2C2062&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harvesting on a Louisiana sugar plantation, 1875.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/93505862/">Alfred R. Waud/Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: This article quotes historical sources using terms now considered racist to describe Black and Asian workers.</em> </p>
<p>The recent surge in anti-Asian violence in the U.S. has put a spotlight on Asian American history, at least for a moment. “Racism is real in America, and it always has been,” <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/03/19/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-at-emory-university/">Vice President Kamala Harris said on March 19, 2021</a>. “In the 1860s, as Chinese workers built the transcontinental railroad, there were laws on the books, in America, forbidding them from owning property.”</p>
<p>In fact, far more Asian workers moved to the Americas in the 19th century to make sugar than to build the transcontinental railroad. It is a history that can force Americans to contend with colonial violence in the making of the modern world, dating back centuries to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/sugar-masters-in-a-new-world-5212993/">Christopher Columbus and his search for trade routes and quick wealth</a>.</p>
<p>As I explore in my book “<a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/coolies-and-cane">Coolies and Cane: Race, Labor, and Sugar in the Age of Emancipation</a>,” thousands of Chinese migrants were recruited to work side by side with African Americans on Louisiana’s sugar plantations after the Civil War. Though now a largely forgotten episode in history, their migration played a key role in renewing and reinforcing the racist foundation of American citizenship. Recruited and reviled as “coolies,” their presence in sugar production helped justify racial exclusion after the abolition of slavery.</p>
<h2>Empire, sugar and slavery</h2>
<p>In places where sugar cane is grown, such as Mauritius, Fiji, Hawaii, Guyana, Trinidad and Suriname, there is usually a sizable population of Asians who can trace their ancestry to India, China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and elsewhere. They are descendants of sugar plantation workers, whose migration and labor embodied the limitations and contradictions of chattel slavery’s slow death in the 19th century. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BLzgD11RwEc?wmode=transparent&start=45" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Sugar was a rare and expensive status symbol until colonial powers created an industry based on enslaved labor.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beginning in the 17th century, the global sugar industry and slavery grew hand in hand to shape the course of capitalist development. Mass consumption of sugar in industrializing Europe and North America rested on mass production of sugar by enslaved Africans in the colonies. The whip, the market, and the law institutionalized slavery across the Americas, including in the U.S.</p>
<p>When the Haitian Revolution erupted in 1791 and Napoleon Bonaparte’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/opinion/france-year-of-napoleon.html">mission to reclaim Saint-Domingue</a>, France’s most prized colony, failed, slaveholding regimes around the world grew alarmed. In response to a series of slave rebellions in its own sugar colonies, especially in Jamaica, the British Empire formally abolished slavery in the 1830s. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/29/slavery-abolition-compensation-when-will-britain-face-up-to-its-crimes-against-humanity">British emancipation</a> included a payment of £20 million to slave owners, an immense sum of money that British taxpayers made loan payments on until 2015.</p>
<p>Importing indentured labor from Asia emerged as a potential way to maintain the British Empire’s sugar plantation system. In 1838 John Gladstone, father of future prime minister William E. Gladstone, arranged for the shipment of 396 South Asian workers, bound to five years of indentured labor, to his sugar estates in British Guiana. The experiment with “Gladstone coolies,” as those workers came to be known, inaugurated what historian Hugh Tinker called “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/A_New_System_of_Slavery.html?id=q1_tAAAAMAAJ">a new system of slavery</a>,” which would endure for nearly a century.</p>
<h2>Louisiana’s sugar bowl</h2>
<p>Louisiana is firmly enmeshed in the global history of empire, sugar and slavery. When Bonaparte’s dream to make France great again collapsed in Haiti, he agreed to sell France’s claims in North America to the U.S. empire in 1803, in what has come to be known as the Louisiana Purchase. Plantation owners who escaped Saint-Domingue with their enslaved workers helped <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/08/the-most-successful-slave-rebellion-in-history-created-an-independent-haiti-and-secured-the-louisiana-purchase-and-the-expansion-of-north-american-slavery.html">establish a booming sugar industry in southern Louisiana</a>.</p>
<p>On huge plantations surrounding New Orleans, home of the largest slave market in the antebellum South, sugar production took off in the first half of the 19th century. By 1853, Louisiana was producing <a href="http://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/83038/5/04%20Estados%20Unidos%20(Richard%20Follet).pdf">nearly 25% of all exportable sugar in the world</a>. </p>
<p>Enslaved Black workers made that phenomenal growth possible. On the eve of the Civil War, Louisiana’s sugar industry was valued at US$200 million. More than half of that figure represented the valuation of the ownership of human beings – Black people who did the backbreaking labor of making sugar on a grand scale.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439560/original/file-20220105-15-15ikwte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Vintage print depicting Native Americans and sugar cane workers in Louisiana." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439560/original/file-20220105-15-15ikwte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439560/original/file-20220105-15-15ikwte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439560/original/file-20220105-15-15ikwte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439560/original/file-20220105-15-15ikwte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439560/original/file-20220105-15-15ikwte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439560/original/file-20220105-15-15ikwte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439560/original/file-20220105-15-15ikwte.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">An 1855 print shows workers on a Louisiana plantation harvesting sugar cane at right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2015650277/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the Civil War, Black workers rebelled and joined <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/12/reading-w-e-b-dubois-black-reconstruction-chapters-4-and-5.html">what W.E.B. Du Bois called the “General Strike</a>,” abandoning sugar production as quickly as they could. On plantation after plantation, Black workers ran away. By the war’s end, approximately $193 million of the sugar industry’s prewar value had vanished. </p>
<h2>Disappearing acts</h2>
<p>Desperate to regain power and authority after the war, Louisiana’s wealthiest planters studied and learned from their Caribbean counterparts. They, too, looked to Asian workers for their salvation, fantasizing that so-called “coolies” would be cheap, industrious and submissive – a “<a href="https://densho.org/catalyst/inventing-the-model-minority-a-critical-timeline-and-reading-list">model minority</a>” of sorts.</p>
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<p>Thousands of Chinese workers landed in Louisiana between 1866 and 1870, recruited from the Caribbean, China and California. Bound to multiyear contracts, they symbolized Louisiana planters’ racial hope for a new system of slavery. “We can drive the niggers out and import coolies that will work better, at less expense,” journalist Whitelaw Reid <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/coolies-and-cane">reported hearing all across the South in 1866</a>, “and relieve us from this cursed nigger impudence.” </p>
<p>To great fanfare, Louisiana’s wealthiest planters spent thousands of dollars to recruit gangs of Chinese workers. When 140 Chinese laborers arrived on Millaudon plantation near New Orleans on July 4, 1870, at a cost of about $10,000 in recruitment fees, the New Orleans Times reported that they were “young, athletic, intelligent, sober and cleanly” and superior to “the vast majority of our African population.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439559/original/file-20220105-17-idovqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Engraving of men in conical hats working in cane fields." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439559/original/file-20220105-17-idovqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439559/original/file-20220105-17-idovqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439559/original/file-20220105-17-idovqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439559/original/file-20220105-17-idovqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439559/original/file-20220105-17-idovqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439559/original/file-20220105-17-idovqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439559/original/file-20220105-17-idovqs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 1871 engraving titled ‘Chinese cheap labor in Louisiana - Chinamen at work on the Milloudon Sugar Plantation.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002716000/">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mostly segregated in specifically designated buildings in former slave quarters, Chinese workers generally contracted to work for wage rates far below the prevailing rate in the sugar region: around $14 per month, compared with about $20 per month that local Black men received. But the competition between Black and Chinese laborers that planters predicted did not materialize. </p>
<p>On the ground, Chinese workers behaved no differently from Black workers. When they heard that other workers earned more, they demanded the same. When planters refused, they ran away. The Chinese recruits, the Planters’ Banner observed in 1871, were “fond of changing about, run away worse than negroes, and … leave as soon as anybody offers them higher wages.”</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439561/original/file-20220105-17-lkjeqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Faded letters on a building spell 'On Leong Chinese Merchants Association'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439561/original/file-20220105-17-lkjeqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439561/original/file-20220105-17-lkjeqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439561/original/file-20220105-17-lkjeqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439561/original/file-20220105-17-lkjeqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439561/original/file-20220105-17-lkjeqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439561/original/file-20220105-17-lkjeqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439561/original/file-20220105-17-lkjeqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The former headquarters of the Chinese Merchants Association at 530 Bourbon St. in New Orleans, part of a Chinatown neighborhood that formed in the 1940s after a larger one was destroyed by fire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown,_New_Orleans#/media/File:530_Bourbon_Street.jpg">Winstonho0805/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Adapting to the rhythms of sugar production, where workers were in high demand during the harvest season at the end of the year, Chinese workers transformed themselves from long-term contract laborers to short-term seasonal laborers. Many moved around Louisiana throughout the 1870s, stopping over in New Orleans and other towns between stints on sugar plantations. Many others left sugar production altogether. In their search for something better, Chinese workers blended into the landscape so well that they disappeared. </p>
<p>But the racial image of Asian workers as industrious and submissive “coolies” making sugar on plantations stuck. When Congress debated excluding the Chinese from the United States in 1882, Rep. Horace F. Page of California argued that the United States could not allow the entry of “millions of cooly slaves and serfs.” That racial reasoning would justify a long series of anti-Asian laws and policies on immigration and naturalization for <a href="https://aatimeline.com">nearly a century</a>.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/439239/original/file-20220103-48418-1p7tcpi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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</figure>
<p><em>This article is part of a series examining sugar’s effects on human health and culture. <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/sugar-2022-114641">Click here to read the articles on theconversation.com.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/173831/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Moon-Ho Jung does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sugar has deep links with slavery in the US, but Black workers weren’t the only ones affected. In post-Civil War Louisiana, Chinese workers also toiled cutting and processing cane.Moon-Ho Jung, Professor of History, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1706172021-12-06T14:00:38Z2021-12-06T14:00:38ZModern-day culture wars are playing out on historic tours of slaveholding plantations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435071/original/file-20211201-17-4yu5mx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C7%2C5145%2C3430&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">These statues of enslaved young boys are part of a modern-day depiction of southern plantation life at the Whitney Museum in Louisiana. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ConfederateMonumentProtestDividedHistory/42d22e7fb72646ec9915dfb050b804aa/photo?Query=whitney%20plantation&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=36&currentItemNo=5">AP Photo/Gerald Herbert</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Located on nearly 2,000 acres along the banks of the Potomac River, <a href="https://www.stratfordhall.org/">Stratford Hall Plantation</a> is the birthplace of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and the home of four generations of the Lee family, including two signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee.</p>
<p>It was also the home of <a href="https://www.stratfordhall.org/enslaved-community/">hundreds of enslaved Africans and African Americans</a>. From sunup to sundown, they worked in the fields and in the Great House. Until fairly recently, the stories of these enslaved Africans and of their brothers and sisters toiling at plantations across the Southern U.S. were absent from any discussions during modern-day tours of plantations such as Stratford Hall. </p>
<p>Even now, with new tours and an exhibition highlighting enslaved Africans and African Americans who lived at Stratford Hall, discussions during plantation tours among visitors can often turn into visceral debates over whose history should be told or ignored. </p>
<p>These tensions are part of an ever-growing work of <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/education/2019/10/16/slavery-racism-black-history-historical-sites-historic-places-field-trip/1905346001/">criticism</a> directed at sites that continue to omit the history of the enslaved community. Of the 600 plantations scattered throughout the South, only one, the <a href="https://www.whitneyplantation.org/">Whitney Plantation in Louisiana</a>, focuses entirely on the experiences of the enslaved. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://africam.berkeley.edu/people/kelley-fanto-deetz/">public historian</a> and the director of collections and visitor engagement at Stratford Hall, I can attest that visitors have vastly different expectations when they visit this historic landmark. Their questions reflect their own interpretations, curiosities and political biases, often to the detriment of obtaining a richer education on every aspect of plantation life – the good, the bad and the ugly. </p>
<h2>Awkward questions</h2>
<p>Museum professionals at plantations <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49842601">hear it all</a> and must balance viewpoints that are diametrically opposed to one another, such as the romanticized notion of antebellum gentility and the constant fear of terror and violence of the enslaved. Visitors’ expectations often collide with reality, creating tense moments on tours. Some visitors want answers and stories that sit comfortably with their ideas of slavery and of America as a whole. </p>
<p>“Were the Lees good slave owners?” is a frequent question. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Stratford Hall Plantation, a large, boxy but elegant brick structure" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435075/original/file-20211201-19-ow54g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435075/original/file-20211201-19-ow54g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435075/original/file-20211201-19-ow54g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435075/original/file-20211201-19-ow54g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435075/original/file-20211201-19-ow54g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435075/original/file-20211201-19-ow54g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435075/original/file-20211201-19-ow54g5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=595&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A view of Stratford Hall Plantation in Virginia, birthplace of Gen. Robert E. Lee, circa 1950.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/view-of-stratford-hall-plantation-birthplace-of-two-signers-news-photo/507223623?adppopup=true">Photo by Authenticated News/Archive Photos/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many visitors comment on how the <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/textbook-that-says-some-slaves-treated-like-family-is-pulled/">slaves were treated like family</a>, or how their <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z732pv4/revision/3">housing</a> doesn’t seem that bad. Some would rather <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/26/travel/house-tours-charleston-savannah.html">skip the whole slavery thing</a> altogether and just comfortably learn about the decorative arts and the often luxurious lives of the white families who lived there. </p>
<p>But history is not comfortable. Though he lived at Stratford Hall only during his early years, <a href="https://acwm.org/blog/myths-misunderstandings-lee-slaveholder/">Robert E. Lee was a slave owner</a> in his own right. The majority of the nearly 200 enslaved people Gen. Lee owned were inherited after his father-in-law, George Washington Parke Custis, died in 1857.</p>
<p>For every question about the kindness of the enslavers are others seeking detailed descriptions of abuse and terror. </p>
<p>“How much abuse happened here?” is one such question.</p>
<p>The answer is clear about the innate inhumanity of slavery. <a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/horrors-slavery-1805">Abuse </a>ran rampant, everything from rape and dismemberment to <a href="https://time.com/5750833/new-years-day-slavery-history/">separating families</a>. Enslaved people lived in constant fear. Violence was always a threat, in one form or another. </p>
<p>These questions plague <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8847385/what-i-learned-from-leading-tours-about-slavery-at-a-plantation">many historic sites</a>. Museum professionals are then saddled with spending more time explaining the lack of specific evidence of abuse on their site – or examples in their records – and spending less time talking about the ways enslaved men, women and children used their culture and community to persevere in a system built on violence and terror.</p>
<p>Violence was not all enslaved people experienced on plantations. Questions that focus heavily on the treatment of the enslaved – and not the people themselves – erase their humanity and ignore their agency. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Enslaved people on South Carolina plantation in 1862." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432759/original/file-20211118-17-1k6vw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/432759/original/file-20211118-17-1k6vw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432759/original/file-20211118-17-1k6vw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432759/original/file-20211118-17-1k6vw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432759/original/file-20211118-17-1k6vw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432759/original/file-20211118-17-1k6vw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/432759/original/file-20211118-17-1k6vw9b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=816&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Enslaved people on South Carolina plantation in 1862.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/1367%22/>">Slavery Images: A Visual Record of the African Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Early African Diaspora</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It also reduces their entire existence into a byproduct of white behavior and, worse, diminishes their cultures and their <a href="https://edsitement.neh.gov/teachers-guides/african-american-history-and-culture-united-states">contributions</a> to both the site and the nation as a whole. </p>
<p>Tour guides are pivotal in providing richer, more inclusive educational experiences. Yet we regularly endure personal attacks and offensive commentary. Historical interpreter <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dontavius-williams-86124852">Dontavius Williams</a> works around the country at plantation sites, and, despite his authoritative expertise, Williams, 38, has told me and others in the field that he has been called “boy” on several occasions. </p>
<p>Many African American interpreters also have to address statements about how slavery was good for their ancestors.</p>
<h2>Inclusion is not exclusion</h2>
<p>The visitors’ role is to learn from the staff and engage in ways that generate constructive conversations. Facilitators like Williams are trained in encouraging such talks, regardless of the visitors’ preconceived notions, political agendas or fixed notions about slavery and other confirmation biases. </p>
<p>What brings a more nuanced and balanced tour are questions about who made the <a href="https://www.postandcourier.com/features/home_and_garden/by-theirhands-slave-made-furniture-sheds-light-on-history/article_0654f05c-c121-5751-a8bd-2f0fdaf0c403.html">furniture</a>, <a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813174730/bound-to-the-fire/">who cooked</a> the food, <a href="https://afroculinaria.com/">what people ate</a>, how enslaved people <a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/news/slave-resistance">persevered</a> in spite of enslavement or which West African <a href="http://slaveryandremembrance.org/articles/article/?id=A0057">traditions</a> survived in the Colonies. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>This inclusion does not equate to exclusion. Visitors can learn of the white family, the decorative arts – and the enslaved community. </p>
<p>Historic sites are not Disneyland, U.S. history is not fantasy and plantations are inherently uncomfortable places. If tourists ask the deeper, more nuanced questions, they will get answers that challenge preconceived ideas and render a more complete understanding of our nation’s history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelley Fanto Deetz works at Stratford Hall. </span></em></p>The romanticized notions of Southern gentility are increasingly at odds with historical reality as the lives, culture and contributions of the enslaved are becoming integral on tours of plantations.Kelley Fanto Deetz, Visiting Scholar, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1556452021-05-19T06:02:50Z2021-05-19T06:02:50ZHidden women of history: Melanesian indentured labourer Annie Etinside, hailed as a Queensland ‘pioneer’ on her death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/385377/original/file-20210220-13-1iteje0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3374%2C2268&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Annie, centre, with her children in the town of Halifax, circa 1910, forged a rich life in difficult circumstances.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/hidden-women-of-history-64072">this series</a>, we look at under-acknowledged women through the ages.</em></p>
<p>The women of the tropical north Queensland frontier were <a href="https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/journals/lilith">a varied lot</a>
and included Melanesian <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/indentured-labour">indentured labourers</a> brought to work on sugar cane plantations. Annie Etinside was one of them.</p>
<p>She was brought to Halifax, a small, sleepy town bordering the banks of the Herbert River that was once a thriving port and tramway terminus for the <a href="https://digital.slq.qld.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?change_lng=en&dps_pid=IE1654744">Colonial Sugar Refining Company’s Victoria sugar plantation and mill</a>.</p>
<p>Evidence today of the indentured labourers who once toiled on the plantation is found in small signposts such as one at “The Gardens”, formerly a small Melanesian village on the outskirts of Halifax. Here lived a few families who were <a href="http://www.frangipaniarts.com.au/download/Islands-Apart.pdf?">not later repatriated to their islands</a>. </p>
<p>Far fewer women than men were recruited as indentured labourers. In 1906, when forced repatriation of these labourers began, only <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:265384">14 Melanesian women and 500 men</a> remained on the Herbert. Annie, one of those 14, did not live in The Gardens community. Her life took a very different course. </p>
<p>Available records reveal a woman of colour who defied all odds to participate in a predominantly white community. Yet Annie remains an enigma.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-wauba-debar-an-indigenous-swimmer-from-tasmania-who-saved-her-captors-126487">Hidden women of history: Wauba Debar, an Indigenous swimmer from Tasmania who saved her captors</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Recruitment</h2>
<p>The “frontier” is generally thought of as a masculine space. In part this is because most frontier history has been written by European men, who tended not to notice women beyond their domestic arrangements, if at all. Fleshing out the lives of pioneering frontier women is difficult enough if they are white, let alone for women of colour. </p>
<p>The first Melanesian men were brought to the Herbert River district around 1872; women came about ten years later. Annie appears to have been among them. While some islanders volunteered, others were secured against their own will <a href="http://digital.slv.vic.gov.au/view/action/singleViewer.do?dvs=1620271489567%7E110&locale=en_US&metadata_object_ratio=10&show_">by deceit and even kidnapping</a>.</p>
<p>They were paid, and at the end of the three-year indenture period could either return to their islands, re-indenture, or work freely in the sugar industry on a set wage. Following the existing record trail leaves many questions unanswered about when Annie arrived and where from. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399103/original/file-20210506-17-1kjrmaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Annie’s headstone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the Halifax cemetery, her simple headstone tells us she came from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ureparapara">Ureparapara</a> (the third largest island in the Banks group of northern Vanuatu). Yet her death certificate records her as born on “Lambue South Sea Island”. Her marriage certificate records her birth as “Burra Burra South Sea Island”. Neither of these locations can be identified, but the latter may be a corruption of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buka_Buka_Island">Buka Buka</a>.</p>
<p>A register was kept listing the names of recruited labourers and other details. The only Etinside on this register is a man brought over on November 5, 1888 from <a href="https://www.archivessearch.qld.gov.au/items/ITM18598">Ureparapara</a>. We don’t know if this was Annie, mistakenly recorded as a male.</p>
<p>Details of Annie’s arrival are further muddied by the information provided on her gravestone, marriage and death certificates. According to these, she was born around 1870, so would have arrived in Australia in 1881 as an 11-year-old.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-isabel-flick-the-tenacious-campaigner-who-fought-segregation-in-australia-114174">Hidden women of history: Isabel Flick, the tenacious campaigner who fought segregation in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Marriage</h2>
<p>Indentured women were employed both in fields and houses by small farmers, and on plantations. Annie’s obituary, published in the Herbert River Express, says she was first engaged as housemaid to Norwegian sugar cane farmer Johan (John) Ingebright Alm and his wife Antonia, then to <a href="https://doi.org/10.5282/rcc/8746%3C/u">an English farmer, Francis Herron and his wife Lucinda</a>. </p>
<p>By 1884, she was housemaid to George Gosling who had migrated from Britain in 1881. George was an overseer of indentured labour gangs, then farmed on leased land and in his own right, turning a piece of land called “Poverty Flat” by locals into a successful farm, Rosedale. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=866&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399133/original/file-20210506-15-195k3nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1088&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George and Annie Gosling, circa 1885.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Albert and Rachel Garlando</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Annie married Gosling in 1898 in a civil ceremony. By this time, she had borne him two children. The children’s birth records are the first bearing the name Etenside (misspelt). At this point, Annie may have begun to feel unsafe. The <a href="https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/research-collections/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-people/community-history">Aboriginal Protection and Restrictions of the Sale of Opium Act of 1897</a> had just been passed. </p>
<p>Without an official record to prove she had arrived as an indentured labourer, officials could have identified Annie as Aboriginal. This would have meant restriction of her movements and associations; her children, as mixed race and born out of wedlock, could have been taken from her.</p>
<p>The indentured labour scheme was never meant to permit Melanesian people to settle permanently in Australia. In 1901 the White Australia policy legislated to stop the scheme. From the end of 1906, all Melanesian indentured labourers were to be forcibly deported back to their islands, except for those with <a href="https://www.naa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/fs-269-south-sea-islanders.pdf">exemption tickets</a>. </p>
<p>Marriage offered Annie protection. Rather than social disapproval, it seems to have met with tolerance, even if expressed in a patronising way. One Cairns newspaper described her with tongue in cheek as Gosling’s “little black duck”. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399104/original/file-20210506-15-m48hpx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Gosling’s headstone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Annie and Gosling had three more children although tragedy struck on January 17, 1905, when Gosling died of malaria at the age of 45. Annie was left with five young children, the youngest only eight days old. On Gosling’s death, Annie was recognised as his lawful widow, <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article44412920">inheriting all his estate</a>. The success of his farm can be partly attributed to her. On the Herbert, small farmers depended on wives and children for all field labour, apart from cane harvesting.</p>
<p>Annie had another child in 1907, who she named Robert Gosling. She went on to marry William John Davey on February 17, 1909. But one month after their marriage, she registered the death of little Robert. Davey died on August 30, in the same year. After his death she reverted to using the name Gosling.</p>
<h2>Remarkable feats</h2>
<p>Despite her “alien” status, Annie integrated herself successfully into the largely white social fabric of Halifax, becoming a respected member of the community at a time of institutionalised racism. She participated in civic life, was registered on the electoral roll and ran a farm. </p>
<p>Her children attended the Halifax State School, her sons farmed and held jobs at the sugar mills (unusual for children of indentured labourers) and her children married Anglo-Australians, Europeans and Asians. </p>
<p>Annie’s were remarkable feats, given the prevailing racial attitudes and prohibitions regarding land ownership, education and constitutional rights. They indicate her determination to be recognised as an accountable, independent and hard-working member of society, regardless of her skin colour.</p>
<p>When Annie died on November 23, 1948 at the recorded age of 78, she was described in the Herbert River Express as a “grand old pioneer”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155645/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Brought out to work on the sugar plantations, Annie was a woman of colour who defied all odds to participate in a predominantly white community.Bianka Vidonja Balanzategui, Adjunct Lecturer, James Cook UniversityClaire Brennan, Lecturer in History, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1599282021-05-03T13:50:52Z2021-05-03T13:50:52ZThe N-Word: a volcano kept active by the flickering embers of racism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398133/original/file-20210430-16-13d1npa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mural by Gabriel Marques, Dublin</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many years ago, talk show hostess Oprah Winfrey had actor Don Cheadle and a couple of other guests on her TV programme to <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0667132/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl">debate</a> racism, including the unresolved question of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/opinion/john-mcwhorter-n-word-unsayable.html">N-word</a>. Arguably, by the end of the show, there was no resolution of the status of the word in American society, the country where it has caused so much anguish and turmoil.</p>
<p>“Negro”, under slave conditions, quite apart from being a neutral racial category, became a term of absolute dehumanisation. Africans <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Middle-Passage-slave-trade">stolen</a> by the millions and transported to the New World had to be divested of their humanity, individuality and variety. </p>
<p>A word had to be invested with the powers of dehumanisation, on the one hand, and absolve the racist oppressor of culpability, on the other. Since the period of US <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/plantation-system/">plantation slavery</a> from the 1600s to the 1800s, the word of terror – invested with so much vitriol, hate and revulsion – wended its venomous way through the veins of the black community, polluting the entire body politic. </p>
<p>A word is as delicate as an egg and had to be treated so accordingly.</p>
<h2>A state of white supremacy</h2>
<p>After the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-slavery-idUSL1561464920070322">defeat</a> of slavery, the end of the American Civil War, systemic lynching, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Jim-Crow-law">Jim Crow segregation</a> of the early 1900s, and the successes of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/American-civil-rights-movement">civil rights movement</a>, the terrible word was still loose in American society, evoking dusky trauma and spectres of toxins. It was a word that was not dead and buried. It had acquired a life of its own and had become as complex as the deceit and illusions of the ongoing <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/the-black-family-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/403246/">age of mass incarceration</a>.</p>
<p>American authors <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Wright-American-writer">Richard Wright</a> in <em><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/103/1033262/native-son/9781784876128.html">Native Son</a></em> (1940) and <a href="https://bookriot.com/who-was-ralph-ellison/">Ralph Ellison</a> in <em><a href="https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5053/the-art-of-fiction-no-8-ralph-ellison">The Invisible Man</a></em> (1952) evoke the terror and soul destroying anonymity through which blackness had to exist under white supremacy. The reality of blackness entailed a continual recoil into nameless shadows, opprobrium and silence. Finally, it entailed a state of enforced non-being even if it was artificially constructed.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/comparing-black-people-to-monkeys-has-a-long-dark-simian-history-55102">Comparing black people to monkeys has a long, dark simian history</a>
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</em>
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<p><a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Mikhail_Bakhtin">Mikhail Bakhtin</a>, the Russian cultural critic and literary theorist, popularised the notion of the <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095550811">carnivalesque</a> – a concept that became well-known in his country in the 1960s and much later in the West. It has been subsequently adopted as a means of deconstructing figures and institutions of tyrannical power by ordinary people. </p>
<p>Power, in arbitrary and irresponsible forms, is not often to be confronted head on. Instead, it is more judicious to puncture its bombastic façade using the weapons of humour, evasion and other similar sleights of hand. And thus the sheer terror of unaccountable power is defanged by the instrumentality of humour and the carnivalesque. In that manner, we are able to laugh at the state of abjectness that power imposes upon us in order to endure yet another day.</p>
<p>The N-word lives within the black community like a volcano, ready to erupt at any time, fed constantly by the bitter flares of history, humiliation and dehumanisation. But it also has to be appeased, detoxified and inverted for black folk to remain human and resilient. </p>
<h2>Taking venom from a snake</h2>
<p>And just as black folk have been able to create astounding works of beauty out of unbearable abjection – think of 1940s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/bebop">bebop</a> music from the brothels and after hours clubs of the American Chitlin’ circuit and <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7550286">hip hop</a> from the derelict precincts of the Bronx – the odious, life-crushing word was made to undergo a rebirth, a reinvention and was as such infused with new music and sinuousness. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398203/original/file-20210501-22-1xuhtrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man on stage raises both hands in peace signs as a crowd of arms from spectatotrs do the same. He wears a yellow T-shirt with a prominent image of a man on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398203/original/file-20210501-22-1xuhtrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398203/original/file-20210501-22-1xuhtrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398203/original/file-20210501-22-1xuhtrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398203/original/file-20210501-22-1xuhtrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398203/original/file-20210501-22-1xuhtrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1052&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398203/original/file-20210501-22-1xuhtrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1052&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398203/original/file-20210501-22-1xuhtrm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1052&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rapper Nas pays tribute to Tupac Shakur in 2004. Hip hop reclaimed the word.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Scott Gries/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this way, the victims and descendants of racial oppression wouldn’t have to live with tainted shadows, befouled blood and nightmares every moment of their lives. They had to perform an act similar to daredevilry, which is, to extract and detoxify venom from a snake without being bitten.</p>
<p>When <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2017/05/26/529839430/all-songs-1-why-were-still-obsessed-with-tupac">Tupac</a> <a href="https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/1513077/Richie+Rich/Ratha+Be+Ya+Nigga">raps</a>, “I’d ratha be your N.I.G.G.A” and makes it cool to do so, it is easy to gloss over the tribulations, bloodshed and heartbreaks it took to reach this stage of supposedly post-racial, post-<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/02/martin-luther-king-hungry-club-forum/552533/">Martin Luther King</a> casual hipness. </p>
<p>Yet this seemingly benign scenario has to be juxtaposed with the rise of the <a href="https://blacklivesmatter.com">Black Lives Matter</a> movement – including its contradictions and disenchantments. It rose due to the alarming cases of police brutality aimed at often unarmed black men and the apparent inaction of the political establishment in curbing these new forms of racial discrimination and injustice. </p>
<h2>Rivers of blood</h2>
<p>The word of abjection – regardless of its sordid and tortuous past itinerary – had to be appeased with endless rivers of blood. It would be a demonstration of a lack of empathy for a non-black person to throw the epithet around casually. </p>
<p>In this case, “non-blacks” are those who do not possess a direct or ancestral link to the transatlantic slave trade as primary victims. In the case of South Africa, non-blacks would apply to those who benefited most directly from the apartheid regime of racial stratification.</p>
<p>It is necessary to take into cognisance the multitude of crushed bones, shredded bodies and defeated spirits – in short, the genocidal ordeal – it took for the word to become hip and cool within only black communities. </p>
<p>In other words, it took horrifying crucibles for it to become a specific term of endearment, invariably, a consequence of astronomical costs. It is the inadequate recognition of this excruciating history by non-black persons that rankles the black community. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398202/original/file-20210501-16-rumgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman with a fist in the air shouts into a microphone as she marches in a crowd in urban streets, a green and brown illustration of a man held aloft on a poster behind the woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398202/original/file-20210501-16-rumgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398202/original/file-20210501-16-rumgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398202/original/file-20210501-16-rumgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398202/original/file-20210501-16-rumgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398202/original/file-20210501-16-rumgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398202/original/file-20210501-16-rumgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/398202/original/file-20210501-16-rumgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protest for justice for George Floyd, NYC 2020. Police brutality forms a backdrop to the use of the word.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We need to be constantly reminded that social transformation isn’t complete as long as blacks are vilified, oppressed and murdered simply because of the colour of their skin. Recent cases in point, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/shooting-of-Trayvon-Martin">Trayvon Martin</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/breonna-taylor-police.html">Breonna Taylor</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56818766">George Floyd</a>.</p>
<p>It’s not helpful to adopt a trivialisation of the essence of racial <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-rainbow-nation-is-a-myth-that-students-need-to-unlearn-66872">rainbowism</a> without its accompanying historical realities. What precisely are we to achieve by flippantly discarding the humanism we have been nurtured by to acquire a stunted, uncertain version of something that continually seems to elude us? What is the benefit of the new if it fosters a form of ahistorical barbarism?</p>
<h2>Hands off the word</h2>
<p>So the N-word, regardless of its current chic hip hop-speak, is perennially a double-edged sword, thoroughly <a href="https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/Manichean">Manichean</a>, with Jekyll and Hyde properties. Non-blacks would do well to appreciate this ever-shifting duality and are perhaps better off eschewing it.</p>
<p>It took black folk unimaginable resources of creativity, humanity, humour and generosity to detoxify it for their own collective sanity. Nonetheless a non-black de-contextualised appropriation of it remains, as always, a seismic volcano. A volcano kept active by the flickering embers of racism.</p>
<p><em>Osha is the author of several books including <a href="https://brill.com/view/title/31257">Postethnophilosophy</a> (2011) and <a href="https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/dust-spittle-and-wind">Dust, Spittle and Wind</a> (2011), <a href="https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/an-underground-colony-of-summer-bees">An Underground Colony of Summer Bees</a> (2012) and <a href="https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/on-a-sad-weather-beaten-couch">On a Sad Weather-Beaten Couch</a> (2015).</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159928/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sanya Osha does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It took black folk unimaginable resources of creativity, humanity, humour and generosity to detoxify the N-word for their own collective sanity.Sanya Osha, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1564452021-04-01T11:33:01Z2021-04-01T11:33:01ZWhite mobs rioted in Washington in 1848 to defend slaveholders’ rights after 76 Black enslaved people staged an unsuccessful mass escape on a boat<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392903/original/file-20210331-15-1kdmkv7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=86%2C95%2C803%2C459&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An abolitionist lithograph of the slave trade in Washington, D.C., with the U.S. Capitol in the background.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ds.13992/">Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The summer of 2020 was not the first time America saw protests and violence over the treatment of African Americans.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392412/original/file-20210329-23-1qwdxa5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="4 paragraphs from an 1848 newspaper account of the capture of the Pearl." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392412/original/file-20210329-23-1qwdxa5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392412/original/file-20210329-23-1qwdxa5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392412/original/file-20210329-23-1qwdxa5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392412/original/file-20210329-23-1qwdxa5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392412/original/file-20210329-23-1qwdxa5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1772&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392412/original/file-20210329-23-1qwdxa5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392412/original/file-20210329-23-1qwdxa5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1772&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An account on April 19, 1848, of the Pearl’s capture appearing in The Daily Union newspaper of Washington, D.C.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82003410/1848-04-19/ed-1/?sp=2&r=0.235,0.077,1.272,0.525,0">Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Long before the demonstrations over Black Lives Matter, long before the marches of the civil rights era, strife over racism convulsed the nation’s capital. But those riots in Washington, D.C., were led by proslavery mobs.</p>
<p>In the spring of 1848, conspirators orchestrated one of the largest escapes from slavery in U.S. history. In doing so, they sparked a crisis that entangled advocates for slavery’s abolition, white supremacists, the press and even the president.</p>
<p>Daniel Bell, a free Black man in Washington, wanted to liberate his enslaved wife, children and grandchildren. Citing a promise of freedom from their onetime owner, he tried but failed to do so through the courts. So he started planning <a href="https://doi.org/10.5149/9780807888926_pacheco">an escape</a>. A lawyer he consulted knew of others eager to flee lives of bondage. He and Bell decided to help them all.</p>
<p>They approached <a href="https://www.leonaur.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1051">Daniel Drayton</a>. A sea captain, he had carried small groups of fugitives to freedom. For $100, he agreed to hire a ship for this larger scheme. Drayton, in turn, paid $100 to fellow captain Edward Sayres to charter his schooner, the Pearl.</p>
<p>On the night of April 15, the <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/escape-on-the-pearl-mary-kay-ricks">Pearl</a> left Washington. Seventy-six Black men, women and children, having quietly left area farms, hid beneath the deck. Drayton and Sayres steered the ship down the Potomac River. They were bound for Philadelphia, where slavery was illegal.</p>
<p>The fugitives did not get far. Owners soon noticed their absence and formed a posse to find them. The posse, aboard a steamboat, overtook and commandeered the Pearl as it entered Chesapeake Bay on April 17. The next day, the fugitives and their white abettors were marched through Washington and thrown in the city jail.</p>
<h2>Riots in the capital</h2>
<p>Furious at the conspirators’ challenge to the social order, Washington’s white population wanted to punish someone. With Drayton and Sayres awaiting trial behind bars, white supremacists turned against the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/s0738248000000808">abolitionist press</a>.</p>
<p>Opponents of slavery published several newspapers promoting their cause. In Washington, Gamaliel Bailey Jr. had founded the National Era in 1847. Bailey and his paper <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/chapter.236383">opposed escape</a> attempts but supported ending the slave trade and eventually slavery itself. </p>
<p>The nights of April 18 and 19, thousands gathered outside the National Era’s offices. They gave speeches and spread a false rumor about journalists’ involvement in the Pearl escape. The protesters’ leaders reportedly included U.S. government clerks.</p>
<p>Soon the protesters turned violent. They threw rocks at the building the first night and intended to destroy it the second. Both nights, though, they dispersed when confronted by local police.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392397/original/file-20210329-19-su9qcm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Gamaliel Bailey, whose newspaper offices in Washington, D.C., were attacked by proslavery mobs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392397/original/file-20210329-19-su9qcm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392397/original/file-20210329-19-su9qcm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392397/original/file-20210329-19-su9qcm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392397/original/file-20210329-19-su9qcm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=747&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392397/original/file-20210329-19-su9qcm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392397/original/file-20210329-19-su9qcm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392397/original/file-20210329-19-su9qcm.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Abolitionist newspaper publisher Gamaliel Bailey Jr., whose presses were attacked by proslavery mobs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamaliel_Bailey#/media/File:Gamaliel_Bailey_by_Brady,_1857.jpg">Mathew Brady, photographer/The Massachusetts Historical Society/Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Presidential intervention</h2>
<p>The crisis had begun with slavery. Of the more than <a href="https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1850/1850c/1850c-04.pdf">3 million</a> Black Americans in 1848, nearly 90% were held in bondage. They lived and worked on Southern farms owned by the same white men who claimed them as property. Each year, thousands of <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/runaway-slaves-9780195084511">them fled</a> in search of freedom. </p>
<p>James K. Polk, the nation’s president, both defended slavery and enriched himself by it. He <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326031.001.0001">enslaved more than 50 people on his Mississippi cotton plantation</a>. While editing his letters, the <a href="https://utpress.org/title/correspondence-of-james-k-polk-vol-14/">final volume</a> of them just published, I often read his complaints about escapes from there. Like other slave owners, he relied <a href="https://polk.lib.utk.edu/exist/apps/polk-papers/polk.xml?id=ch174">on relatives</a> and paid agents to capture, return and <a href="https://polk.lib.utk.edu/exist/apps/polk-papers/polk.xml?id=ch065">physically punish</a> the fugitives. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392425/original/file-20210330-23-15a4d5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portrait of President James K. Polk in fancy dress." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392425/original/file-20210330-23-15a4d5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392425/original/file-20210330-23-15a4d5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392425/original/file-20210330-23-15a4d5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392425/original/file-20210330-23-15a4d5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392425/original/file-20210330-23-15a4d5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392425/original/file-20210330-23-15a4d5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392425/original/file-20210330-23-15a4d5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President James K. Polk, who helped calm the rioters.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b50626/">N. Currier, lithograph/Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After the Pearl escape, Polk shared the rioters’ belief in white supremacy and their indignation at resistance to enslavement. He also shared their hostility toward abolitionists and pro-reform newspapers, blaming those in <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89003449493">his diary</a> for the whole incident: “The outrage committed by stealing or seducing the slaves … had produced the excitement & the threatened violence on the abolition press.”</p>
<p>Yet, by April 20, the president was worried about the violence in Washington. Federal employees’ involvement especially troubled him. He <a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/mss36509.052_0010_0858/?sp=525">ordered them</a> to “abstain from participation in all scenes of riot or violence” and threatened those who disobeyed with prosecution.</p>
<p>Polk also <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/wu.89003449493">directed</a> the U.S. deputy marshal, Thomas Woodward, to cooperate with local law enforcement in suppressing the riots. As Polk told an adviser, <a href="https://polk.lib.utk.edu/exist/apps/polk-papers/polk.xml?id=ch243">he intended</a> to “exercise every constitutional power … with which the President was cloathe’d” to restore peace.</p>
<p>It worked. When the mob reassembled at the National Era the night of the 20th, it was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40067813">successfully countered</a> by city and federal officers. About 200 rioters moved on to Bailey’s home, threatening to tar and feather him. But he managed to talk them down, even earning applause for his speech from the formerly hostile crowd.</p>
<p>The violence was over.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392395/original/file-20210329-13-17ows8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A poster, issued after the Pearl's capture, warning citizens of Washington, D.C., not to riot." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392395/original/file-20210329-13-17ows8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392395/original/file-20210329-13-17ows8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392395/original/file-20210329-13-17ows8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392395/original/file-20210329-13-17ows8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392395/original/file-20210329-13-17ows8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392395/original/file-20210329-13-17ows8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/392395/original/file-20210329-13-17ows8m.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=610&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Following the Pearl’s capture, this poster was made by the government of Washington, D.C., warning white citizens, who feared a slave revolt, not to riot or commit acts of violence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Washington_DC_Poster_1848_re_Pearl.jpg">Library of Congress/Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Losers and winners</h2>
<p>Captains <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6563.1994.tb00929.x">Drayton and Sayres</a> suffered for their efforts. Convicted of illegally transporting slaves, they remained incarcerated until President Millard Fillmore pardoned them in 1852.</p>
<p>Even worse off were the people they had helped escape. Abolitionists bought a very few their liberty, but nearly all returned to slavery. Many were sold farther south, more distant than ever from their dream of freedom.</p>
<p>The National Era, aside from broken windows, emerged unscathed. City and federal authorities, by ending the riots, had protected the press’s freedom to print unpopular views. The rioters, too, came out just fine. Not one was charged with a crime.</p>
<p>Polk, perhaps, benefited the most. He avoided major bloodshed on his watch and earned <a href="https://polk.lib.utk.edu/exist/apps/polk-papers/polk.xml?id=ch243">praise</a> for cooperating with local police. </p>
<p>Yet he never questioned the rioters’ complaints or the racist society they defended.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156445/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The author and his current project, the Correspondence of Zachary Taylor and Millard Fillmore, receive funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the Summerlee Foundation, and the Watson-Brown Foundation. He previously received funding from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, Delaplaine Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Tennessee Historical Commission. He is a member of the Association for Documentary Editing, the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the Southern Historical Association.</span></em></p>Riots by proslavery forces raged for three days in the nation’s capital after the capture of a ship bearing fugitive enslaved people. The president, a slaveowner himself, tried to calm the city.Michael David Cohen, Research Professor of Government, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1519892020-12-18T02:09:11Z2020-12-18T02:09:11ZIndonesia’s Peatland Restoration Agency gets an extension despite failing to hit its target: what are the hurdles and next strategies?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374761/original/file-20201214-23-x39h19.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C11%2C4000%2C2634&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">BRG could focus on communities to support its peatland restoration efforts in the next term.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ANTARA FOTO/Rony Muharrman/aww.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite failing short of its target, Indonesia’s Peatland Restoration Agency is likely to continue its work to rehabilitate the country’s peatland as part of the government’s attempts to meet its emission commitments.</p>
<p><a href="https://foresthints.news/minister-indonesian-peat-restoration-agency-tenure-extended/">Indonesian Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya</a> announced the agency’s tenure, ending on December 31, would likely be extended for the next four years. That’s despite the agency achieving only 45% of the restoration target under the previous contract.</p>
<p>Restoring peatlands is important for Indonesia to avoid forest fires. Indonesian citizens, and those of neighbouring Southeast Asian countries, have long suffered recurring <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-indonesia-cant-stamp-out-fires-that-have-cast-a-haze-over-south-east-asia-50029">haze pollution</a> from peatland fires in Indonesia. </p>
<p>Emissions from these biomass wildfires have contributed substantially to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbd.int/doc/meetings/ecr/ecrws-2016-02/other/ecrws-2016-02-presentation-day1-03-en.pdf">Established in 2016</a>, the agency was <a href="https://setkab.go.id/en/president-jokowi-establishes-peat-land-restoration-agency-brg/">mandated</a> to rehabilitate 2.6 million hectares of drained and degraded peatlands in seven provinces by 2020. It has restored only 45% of the target so far.</p>
<p>Our research and interviews with stakeholders and policy analysis have identified various constraints hindering the agency’s restoration work since 2016. </p>
<p>We would recommend two priorities for action to ensure the agency’s success in its next restoration projects. </p>
<h2>Tensions and technical issues</h2>
<p>As a temporary agency with limited funding, legal and political power, the Peatland Restoration Agency has often <a href="https://www.id.undp.org/content/indonesia/en/home/presscenter/articles/2017/01/09/why-indonesia-has-to-save-the-peatland.html">struggled to implement its programs</a>.</p>
<p>One reason is that it has no legal authority to work in private plantations and forest areas. </p>
<p>This poses a substantial obstacle because 1.7 million hectares of the total of <a href="https://nasional.kompas.com/read/2020/02/14/20034611/26-juta-hektar-lahan-gambut-diprioritaskan-untuk-direstorasi-tahun-ini">2.6 million hectares of degraded peatland</a> is inside forest areas and palm oil concessions. These fall under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.</p>
<p>This fragmented and overlapping legal authority and responsibility for peatlands has resulted in <a href="https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/doi/full/10.1111/apv.12267">rivalries and tensions between the agency and the ministry</a>. </p>
<p>At times, the ministry <a href="https://www.pantaugambut.id/cerita/restorasi-gambut-di-areal-konsesi-di-jambi">has been hesitant to share</a> with the agency’s officials access and information on the progress of peatland restoration projects inside forestry concessions. </p>
<p><a href="http://agroindonesia.co.id/2017/02/brg-kami-terima-kritik">These strained relations</a> have slowed progress on peatland restoration and created confusion among landholders.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374753/original/file-20201214-15-1o8yyd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374753/original/file-20201214-15-1o8yyd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374753/original/file-20201214-15-1o8yyd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374753/original/file-20201214-15-1o8yyd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374753/original/file-20201214-15-1o8yyd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374753/original/file-20201214-15-1o8yyd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374753/original/file-20201214-15-1o8yyd1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Canal blocking in Tanjungjabung Timur of Jambi province to rewet the peats and reduce fire risks during the summer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ANTARA FOTO/Wahdi Septiawan/ama/17.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On technical issues, the agency also struggled at first to develop a comprehensive plan for peatland restoration due to lack of image data from the fields.</p>
<p>The Ministry of Environment and Forestry was tasked to produce the data in the form of maps. It issued these at relatively low resolution (a scale of 1:250.000), <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-research-needed-for-responsible-peatland-management-in-indonesia-90023">too low for operational use</a>.</p>
<p>Therefore, the agency has tried to produce <a href="https://brg.go.id/brg-akan-petakan-12-khg-lagi-dengan-metode-juara/">an extensive peatland inventory and map the parameters</a> of peatland hydrological units (PHUs) in seven provinces at a finer scale. These units are the administrative scale used to manage peatlands bounded by rivers and other ecologically important water bodies.</p>
<p>Despite these setbacks, the agency managed to implement its 3R approach – rewetting (reflooding dry peatland), revegetation (planting endemic and adaptive trees) and revitalisation (alternative community livelihoods) – to restore drained and degraded peatlands. </p>
<h2>Future priorities</h2>
<p>We identify two priority areas where the agency could build on its existing capacities for the next term:</p>
<p><strong>1) Community engagement</strong></p>
<p>The agency’s flagship <a href="https://en.prims.brg.go.id/preset/distribution-of-peat-care-village-dpg-in-peatland">Peat Care Village Program</a> has been gaining support from communities for peatland restoration. </p>
<p>The program treats <a href="https://ugm.ac.id/en/news/19591-peat-restoration-needs-to-consider-farmers-as-partners">farmers as partners</a> in various conservation and development activities within the PHUs. </p>
<p>Several farmer groups in Riau Province have successfully cultivated adaptive crops on peatlands and avoided slash-and-burn land-clearance methods after attending the <a href="https://nasional.tempo.co/read/1333397/cara-petani-riau-melakukan-revolusi-pertanian-gambut/full&view=ok">agency’s Peatland Field School</a>. </p>
<p>There are over 600 Peat Care Villages in seven provinces: Riau, Jambi, South Sumatra, West Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan and Papua. </p>
<p>This program inspired other initiatives, such as the <a href="https://www2.cifor.org/fire-and-peatland-restoration/cifor-desk-review-reveals-many-opportunities-to-develop-community-based-initiatives-for-fire-prevention-and-peatland-restoration/">Fire Care Community, Fire Care Village and the Integrated Forestry and Farming System</a>. </p>
<p>The first two are community-based forest fire prevention programs. The latter aims to integrate fire-prevention strategies with local farming systems. </p>
<p>These initiatives encourage gendered and intergenerational inclusion, while providing a basis for collective environmental activities and resource dispute resolution. </p>
<p>They also provide a basis for future <a href="https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/doi/full/10.1111/apv.12267">collaborations between large plantation owners and small farmers</a>. </p>
<p>Multi-stakeholder collaborations are important for sharing knowledge, technologies and dam infrastructures, all of which are crucial for protecting and developing peatlands sustainably.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374752/original/file-20201214-15-1aop44t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/374752/original/file-20201214-15-1aop44t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374752/original/file-20201214-15-1aop44t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374752/original/file-20201214-15-1aop44t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374752/original/file-20201214-15-1aop44t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374752/original/file-20201214-15-1aop44t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/374752/original/file-20201214-15-1aop44t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A local villager fishes in an ex-peat area in Jambi province.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ANTARA FOTO/Wahdi Septiawan/pd.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>2) Monitoring</strong> </p>
<p>The agency has developed a simple interface application called the Peatland Restoration Information and Monitoring System (<a href="https://brg.go.id/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/PRIMS-Brochure-v9-AR-PRINT.pdf">PRIMS</a>) to monitor its restoration progress in real time. </p>
<p>It helps to identify areas requiring improved interventions. It also provides insights into multi-stakeholder collaborations in specific programs such as reforestation and building dams to resaturate drained peatlands.</p>
<p>The PRIMS could democratise peatland restoration governance and build <a href="http://www.fao.org/redd/news/detail/en/c/1195808/">transparency</a> in the monitoring of restoration activities.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://riaupos.jawapos.com/riau/06/11/2019/212943/53-kategoriberita-siak.html">journalists could use PRIMS</a> as a verification tool when reporting peatland fire locations.</p>
<p>For <a href="https://kumparan.com/kumparansains/brg-kenalkan-prims-situs-untuk-pantau-lahan-gambut-yang-terbakar-1rwi42NCn4e/full.">civil society organisations</a>, PRIMS can also be a savvy device to monitor illegal opening of peatlands.</p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>The agency needs the support of all peatland stakeholders. </p>
<p>It has already gained support from peatland communities and small farmers over the past five years. In August 2020, <a href="https://www.change.org/p/presiden-joko-widodo-brg-penyelamat-gambut?recruiter=1117909891&recruited_by_id=15546870-b035-11ea-a42d-c3ea687eadc1.">almost 4,000 people signed a petition</a> asking President Joko Widodo to extend BRG’s tenure. </p>
<p>However, it has been <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/07/16/plan-to-dissolve-peatland-restoration-agency-raised-concerns.html">less successful in obtaining support</a> from key government agencies and state officials under pressure from vested interests in lucrative plantations like oil palm and acacia. The peatland protection agenda is seen as a <a href="https://gapki.id/news/3765/pp-gambut-pelaku-industri-kehutanan-dan-kelapa-sawit-tengah-sakit-kepala.">barrier to the development of monoculture plantation</a>. </p>
<p>This next term will be President Jokowi’s final opportunity to prove <a href="https://theconversation.com/three-things-jokowi-could-do-better-to-stop-forest-fires-and-haze-in-indonesia-120497">his commitment</a> to protect and rehabilitate Indonesia’s remaining peatlands while at the same time contributing to climate change mitigation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151989/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rini Astuti receives funding from Social Sciences Research Council Singapore. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Taylor receives funding from Social Sciences Research Council Singapore. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Ann Miller receives funding from Social Sciences Research Council Singapore. </span></em></p>Indonesia’s Peatland Restoration Agency is likely to have its tenure extended by four years. What has been achieved and what should the agency focus on for the next term?Rini Astuti, Research Fellow, National University of SingaporeDavid Taylor, Professor, National University of SingaporeMichelle Ann Miller, Senior Research Fellow at National University of Singapore, National University of SingaporeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1407252020-06-17T04:31:28Z2020-06-17T04:31:28ZFrom Louisiana to Queensland: how American slave owners started again in Australia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342028/original/file-20200616-23221-1iu6efl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C26%2C6000%2C4167&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lorne sugar plantation in Mackay, 1874</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library Queensland</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scott Morrison <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jun/04/morrison-says-australia-should-not-import-black-lives-matter-protests-after-deaths-in-custody-rally">says</a> “we shouldn’t be importing” the Black Lives Matter movement. But in the 1800s, Australia imported plantation owners from the American South.</p>
<p>Prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War, the American south produced <a href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-ushistory1os2xmaster/chapter/the-economics-of-cotton/">almost all</a> of the world’s cotton. As war threatened, plantation owners returned to England and English cotton mills <a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Lancashire-Cotton-Famine/">ground to a halt</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342031/original/file-20200616-23227-1tlojw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342031/original/file-20200616-23227-1tlojw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342031/original/file-20200616-23227-1tlojw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342031/original/file-20200616-23227-1tlojw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342031/original/file-20200616-23227-1tlojw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1230&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342031/original/file-20200616-23227-1tlojw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1230&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342031/original/file-20200616-23227-1tlojw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1230&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Emigration to Queensland, ‘the new cotton field of England’ was actively encouraged.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Trove</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A new source of cotton was required, and Queensland would be <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-115127897/view?partId=nla.obj-115129755">widely promoted</a> as a cotton growing colony and the “future cotton field of England”. The colony government invited mill and plantation owners and workers to re-migrate and re-establish their industry in Queensland. </p>
<p>Under 1861’s “Cotton Regulations”, individuals and companies could lease land and receive the freehold title within two years if one-tenth of the land was used for growing cotton.</p>
<p>As early as June of that year – barely two months after the civil war officially began – the <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:207601">Muir brothers</a>, Robert, Matthew and David, established the Queensland Manchester Cotton Company and initiated plans to send an agent to Queensland to begin the process of establishing plantations. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342027/original/file-20200616-23231-ad3mdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342027/original/file-20200616-23231-ad3mdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342027/original/file-20200616-23231-ad3mdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342027/original/file-20200616-23231-ad3mdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342027/original/file-20200616-23231-ad3mdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342027/original/file-20200616-23231-ad3mdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342027/original/file-20200616-23231-ad3mdu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Believed to be Robert Muir, photographed at Benowa Sugar Plantation at Pimpama, ca. 1875.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library Queensland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The brothers owned cotton plantations in Louisiana before returning to Manchester and then on to Queensland. The manager of the company, Thomas William Morton, also migrated from Louisiana to Queensland via England. His son <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/morton-alexander-7666">Alexander</a> went on to become the prominent curator of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. </p>
<p>After an agreement was made between the government and shipping companies in 1863, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/queensland-review/article/out-of-the-frying-pan-voyaging-to-queensland-in-1863-on-board-the-fiery-star/234A1E642BD81999ADD02C6203C512D6">thousands</a> of “cotton immigrants” travelled to Queensland, and profits of American slavery were reinvested in Queensland’s new tropical plantation economy. </p>
<h2>A colony for cotton</h2>
<p>Disruption of the American slave trade didn’t only lead to the search for new fertile soil. Plantation owners also wanted cheap labour for the burgeoning Australian cotton industry. </p>
<p>The free labour of enslaved African Americans had generated immense profits, and Australian plantation owners were unable to induce sufficient numbers of white men to labour in the tropics on low wages. </p>
<p>(Popular medical theories also posited the <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2470372">physical unsuitably</a> of white men for work in the tropics, conveniently maintaining racial hierarchy.)</p>
<p>Plantation owners turned to the Pacific Islands to ensure a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt6wr4dj">steady supply</a> of indentured labour.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/was-there-slavery-in-australia-yes-it-shouldnt-even-be-up-for-debate-140544">Was there slavery in Australia? Yes. It shouldn't even be up for debate</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Under the indenture system, workers were bound to an employer for a specified length of time. These contracts were governed by <a href="http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/doc/mmaq01_moore_mackay.pdf">Masters and Servants Acts</a> with conditions set steeply in favour of plantation owners. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341814/original/file-20200615-65908-y7hgam.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341814/original/file-20200615-65908-y7hgam.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341814/original/file-20200615-65908-y7hgam.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341814/original/file-20200615-65908-y7hgam.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341814/original/file-20200615-65908-y7hgam.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341814/original/file-20200615-65908-y7hgam.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341814/original/file-20200615-65908-y7hgam.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australian South Sea Islanders at Otmoor sugar plantation in Upper Coomera, Queensland, ca. 1889.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of Queensland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The work was physically demanding, and rates of death and injury were high. During a Pacific Islander’s first year of indenture, the death rate was <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00223348708572550">81 per 1,000</a> – especially startling given labourers were in their physical prime, usually between 16 and 35 years of age. </p>
<p>Most cotton plantations <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1257918">failed</a> by 1866 due to flooding and crop disease. Owners reinvested in sugar and the labour trade <a href="http://www.paclii.org/journals/fJSPL/vol04/7.shtml">grew</a> to meet demand. </p>
<p>Between 1863-1902, 62,000 Islanders migrated to Australia. </p>
<h2>An ongoing legacy</h2>
<p>The Queensland colonial government established a tropical plantation economy which benefited from capital, workers and working conditions imported from the American south to the sugar fields of Queensland.</p>
<p>Labourers’ obligations to their employers were <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00223347908572374">almost unlimited</a>, and their rights were limited to the payment of wages. </p>
<p>The legal conditions of indenture made a worker’s refusal to comply with duties demanded by his or her master a prosecutable offence, no matter how small (or unreasonable) the task. Planters could bring charges in local courts against workers for absconding, “malingering”, or “shirking” (deliberately working slowly) – actions sometimes employed by Islanders as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00223347908572374">forms of resistance</a>. </p>
<p>The Islander workers <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/155682">fought</a> for increased rights, resisting Australian colonial society at times, while at other times adapting to it. The workers would be granted increased protections from “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-17/blackbirding-australias-history-of-kidnapping-pacific-islanders/8860754">blackbirding</a>” (recruiting labour via kidnapping, coercion or exploitation) under the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00223347608572289">Polynesian Labourers Act 1968,</a> and later fought for their rights against deportation under the White Australia Policy. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341812/original/file-20200615-65916-oiil5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341812/original/file-20200615-65916-oiil5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341812/original/file-20200615-65916-oiil5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341812/original/file-20200615-65916-oiil5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341812/original/file-20200615-65916-oiil5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341812/original/file-20200615-65916-oiil5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/341812/original/file-20200615-65916-oiil5z.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">South Sea Islander woman planting sugar cane in a field, 1897.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">State Library of Queensland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the harsh conditions, many South Sea Islanders returned to Queensland on multiple contracts, entering a pattern of “<a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2728005">circular migration</a>” from the islands of the Pacific to Queensland and back again. Others <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00223348108572416">stayed on</a> after their contracts had expired, became knowledgeable about the labour market and the value of their skills, and engaged in short term contracts on their own terms. </p>
<p>Many Islanders laid down permanent roots in Queensland, marrying Aboriginal and white Queenslanders, starting families and establishing homes. </p>
<p>These people are the ancestors of the contemporary Australia South Sea Islander community, who went on to have <a href="http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0231b.htm">important roles</a> in Australian society and <a href="https://eprints.qut.edu.au/851/">advocate</a> for recognition of their communities. </p>
<p>Australia doesn’t need to “import” protests against racism now: this importation happened centuries ago.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140725/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paige Gleeson receives a Graduate Research Scholarship funded by the Australia Research Council and University of Tasmania. </span></em></p>As the American Civil War interrupted cotton production, plantation owners looked to the new colony of Queensland.Paige Gleeson, PhD Candidate, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1370102020-05-12T09:21:02Z2020-05-12T09:21:02ZHow England became the ‘sweetshop of Europe’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334038/original/file-20200511-49546-12uf8su.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C18%2C1526%2C1499&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">By the 17th century, wealthy Britons were already experiencing the delights of expensive sugar confections.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In September 1591, Queen Elizabeth I stopped during her annual progress around her kingdom at the home of the Earl of Hertford, Elvetham Hall near Basingstoke in south-east England. The second night’s entertainment was reported to be <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bgdFAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=Lions,+Unicorns,+Beares,+Horses,+Camels,+Buls,+Rams,+Dogs,+Tygers,+Elephants,+Antelopes,+Dromedaries,+Apes,+and+all+other+beasts&source=bl&ots=77AY0bdb35&sig=ACfU3U3vmc4hCVspymF47Q5HVOi_vdrBRQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiu-Kns46vpAhUMTcAKHV6aANEQ6AEwCnoECCMQAQ#v=onepage&q=Lions%2C%20Unicorns%2C%20Beares%2C%20Horses%2C%20Camels%2C%20Buls%2C%20Rams%2C%20Dogs%2C%20Tygers%2C%20Elephants%2C%20Antelopes%2C%20Dromedaries%2C%20Apes%2C%20and%20all%20other%20beasts&f=false">quite the culinary spectacle</a>: a banquet, served in the garden, with more than 1,000 dishes to weigh down the table. </p>
<p>The most impressive and curious of them all were statues made from sugar. Guests marvelled at a virtual menagerie: “Lions, Vnicorns, Beares, Horses, Camels, Buls, Rams, Dogges, Tygers, Elephants, Antelops, Dromedaries, Apes, and all other beasts” had been rendered in the powdery sweet stuff. Of the multitude dishes at the table, it was the ones made from sugar that were most worthy of note. </p>
<p>By 1800, rather than only gracing the tables of monarchs and aristocrats, sugar was on almost every table in England and would have been stirred into pretty much every servant’s cup of tea. Social historian, John Burnett – whose work focused on the working classes – put annual consumption in 1801 at <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8ENLmMZS8W8C&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15&dq=John+Burnett+annual+sugar+consumption+in+1801+at+30.6lb+per+person.&source=bl&ots=iOH7pV5JLA&sig=ACfU3U3o5ZUcr6THoD-w4pHuXU3PhVaRVw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiLjveT_avpAhVUilwKHQeBCc4Q6AEwAHoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q=John%20Burnett%20annual%20sugar%20consumption%20in%201801%20at%2030.6lb%20per%20person.&f=false">30.6lb (13.87kg) per person</a>. </p>
<p>Understanding sugar’s rise to ubiquity helps to tell the story of some of the most important phenomena in economic history. The history of sugar is also the history of capitalism, of exploitation, of globalisation and of industrialisation.</p>
<h2>Moorish – and moreish</h2>
<p>Sugar first came to England in the 11th century, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4377370?seq=1">brought back by soldiers returning from the Crusades</a> in what is now the Middle East. Over the next 500 years it remained a rarefied luxury, until Portuguese colonists began producing it at a more industrial level in Brazil during the 1500s. Financed by Dutch merchants, they began to traffic enslaved Africans to farm the sugar. The planters were able to ship <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298209262_The_Sugar_Trade_Brazil_Portugal_and_the_Netherlands_1595-1630_by_Daniel_Strum">commercial quantities to Europe</a>.</p>
<p>In the mid-17th century, British colonists adopted the same business model, using slaves to plant cash crops in Barbados, Jamaica and other smaller islands. And it is from this point that the British relationship with sweetness really accelerates.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334055/original/file-20200511-49558-13wed1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334055/original/file-20200511-49558-13wed1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334055/original/file-20200511-49558-13wed1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334055/original/file-20200511-49558-13wed1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334055/original/file-20200511-49558-13wed1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334055/original/file-20200511-49558-13wed1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334055/original/file-20200511-49558-13wed1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stamp printed by British Guyana showing sugar cane being transported in punts, circa 1938.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sergey Goryachev via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just as the industry was <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03612759.1974.9946685">evolving in the Caribbean</a>, so too was the trade back to Europe. Sugar spread throughout the British Isles. The Atlantic trading nexus, known as the “triangular trade”, between Europe, Africa and the Caribbean, wove a sticky web which traversed oceans and continents, reaching even the rural north-east of England, where, for example, sugar was available from a <a href="https://archive.org/details/autobiographywi00stougoog/page/n7/mode/2up">local grocer in Lancaster</a>. </p>
<p>Sugar came in a number of varieties at a number of different price points and wasn’t confined to the tables of the elite. Triple-refined white sugar remained the most expensive, but a poorer consumer could also buy ordinary brown sugar or dark viscous molasses, known as treacle. Recipe books from the period are filled with ideas for how to use the ingredient, from sprinkling on salad to a fine plum cake. Sugar was particularly useful as it kept fresh goods for longer, turning low-calorie perishable fruit into high-calorie preserves and jams.</p>
<h2>Economic fuel</h2>
<p>Understanding the timeline of our sweet tooth also tells us more about the development of the global economy – and Britain’s role within it. One of the most important facilitators for the increase in home consumption was the rise of the domestic sugar refinery. Where once sugar was processed in the Caribbean and shipped back to Europe, sugar merchants began to import back semi-processed sugar and finish the refining process at home. </p>
<p>By 1700, refineries, or “<a href="https://genfair.co.uk/product/sugarbakers-from-sweat-to-sweetness-26465/">sugar bakers</a>” as they were known, had <a href="https://liverpoolhistorysociety.org.uk/sugar-for-the-house-mona-duggan/">popped up across the length and breadth of the country</a>, from Plymouth to Glasgow, and from Liverpool to Ipswich. Sugar baking was one of the first industrial activities to appear in England. It was comparable to the factories of the industrial revolution, mostly because it used vast amounts of coal to heat the copper pans which boiled the sugar.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334129/original/file-20200511-49569-tvr96a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334129/original/file-20200511-49569-tvr96a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334129/original/file-20200511-49569-tvr96a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334129/original/file-20200511-49569-tvr96a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334129/original/file-20200511-49569-tvr96a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334129/original/file-20200511-49569-tvr96a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334129/original/file-20200511-49569-tvr96a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Albert Dock in Liverpool, where a great deal of imported sugar was landed in England.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ronald Saunders via Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The finished product was then shipped around the country, helping to forge transport networks, both internationally and domestically. It feels important to mention, writing this article in lockdown, that the Great Plague of 1665 did a lot to support the expansion of the industry around the country. Refiners left London to set up shop elsewhere and West Indian ships carrying sugar had to dock in other ports to avoid catching the disease. Both phenomena expedited sugar’s geographic expansion. </p>
<p>The English crown supported this burgeoning industrial activity. Protectionist taxation policies effectively subsidised imports of semi-processed sugar, which encouraged the domestic industry. Refining was so successful that British merchants began to export their surplus out to countries in Europe, as well as re-exporting large amounts of brown sugar around the world. This helped to solidify the nation’s balance of trade. Where once the Dutch and Portuguese had dominated the European market, England was fast becoming the sweetshop of Europe. </p>
<p>The multi-faceted story of sugar’s ascent and the growth of the nation’s sweet tooth tells us more about early industrial and capitalist activity in England. While eventually the French overtook Britain as chief European suppliers of sugar in the 18th century, the early sugar trade provided British merchants with a model which was then adopted and adapted for later goods including cotton, and which catalysed the industrial revolution in the following centuries. </p>
<p>Above all the story of sugar is a reminder of the reliance of Britain’s metropolitan economy on the colonies. Integral to – and inextricable from – this story of economic growth is the backbreaking toil of enslaved Africans who produced the cane and enabled our taste for sweetness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137010/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mimi Goodall receives funding from the AHRC. </span></em></p>The story of the growth of Britain’s sugar trade can tell us a lot about the development of capitalism and the slave trade.Mimi Goodall, PhD candidate in history, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1285032019-12-19T13:52:28Z2019-12-19T13:52:28ZConfederate Christmas ornaments are smaller than statues – but they send the same racist message<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307509/original/file-20191217-58302-hef1w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C0%2C3435%2C2297&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Decorated with ornaments purchased, created and inherited for years, even generations, Christmas trees are a reflection of a family's history and tastes.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/7j8ZcZ">John Morgan/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Christmas approaches, many families undertake a familiar ritual: an annual sojourn to the attic, basement or closet to pull out a box of treasured ornaments bought, created and collected over years, even generations. </p>
<p>Hanging these ornaments on the tree is an opportunity to reconnect with memories of personal milestones, holiday icons and, in many cases, destinations visited. </p>
<p>But, I argue, it may be time to take some of these old travel keepsakes off the tree. </p>
<p>In researching my 2019 book, “<a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2869-8.html">Confederate Exceptionalism</a>,” I studied sites throughout the American South whose <a href="https://theconversation.com/slave-lifes-harsh-realities-are-erased-in-christmas-tours-of-southern-plantations-125042">histories are tied to enslaved labor</a>. Seemingly charming souvenirs are sold to commemorate many of these places – from the White House of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia, to Stone Mountain, a Georgia cliffside carved with images of Confederate generals.</p>
<p>Christmas ornaments are among them. And while these keepsakes may seem apolitical, their very circulation enables Confederate myths and symbols to become “normal” features of people’s daily lives. My research suggests they can thus desensitize Americans to the destructive nature of such stories and icons. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307512/original/file-20191217-58339-1phcofe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The front and back of a Christmas ornament commemorating Georgia’s Stone Mountain, the ‘Mt. Rushmore of the Confederacy,’ screengrab Dec. 17, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.zazzle.com/stone_mountain_atlanta_georgia_ornaments-175760156339078337?rf=238840279726397180&tc=EAIaIQobChMIhvGY5pe95gIVWNyGCh1JOwU7EAQYASABEgJ3RfD_BwE&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=us_shopping&utm_term=z175760156339078337&ca_chid=2001810&ca_source=gaw&ca_ace=&ca_nw=g&ca_dev=c&ca_pl=&ca_pos=1o1&ca_cid=381150128120&ca_agid=77529482133&ca_caid=6483100273&ca_adid=381150128120&ca_kwt=&ca_mt=&ca_fid=&ca_tid=pla-542343087558&ca_lp=9004354&ca_li=1015519&ca_devm=&ca_plt=&gclsrc=aw.ds&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhvGY5pe95gIVWNyGCh1JOwU7EAQYASABEgJ3RfD_BwE">www.zazzle.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Contesting Confederate symbols</h2>
<p>In recent years the U.S. has seen heated conversations about public symbols that commemorate the Confederacy, centered on the Confederate battle flag and statues of Confederate generals. </p>
<p>After a white shooter’s <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/charleston-church-massacre-2015/">deadly 2015 massacre of nine black congregants at Emanuel AME Church</a> in Charleston, South Carolina, activist Bree Newsome scaled the flagpole outside the state capitol to <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/6/27/15880052/bree-newsome-south-carolinas-confederate-flag">remove the Confederate flag flying there</a>. </p>
<p>After Newsome’s act of civil resistance, then-President Barack Obama referred to the Confederate battle flag as “<a href="https://gawker.com/obama-on-confederate-flag-a-reminder-of-systemic-oppr-1714239113">a reminder of systemic oppression and racial subjugation</a>.” But some <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/04/why-conservatives-love-defending-the-confederate-flag.html">in the U.S.</a> and <a href="http://theconversation.com/brazils-long-strange-love-affair-with-the-confederacy-ignites-racial-tension-115548">even abroad</a> still see the flag as a symbol of “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/19/does-the-confederate-flag-breed-racism/the-confederate-flag-is-a-matter-of-pride-and-heritage-not-hatred">heritage not hate</a>.”</p>
<p>Statues of Confederate generals that dot courthouse lawns and public plazas across the United States have prompted similar controversy. In 2017 plans to remove a Robert E. Lee statue triggered violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a white supremacist at the <a href="https://time.com/charlottesville-white-nationalist-rally-clashes/">“Unite the Right” rally</a> killed activist counter-protester Heather Heyer.</p>
<p>That tragedy spurred more cities, towns and colleges to <a href="https://theconversation.com/tearing-down-confederate-statues-leaves-structural-racism-intact-101951">remove or relocate Confederate statues</a> seen as offensive. Nationwide debates followed on how best to grapple appropriately with this <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-confederate-statue-graveyard-could-help-bury-the-old-south-118034">chapter of American history</a>. </p>
<h2>Consuming the Confederacy</h2>
<p>Beyond the scope of these national discussions, my <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2869-8.html">research on Confederate myths and memory</a> finds, many unexamined Confederate symbols have made their way into people’s kitchens, bedrooms and living rooms. </p>
<p>Take “Confederate cookbooks” that help modern-day chefs recreate the recipes of the Old South and stuffed animals based on Little Sorrel, the <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-skin-of-little-sorrel-lexington-virginia">taxidermied war horse of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson</a>, for example.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307760/original/file-20191218-11951-o3hc0d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Little Sorrell was the favored war horse of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/oeZBsc">Internet Archive Book Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>People probably don’t reflect on the horrors of slavery when baking an apple pie or purchasing a cuddly toy for their child. They aren’t meant to. But they are <a href="https://ugapress.org/book/9780820331690/dixie-emporium/">participating in that history and its mythologies</a> nonetheless.</p>
<p>In that way, seemingly apolitical objects like cookbooks, toys and Christmas ornaments commemorating Confederate history serve to normalize – rather than problematize – the objects, rituals and stories surrounding the Confederacy.</p>
<h2>More than a souvenir</h2>
<p>As a result, tree ornaments depicting the White House of the Confederacy, a <a href="https://www.stratfordhall.org/">home of Gen. Robert E. Lee</a> or the carvings of Stone Mountain are not simply mementos of a leisurely visit. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307515/original/file-20191217-58321-191iz7t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A decorative ornament on sale at the White House of the Confederacy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://acwm.org/product/white-house-ornament">American Civil War Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These places and people are also icons of the “<a href="https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/lost_cause_the">Lost Cause</a>,” an ideology that romanticizes the Confederacy by portraying the American Civil War as a battle of “states’ rights” rather than a fight to preserve slavery. </p>
<p>The Lost Cause is <a href="https://www.jacksonville.com/news/national/2017-08-22/how-civil-war-taught-school-depends-where-you-live">still taught in some Southern schools</a>, demonstrating that the vestiges of the Confederacy are powerful and lasting. Like Confederate statues and flags, Confederate Christmas ornaments strengthen this myth that the Confederacy – an entity built on white supremacy – was about southern “heritage.”</p>
<p>What appears to be a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0160738390900856">nostalgic trip reminder</a>, then, is in fact deeply implicated in a complex matrix of memory, history and racism in the United States. It’s just packaged in a seemingly benign way.</p>
<p>Christmas ornaments communicate something about <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10510970109388553?needAccess=true">the person or family that displays them</a>. They reveal their history, passions and aesthetic taste. </p>
<p>So pause to consider whether your Christmas tree represents your values. Does a keepsake from Stone Mountain really belong between an ornament crafted in a kindergarten classroom and a glass nutcracker gifted by your grandmother? </p>
<p>[ <em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128503/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Maurantonio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Take a good look at those old Christmas ornaments before hanging them on the tree – you may find it’s time to retire some family keepsakes.Nicole Maurantonio, Associate Professor of Rhetoric & Communication Studies and American Studies, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1277972019-12-13T13:44:08Z2019-12-13T13:44:08ZMemo from a historian: White ladies cooking in plantation museums are a denial of history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306166/original/file-20191210-95135-vy6nhq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jermone Bias and Cheyney McKnight portraying enslaved cooks at Belle Grove Plantation in Middletown, Virginia, a National Park Service property.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nps.gov/cebe/planyourvisit/shenandoah-valley-enslavement-programs.htm">National Park Service</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fall is almost gone and winter is coming, as are hundreds of hearth cooking demonstrations at countless historic homes and plantations throughout the nation.</p>
<p>Like an automated clock, historic kitchens become the center stage for historical storytelling at this time of year.</p>
<p>In New England, these stories sit firmly in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/us/thanksgiving-myths-fact-check.html">mythos of Thanksgiving</a>, focusing on <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/11/151121-first-thanksgiving-pilgrims-native-americans-wampanoag-saints-and-strangers/">sterilized versions of the 1621 feast</a> between Pilgrims and Wampanoag. In the mid-Atlantic, these stories blend their Amish, German and Dutch roots to talk about <a href="https://lancasteronline.com/features/entertainment/landis-valley-offers-annual-open-hearth-cooking-classes/article_0080605f-0240-5f2e-a56c-de552ab87f06.html">Colonial fare</a> in early America. </p>
<p>But while these two regions must always deal with issues of accuracy, the South’s historic sites have remained locked in a myth of their own. </p>
<h2>Misrepresenting reality</h2>
<p>I spent a decade <a href="http://boundtothefire.com/">researching and writing about enslaved plantation cooks</a> and lecture on the topic at historic sites. Typically, my lectures include a cooking demonstration organized by my hosts. </p>
<p>This kind of programming provides a dynamic glimpse into this particular history, and allows the guests to witness hearth cooking, smell the food, feel the heat of the fire and engage in conversations with a living history interpreter. As a scholar committed to public education about this subject, I believe such demonstrations can be evocative and inspire a contemplative visitor experience. </p>
<p>But out of the dozens of programs I have participated in, with costumed historical interpreters, only three have staffed the kitchen with someone depicting an African American cook. The rest of the cooks have all been white. </p>
<p>These historic kitchens have power as a stage for historical interpretation and learning, and it is lost when those telling the first-person stories are not representative of those who once cooked there. </p>
<h2>False images</h2>
<p>Imagine showing up to <a href="https://www.plimoth.org/">Plimoth Plantation</a>, a 17th-century living history museum in Massachusetts focusing on the region’s native “<a href="https://www.plimoth.org/about-us">Wampanoag People and the Colonial English community in the 1600s</a>,” only to find first-person interpreters portraying the 19th-century <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/westward-expansion/lewis-and-clark">Lewis and Clark expedition</a>. Or imagine visiting the <a href="https://www.historyisfun.org/">Jamestown Settlement</a> and seeing women portraying the original <a href="https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/a-short-history-of-jamestown.htm">1607 colonists</a>, all of whom were men or boys. </p>
<p>Yet at historic sites across the South, you’ll often find a white woman, dressed in Colonial clothes, cooking in a big house kitchen. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://virginia.academia.edu/KelleyFantoDeetz">scholar of southern plantation history</a> and the director of educational programming at <a href="https://www.stratfordhall.org/">Stratford Hall</a>, the historic plantation home of the Lee family of Virginia, I know that this image is a false one. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306163/original/file-20191210-95130-1cemaiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306163/original/file-20191210-95130-1cemaiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306163/original/file-20191210-95130-1cemaiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306163/original/file-20191210-95130-1cemaiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306163/original/file-20191210-95130-1cemaiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=828&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306163/original/file-20191210-95130-1cemaiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306163/original/file-20191210-95130-1cemaiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306163/original/file-20191210-95130-1cemaiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1041&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An enslaved cook in Amherst County, central Virginia, in an etching by David Hunter Strother.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.slaveryimages.org/s/slaveryimages/item/520">Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 12 (Jan. 1856), via Slavery Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Southern plantations relied on the forced labor of enslaved African and African American cooks, who worked around the clock for the pleasure of the plantation elite. Plantation kitchens were not romantic spaces where the white mistress of the house would bake pies and sip tea while reading <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Virginia-Housewife-Dodo-Press/dp/1406542369">The Virginia Housewife</a>.</p>
<p>By the late 17th century, southern plantations <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1narr3.html">moved away from their reliance on white indentured servants</a>, whose terms lasted up to seven years, and replaced them with enslaved Africans, who were held for life. By the early 18th century, the production of plantation fare was mostly in the hands of enslaved Africans and African Americans.</p>
<p>As revealed in diaries, journals, slave narratives and cultural landscape studies, these kitchens were <a href="http://boundtothefire.com/">landscapes of power, control, pain, sorrow, fear – and only rarely joy</a>. These spaces hold the stories of the thousands of enslaved cooks who were bound to the fire, cooking what became southern cuisine. </p>
<h2>Reflecting actual history</h2>
<p>The vast majority of Americans get their history not from books, but from media and tourism. The sharp <a href="https://www.nas.org/blogs/dicta/knowledge_of_american_history_rapidly_becoming_history">decline</a> in Americans’ historical knowledge has been building for years and has frightened many historians, perhaps for the reason that the 19th-century philosopher George Santayana gave, that <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/santayan/">“those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”</a> We are living in history’s legacy. History informs the present. </p>
<p>Historic sites have a significant responsibility to uphold integrity and honesty and adhere to a <a href="https://ncph.org/about/governance-committees/code-of-ethics-and-professional-conduct/">code of ethics</a>. The National Council on Public History’s code of ethics includes these directives: “Public historians should carry out historical research and present historical evidence with integrity. Public historians should strive to be culturally inclusive in the practice of history and in the presentation of history…research-based decisions and actions may have long-term consequences.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306398/original/file-20191211-95138-o5xaro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306398/original/file-20191211-95138-o5xaro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306398/original/file-20191211-95138-o5xaro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306398/original/file-20191211-95138-o5xaro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306398/original/file-20191211-95138-o5xaro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=356&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306398/original/file-20191211-95138-o5xaro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306398/original/file-20191211-95138-o5xaro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306398/original/file-20191211-95138-o5xaro.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two women giving a cooking demonstration in 2016 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana’s Magnolia Mound Plantation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/communities/mid_city/article_652e9646-c000-11e6-a036-4f5d19c65886.html">Screenshot, The Advocate</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thousands of <a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813174730/bound-to-the-fire/">enslaved cooks</a> were worked to death. They spent their lives cooking for the big house and rarely receiving credit, while the white mistress of the house claimed their fame. </p>
<p>This legacy resonates in plantation museums, when foodways presentations are given in the kitchen or dining room. But elite white plantation mistresses did not cook in these early American kitchens, nor did they create the food that gave way to southern hospitality and American cuisine. </p>
<p>Recipes like gumbo, shrimp and grits, jambalaya, hoppin’ John, okra stew and fried fish were favorites among the slave-holding elite. <a href="https://afroculinaria.com/">These dishes</a>, African in origin, became American cuisine because of the forced labor of enslaved Africans and African Americans. These were their recipes. </p>
<p>Museums are tasked to represent history in the most honest way possible, through lectures, programming, historical interpretation, reenactments and exhibits. But when it comes to slavery, this line is often blurred. Some museums are in the business of historical fantasy, and <a href="http://www.interpretingslavelife.com/">Nicole A. Moore, an African American interpreter and hearth cook</a>, stated in a personal interview that it is time for museums to be responsible.</p>
<p>“That lack of recognition is all too common and whether sites want to acknowledge it or not… they won’t make you uncomfortable by sharing the truth, so please bring your fantasies and ideas about this time period, and they’ll keep the dream alive.”</p>
<p>This dream is that slavery wasn’t that bad, that the <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-myth-of-the-happy-slave-explained">enslaved community was happy</a> cooking for the big house, and was at most an assistant. This fantasy gives full culinary authorship to the white plantation mistresses. </p>
<h2>Correcting the stories</h2>
<p>Many visitors want confirmation of their limited historical perspectives, often gained from grade-school <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/02/what-kids-are-really-learning-about-slavery/552098/">textbooks</a>, most of which distort the reality of history. Most visit historical sites to connect with the past and to find a sense of pride in our collective history. </p>
<p>But the reality of the past can interrupt premeditated concepts of history. Some museums, for example, are making a conscious effort to properly represent these historic kitchens and those who cooked in them. Among them is Thomas Jefferson’s <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/james-hemings">Monticello</a>, which has led this cause, for decades, by using the stories of enslaved chef <a href="https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/james-hemings">James Hemings and others, through interactive African American-led programming </a>. </p>
<p>In November 2019, <a href="http://www.pointofhonor.org/">Point of Honor Plantation</a> in Lynchburg, Virginia, held its first <a href="https://www.newsadvance.com/news/local/point-of-honor-brings-enslaved-perspective-to-house-tour-in/article_7ec5c0c5-9b52-5955-89e5-e17934492143.html">African American history-focused program</a>, and hired historical interpreters Gloria Simon and Dontavius Williams as the evening’s storytellers. </p>
<p>Williams was the first African American interpreter to cook in the plantation museum’s kitchen, marking a historic moment for the site and its public narrative. </p>
<p>Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee and the site where I work, has also hired Williams for its <a href="https://www.stratfordhall.org/events/christmastide-2/">Christmastide</a> program in December, where he will cook an 18th-century meal in the historic 1738 kitchen and teach visitors about plantation kitchen labor, enslavement and the birth of American cuisine. </p>
<p>These sorts of programs attempt to correct the stories told at these sites, to better represent history and place. </p>
<p>Plantation museums are having an <a href="https://nonprofitquarterly.org/plantations-only-now-begin-to-exit-role-as-museums-of-whitewashed-nonsense/">identity crisis</a>. Some visitors are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/08/08/some-white-people-dont-want-hear-about-slavery-plantations-built-by-slaves/">complaining</a> about having to learn about slavery. Simultaneously, historic plantations are losing support from <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/plantation-homes-have-a-dark-past-but-that-doesnt-make-them-bad-wedding-venues">wedding venue sponsors</a> who criticize the promotion of these sites as romantic and ahistorical. </p>
<p>The latest critiques highlight divisions in public opinion about the functions of such sites. The questions remain, what role do these museums have in telling our nation’s history, and at what point does representation matter?</p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127797/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kelley Fanto Deetz works for Stratford Hall, which is mentioned in this article as changing their representation of historic cooks. </span></em></p>At historic sites across the South, you’ll often find a white woman, dressed in Colonial clothes, cooking in a big house kitchen. That’s a role that was usually done by enslaved Africans.Kelley Fanto Deetz, Lecturer in American Studies, Randolph CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/921842018-03-11T09:02:16Z2018-03-11T09:02:16ZSex: birds do it, bees do it - and fungi do it too. Here’s how, and why it matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/209695/original/file-20180309-30958-1w7hmly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The sweet-smelling, fluffy white fungus, _Huntiella moniliformis_, engaging in sexual reproduction in the lab.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sex is an essential part of life. You, me and almost every other living organism on this planet are only here because two individuals got together at some point in the past to have their genes represented in the next generation. </p>
<p>For many species on earth – especially humans – that’s a pretty inflexible process. There are strict requirements: for instance, having two partners of the opposite sex tends to be indispensable for the production of offspring. </p>
<p>But there are a number of exceptions to this rigidity. Some of the most beautiful and interesting are exemplified by certain species of fungi.</p>
<p>Fungi play a variety of roles in our lives. Some are food sources, like button mushrooms; some are used in the production of cheese, wine, beer and bread. Others have provided humans with antibiotics for almost a century. And still others can cause great harm, wiping out trees by the hectare – or even killing humans.</p>
<p>And of course, like most species, fungi have sex lives. I study the sexual behaviour of <em>Huntiella moniliformis</em>, a sweet-smelling and fluffy white fungus that’s found in plantations all over the world. It’s fairly unique in that it’s unisexual – able to reproduce completely alone. </p>
<p>This makes it potentially very dangerous: even if it’s the only fungus in, say, an entire forest, it can keep mating and reproducing. It gets all the evolutionary benefits of sex, without having to go through all the trouble of finding a mating partner. </p>
<p>If we understand its sex life, we can come up with ways to control, manage or even stop it. That’s important in the case of species like <em>Huntiella moniliformis</em>, because they can infect damaged trees and cause disease. </p>
<h2>Fungal mating strategies</h2>
<p>In humans and most other mammals there is only one way to produce sexual offspring: sexual intercourse between a male and a female. Reptiles and birds often also reproduce heterosexually. </p>
<p>Fungi, meanwhile, can utilise one or more of six different sexual strategies. These range from the fungal equivalent of heterosexuality to changing their mating type as necessary.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-185X.1949.tb00582.x/pdf">Heterothallism</a></strong>: is like heterosexuality in humans and requires two partners. In humans, having two X chromosomes makes you female; having an X and a Y chromosome makes you male. Some fungi use a similar system but instead of a whole chromosome they use single genes. A fungus with the <em>MAT1</em> gene is of the MAT1 mating type; having the <em>MAT2</em> gene means its mating type is MAT2. </p>
<p>For sex to take place, MAT1 and MAT2 partners need to get together. This means that out of everyone you meet, only half are sexually compatible with you. This severely limits the number of successful partners a fungus can meet in its search for a mate.</p>
<p>So how do they find each other? Smell. Or, at least, something similar: pheromones. These are small molecules that let a MAT1 individual know that a MAT2 individual is close, and vice versa. This ensures that no one wastes time and energy slowly growing towards an incompatible partner. </p>
<p><strong>Primary homothallism:</strong> is when a single fungus has sex completely alone. Instead of having either the <em>MAT1</em> or the <em>MAT2</em> gene, they have both. In this way a single individual can make both pheromones and recognise itself as a partner. There are other forms of self-sex too. Two of these include the ability to change mating type. These systems mimic those of some fish that can switch between male and female, depending on what partners are available. The third relies on having two genomes and is functionally very similar to heterothallism. </p>
<p>The fourth lonely sexual strategy completely changed the way we think about sex in fungi. <strong>Unisexuality</strong> occurs in individuals we would classically have thought to be either MAT1 or MAT2. We would have expected them to need a partner, but they don’t.</p>
<p>My PhD research at the <a href="https://www.fabinet.up.ac.za/">Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute</a> in South Africa has revealed that unisexual reproduction is possible in <em>H. moniliformis</em>. My supervisors and I have recently <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0192517">shown</a> that MAT2 individuals are able to secrete both pheromones, despite the absence of the <em>MAT1</em> gene. </p>
<p>This means that a single mating type can recognise itself as a compatible partner and respond appropriately. We are currently working on understanding how this system evolved and whether related species could be manipulated to employ the same strategy.</p>
<h2>Why does this matter?</h2>
<p>There are obvious evolutionary benefits to species having sex. The most obvious is because it ensures a species’ longevity. But there are downsides – not for <em>H. moniliformis</em>, in this case, but for forestry plantations. </p>
<p>Sex combines genes from different individuals and produces genetically unique offspring. In disease causing fungi this has been shown to enable host jumping – the movement from a susceptible host species such as a Pine tree in a plantation, to a previously resistant species, like an indigenous tree in a natural forest. </p>
<p>This means that hosts previously thought to be immune to infection could get infected in the future, and can cause serious disease outbreaks that are difficult to control. </p>
<p>The other downside to sex in fungi like <em>H. moniliformis</em> is that it produces easily dispersible spores. These are often the agent that enhances fungal spread and infection. </p>
<p>Understanding these processes, and the sex lives of fungi like <em>H. moniliformis</em>, can help us find answers to how to control the spread of diseases. This will ultimately mean keeping plantations – and humans – safer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92184/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andi Wilson receives funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF). </span></em></p>Understanding the sex lives of fungi can help in finding answers about disease control.Andi Wilson, PhD: Genetics Candidate, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/816002017-08-15T01:21:35Z2017-08-15T01:21:35ZThe hidden stories of medical experimentation on Caribbean slave plantations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181467/original/file-20170808-16049-lyqrtj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'The Plantation,' oil on wood, ca. 1825.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/12968">The Metropolitan Museum of Art</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the natural course of events, humans fall sick and die. Patients hope for miraculous remedies to restore their health.</p>
<p>We all want our medicines to work for us in wondrous ways. But how are human subjects chosen for experiments? Who bears the burden of risk? What ethical brakes keep scientific enthusiasm from overwhelming vulnerable populations? Who goes first?</p>
<p>Today, the question of underrepresented minorities in medical experimentation is still volatile. Minorities, especially African-Americans in the U.S., tend to be simultaneously underrepresented in medical research and historically <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-textbook-of-clinical-research-ethics-9780195168655">exploited in experimentation</a>. </p>
<p>My new book, <a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=27600">“Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic</a>,” zeroes in on human experimentation on Caribbean slave plantations in the late 1700s. Were slaves on New World sugar plantations used as human guinea pigs in the same way African-Americans were in the American South centuries later? </p>
<h1>Exploitative experiments with slaves</h1>
<p>History is littered with exploitative experiments in humans. <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/tuskegee/timeline.htm">The Tuskegee syphilis experiment</a> is probably one of the most infamous. From 1932 to 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service offered 600 African-American men food, free medical care and burial insurance for participating in the study. About 400 of these poor Alabamans had syphilis. The government studied the natural progression of the disease until death, even though penicillin was an easy, cheap and safe cure.</p>
<p>This type of medical testing – empirical study through controlled trials – began in earnest in the late 1700s. Many poor souls were subjected to medical testing. In Europe and its American colonies, drug trials tended to overselect subjects from the poor and wards of the state, such as prisoners, hospital patients and orphans. Most <a href="http://www.brill.com/products/book/new-medical-challenges-during-scottish-enlightenment">experimental subjects</a> came from the same groups used for dissection – that is, persons with no next of kin to insist on burial rites or to pay for expensive cures. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181554/original/file-20170809-23494-rf2q00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181554/original/file-20170809-23494-rf2q00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181554/original/file-20170809-23494-rf2q00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181554/original/file-20170809-23494-rf2q00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181554/original/file-20170809-23494-rf2q00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181554/original/file-20170809-23494-rf2q00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181554/original/file-20170809-23494-rf2q00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181554/original/file-20170809-23494-rf2q00.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sugar mill circa 1660.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://archive.org/details/completehistoryo00pome">Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2882-111)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I was surprised to learn that, in many instances, doctors did not – as might be expected – use slaves as guinea pigs. Slaves were valuable property of powerful masters. The master’s will prevailed over a doctor’s advice. </p>
<p>A British physician in Jamaica reported he had developed a “perfect cure” for <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs316/en/">yaws</a>, a horrid tropical infection of the skin, bones and joints bred of poverty and poor sanitation. The experimental treatment was slated to take three or four months. The masters, not caring to “lose their Slaves’ labor” for so long, denied the doctor’s request. </p>
<p>However, numerous slaves were exploited in medical experiments at this time. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/articles/13352995/">John Quier</a>, a British doctor working in rural Jamaica, freely experimented with smallpox inoculation in a population of 850 slaves during the 1768 epidemic. Inoculation, a precursor to vaccine, involved inducing a light case of the disease in a healthy person in hopes of immunizing that person for life. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181459/original/file-20170808-20582-18ehe88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181459/original/file-20170808-20582-18ehe88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181459/original/file-20170808-20582-18ehe88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181459/original/file-20170808-20582-18ehe88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181459/original/file-20170808-20582-18ehe88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181459/original/file-20170808-20582-18ehe88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181459/original/file-20170808-20582-18ehe88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181459/original/file-20170808-20582-18ehe88.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lancet used to make small punctures – generally four or five – in the arm or leg for the purpose of inoculation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Images (L0057752)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Quier was employed by slave owners and would have inoculated plantation slaves for smallpox, with or without his scientific experiments. In all instances, masters had the final word. There was no issue of slave consent, or, for that matter, often physician consent. </p>
<p>But Quier did not simply inoculate to prevent disease. We see from his reports that he used slaves to explore questions that doctors in Europe dared not. He wanted to know, for example, whether one could safely inoculate menstruating or pregnant women. He also wanted to know if it was safe to inoculate newborn infants or a person already suffering from dropsy, yaws or fever and the like.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=QdfmJtI8DkMC&dq=Letters+and+Essays+.+.+.+by+Different+Practitioners">letters to colleagues in London</a>, Quier reported that, to answer these questions, he sometimes inoculated repeatedly in the same person and at his own expense. Throughout his experiments, when pressed, Quier followed what he considered of interest to science – and not necessarily what was best for the human being standing in front of him.</p>
<h1>Gender and science</h1>
<p>The history of human experimentation is not merely about subjects used and misused, but also about subjects excluded from testing – and, as a consequence, from the potential benefits of a cure. </p>
<p>Today, medical researchers struggle to <a href="https://orwh.od.nih.gov/toolkit/recruitment/history.html">include women</a> in clinical trials. It’s impossible to say when women were defined out as proper subjects of human research. But women were regularly included in medical research in the 18th century. </p>
<p>In 1721, the iconic <a href="https://theconversation.com/judging-jenner-was-his-smallpox-experiment-really-unethical-54362">Newgate Prison trials</a> in England tested the safety and efficacy of smallpox inoculation. Of the elected six condemned criminals, there were three women and three men, matched as closely as possible for age. </p>
<p>Women also featured in Quier’s experiments, raising explosive questions about differences among women, many of which were about race. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=QdfmJtI8DkMC&dq=Letters+and+Essays+.+.+.+by+Different+Practitioners">his London colleagues</a> wondered whether his smallpox experiments done on “Negro women” were valid for English women. “Some gentlemen” in London were concerned that experiments done on slave women were not valid for “women of fashion, and of delicate constitutions.” Treatments appropriate for enslaved women, they warned, might well destroy ladies of “delicate habits, …educated in European luxury.” </p>
<h1>African contributions to science</h1>
<p>African, Amerindian and European knowledges mixed on Caribbean sugar plantations.</p>
<p>Europeans had little experience with the tropical disease they encountered in the Caribbean, but Africans did. One of my purposes in this book is to expand our knowledge of African contributions to science.</p>
<p>An extraordinary experiment in 1773 pitted purported slave cures against European treatments in Grenada, a small island south of Barbados. In something of a “cure-off,” a slave’s remedy for yaws was tested against the standard European remedy. Under the master’s careful eye, four slaves were treated by a European-trained surgeon, two by the slave doctor. </p>
<p>The surgeon employed a standard mercurial treatment, which, when taken over several years, tended to leave slaves’ health “broken.” Meanwhile, the slave set to work with methods learned in his “own Country” (presumably Africa). This consisted of sweating his patients “powerfully” twice a day in a cask with a small fire and by giving them a medicine made from two woods, known locally as “Bois Royale and Bois fer.”</p>
<p>The outcome? The slave’s patients were cured within a fortnight; the surgeon’s patients were not. The plantation owner, a man of science, consequently put the man of African origins in charge of all yaws patients in his plantation hospital. In the process, the enslaved man – who remained nameless and faceless throughout – was elevated in status to a “Negro Dr.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181460/original/file-20170808-11420-7sx9q2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181460/original/file-20170808-11420-7sx9q2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181460/original/file-20170808-11420-7sx9q2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181460/original/file-20170808-11420-7sx9q2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181460/original/file-20170808-11420-7sx9q2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181460/original/file-20170808-11420-7sx9q2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181460/original/file-20170808-11420-7sx9q2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181460/original/file-20170808-11420-7sx9q2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">African, Amerindian and European knowledges mixed on Caribbean sugar plantations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Londa Schiebinger and Erik Steiner.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Atlantic world represents a step in globalization, the potential enrichment of the human experience when worlds collide. But the extinction of peoples, such as the Amerindians in the Greater Antilles, coupled with the fear and secrecy bred in the enslavement of Africans, meant that knowledge did not circulate freely. Amerindians and enslaved Africans strategically held many secrets. Though hidden or suppressed, much of this knowledge can still be found today in local Caribbean remedies. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/M%C3%A9moires_pour_servir_%C3%A0_l_histoire_de_C.html?id=FSkkMwEACAAJ">Bertrand Bajon</a>, a French physician working in Cayenne, envied the “numerous plant cures” known to “Indians and Negroes.” Bajon pleaded that “for the good of humanity” slaves be obliged to “communicate the plants he [or she] used and the manner in which they are employed.” In return, Bajon recommended the slave be offered freedom – but not until “a great number of experiments confirmed the cure’s virtue.” </p>
<p>We must remember that knowledge created in this period did not respond to science for its own sake, but was fired in the colonial crucible of conquest, slavery and violence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81600/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Londa Schiebinger receives funding from the National Science Foundation; National Library of Medicine</span></em></p>Slaves were involved in medical experimentation in the 1700s – both as sources of knowledge and as nonconsenting participants.Londa Schiebinger, Professor of History of Science, Stanford UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/800042017-08-10T20:06:19Z2017-08-10T20:06:19ZPeople, palm oil, pulp and planet: four perspectives on Indonesia’s fire-stricken peatlands<p>Peat means different things to different people. To many Irish people, it means fuel. To the Scottish, it adds a smoky flavour to their whisky. Indonesia’s peatlands, meanwhile, are widely known as the home of orangutans, the palm oil industry, and the persistent fires that cause the infamous <a href="https://theconversation.com/southeast-asian-smoke-warns-of-never-ending-fires-15499">Southeast Asian haze</a>. </p>
<p>Indonesians, and other people with ties to these peatlands, have a range of perspectives on the value of peat – both commercial and otherwise.</p>
<p>Here we explore them through the eyes of four fictitious but representative characters. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-plywood-started-the-destruction-of-indonesias-forests-33087">How plywood started the destruction of Indonesia’s forests</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The smallholder in rural Sumatra</h2>
<p><em>Peatland is my land. As migrants from Java, my family now have our own house and our own crops. In some years there have been terrible fires, with smoke so thick we can’t even see the end of our street, and all of our food crops burn. But in other years, the rice and corn grow well, my family eat fish every day, my wife smiles, and our children grow tall.</em></p>
<p><em>In Java we had no land of our own, and I worked as a farm labourer. Here in Sumatra we have our own peatland. It is different from Javanese soil but we work hard to tend our crops, watering them in the dry season and protecting them from fire.</em> </p>
<p><em>A big palm oil company has trained me and 50 other men from our village in firefighting. We have uniforms and water-holding backpacks, and I have learned about when the fire will come. They are helping us to protect our palms, and their own palms, of course. My palms are still young, but in a few years I will sell the palm oil fruit to the company, and then my boys can go to high school in town – as long as the palms don’t burn, God willing.</em></p>
<p><em>Floods are a harder problem. How can I protect my land? The government dug canals to drain the peatland before we came, but they are not big enough to hold all the water that comes from the heavens and the floods come more and more often.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>The official in Jakarta</h2>
<p><em>Peatland is our burden. Indonesia has fertile land, rich oceans… and then there are the peatlands. It is always either too wet to use, or so dry that it burns.</em></p>
<p><em>Other Southeast Asian governments want us to end the fires and haze single-handed, but Indonesia isn’t the only one to blame; peatland fires are a regional problem.</em></p>
<p><em>We are caught between domestic and international pressures. Develop our peatlands to lift our people out of poverty, or preserve them for orangutans and carbon storage. Of course, the Indonesian people are my priority.</em></p>
<p><em>When I studied agriculture at university in Brisbane in the 1990s, my classmates were a little fuzzy about where Indonesia is, let alone what happens here. Now, when our ministry visits Canberra, I feel sad to see “Palm Oil Free” displayed prominently on supermarket products. Westerners don’t understand that not all palm oil is grown on peatlands, that it is a healthy oil and a highly efficient crop perfectly suited to tropical conditions.</em></p>
<p><em>Oil palms can be <a href="http://aciar.gov.au/publication/pr144">grown sustainably</a> and have <a href="https://theconversation.com/palm-oil-politics-impede-sustainability-in-southeast-asia-57647">helped many farmers out of poverty</a>. Nearly half of Indonesia’s palm oil is sourced from smallholders, and losing that income can really hurt them.</em> </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181672/original/file-20170810-27688-1460xeu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A palm growing on peatland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andri Thomas</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>Our ministry is working hard to ensure that Indonesia develops our peatlands sustainably, restoring and rewetting degraded areas and working with the local people to find economic uses for wet peat. My son wants to follow in my footsteps and work on peatlands too, and has applied to study sustainable development at university in Singapore.</em> </p>
<p><em>So while peatlands are currently a source of national embarrassment, many minds are focused on transforming them into the goose that lays the golden egg for Indonesia.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sustainable-palm-oil-must-consider-people-too-20443">Sustainable palm oil must consider people too</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The businessperson in Singapore</h2>
<p><em>Peatland is good, profitable land. For too long we have considered it wasteland – too wet, too far away. But technology from peat-rich countries like Finland and Canada is helping us to use tropical peatlands for people.</em></p>
<p><em>My pulp and paper company has half of its plantations on peatlands, which produce more than a third of our pulpwood. My silviculture (forest management) team works closely with my environmental manager and PR team to ensure that our plantations are grown according to best practice, and that our shareholders and clients know it.</em> </p>
<p><em>The community benefits in the regions around our plantations are easy to see. The village that my parents came from has electricity now, and big modern houses have replaced the old wooden ones. We have paved the road and our taxes support the government’s new health centre and primary school.</em> </p>
<p><em>We are not a big company like <a href="https://www.asiapulppaper.com/">Asia Pulp and Paper</a>, which can afford to <a href="https://www.asiapulppaper.com/news-media/press-releases/asia-pulp-paper-commits-first-ever-retirement-commercial-plantations-tropical-peatland-cut-carbon-emissions">retire part of the estate on peatlands</a>, but we do try to abide by the <a href="http://www.wri.org/blog/2011/06/indonesia%E2%80%99s-ambitious-forest-moratorium-moves-forward">2011 moratorium</a> on new plantations on peatlands, despite <a href="http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/indonesia_moratorium_on_new_forest_concessions.pdf">repeated</a> <a href="http://www.wri.org/blog/2017/05/6-years-after-moratorium-satellite-data-shows-indonesia%E2%80%99s-tropical-forests-remain">scepticism</a> from environmental groups. Anyway, the moratorium is a Presidential Instruction, and so is flexibly applied.</em></p>
<p><em>The Indonesian government doesn’t want any more fires, and neither do we – we don’t want our plantations to burn! But the new regulations that require <a href="http://database.v-c-s.org/sites/v-c-s.org/files/140725_SNP%20Peat%20Rewettting%20Project%20-%20CCB%20PDD%20-%20V06.pdf">rewetting</a> the peat are a big challenge for us. What will grow in wet peatland?</em> </p>
<p><em>I lie awake at night worrying about my company’s future. What species can we diversify into? Should we move away from pulp and into <a href="http://arena.gov.au/about/what-is-renewable-energy/bioenergy/">bioenergy</a>? Are we putting enough money into R&D? Should I spend more on lobbying? My son is studying for an MBA in the United States, but will there still be a profitable business for him to join when he graduates?</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>The orangutan carer</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/181633/original/file-20170810-4297-eq5shd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A youngster in the forest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Catanzariti/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>We rescued Fi Fi from an area that used to be peatland forest but has been cleared for palm plantations. With no food and nowhere to make a nest, Fi Fi and her mother gradually got weaker and weaker, until workers at the plantation noticed and called us. The mother died before we could help her.</em> </p>
<p><em>That was nine months ago, and I’ve been caring for Fi Fi around the clock since then in a babysitting team with my friend Nurmala. Fi Fi loves cuddles, milk and fruit, just like my children did at her age.</em> </p>
<p><em>It is a good job, and we have a great team. Everyone is passionate about protecting the orangutans and the forest. We would like to be able to release Fi Fi once she has learned all her forest skills. Orangutans can look after themselves from about seven years old. But they need a lot of space.</em> </p>
<p><em>Peatland fires, logging and oil palm planting destroy more forest every year, so places for Fi Fi to be released are hard to find. My brothers and sisters are all happy to stay living near our family home, and when I’m not here looking after Fi Fi, I always have my nieces and nephews on my knee.</em> </p>
<p><em>I love to have them close, but when the dry season fires come and the haze is so thick I can’t even see my brother’s house across the street, I sometimes wish they had flown a bit further from the nest. Last year we were in and out of the health clinic for a month with my niece’s breathing problems.</em></p>
<p><em>I spend all my time caring for precious little ones – both human and orangutan – but the issues themselves are too big for me to fight.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/good-news-for-the-only-place-on-earth-where-tigers-rhinos-orangutans-and-elephants-live-together-58777">Good news for the only place on Earth where tigers, rhinos, orangutans and elephants live together</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A way forward?</h2>
<p>People are central to the problem of tropical peatland fires. In their natural state, tropical peat swamp forests are <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225152862_Restoration_Ecology_of_Lowland_Tropical_Peatlands_in_Southeast_Asia_Current_Knowledge_and_Future_Research_Directions">too wet to burn</a>. Drainage, installed by people for forestry, palm oil, roads, mining and other development, lowers the water table and dries out the peat. Many peat fires smoulder for months, from the start of dry season in July until the monsoon returns in November.</p>
<p>These fires have a wide range of negative effects: on <a href="https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/11711/2016/acp-16-11711-2016.pdf">local health</a>, <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/776101467990969768/The-cost-of-fire-an-economic-analysis-of-Indonesia-s-2015-fire-crisis">regional economies</a> and the <a href="https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00599518/document">global carbon cycle</a>. Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, has created a new <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-indonesia-haze-peatlands-idUSKCN0US0C620160114">Peatland Restoration Agency</a>, and announced policies to restrict burning and draining of the peat beyond a maximum water table depth of 40cm below the surface. However, action is still disjointed and ministries are, at times, working at cross purposes. </p>
<p>The truth is that only when enough people value wet peatlands will the fires be prevented. Wet peatlands are great for orangutans and the global climate, but how about local smallholders, government officials and business investors? Saving peatlands will require creating value for these people too.</p>
<p>What crops can be profitably grown with a water table high enough to prevent burning? How can smallholders tap into a carbon trading market? Rather than cutting trees to send their children to school, can they earn more money by protecting the carbon stored in peat? Can villagers be empowered to make a better living from ecotourism than illegal logging? </p>
<p>Humans are integral to Indonesia’s tropical peatlands. And they must be at the centre of the solutions too. Otherwise the fires will keep burning – and none of the four people whose stories we’ve heard want that. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was co-authored by Laura Graham of the <a href="http://www.orangutan.or.id/">Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation</a> and Niken Sakuntaladewi, a researcher with the <a href="http://www.worldagroforestry.org/">World Agroforestry Centre</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samantha Grover receives funding from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Edis has received funding from, and currently works for, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research,</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Sukamta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Indonesian peatlands are important to many people: farmers, bureaucrats, businesspeople, and conservationists. But preserving this value for everyone will mean listening to everyone’s concerns.Samantha Grover, Research Fellow, Soil Science, La Trobe UniversityLinda Sukamta, Lecturer, Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe UniversityRobert Edis, Soil Scientist, Australian Centre for International Agricultural ResearchLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.