what did slaves eat on plantations

Scientists just confirmed a 30-foot void first detected inside the monument years ago. But as the green, finger-shaped vegetable pops up on menus across the United States as an emblem of southern American cooking, the true narrative of the plant is at risk of disappearing, Harris says, speaking at a recent conference on food culture and history at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. Cooked low and slow, these greens are often flavored with a small piece of ham or bacon. Of course, nobody at that time had any sense of vitamins or trace minerals, but some cookbooks of the period do have lengthy discourses on the importance of balance of different sorts in ones diet. They often ate the entrails and appendages of farm animals, including pig's feet, cow's tongue, liver and oxtail. Eco-friendly burial alternatives, explained. Private moments were rare, as was rest. Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27858. Growing numbers of researchers, many of them African-American, are bringing to light the uncredited ways slaves and their descendants have shaped how Americans eat. Gibbs declares that there is no class of working people in the world better cared for than the Southern slave. He states that many medicines, as well as high quality Brandy or wine, are made available to sick slaves, and that the hygiene/cleanliness of plantation environments is held to a high standard. Some of this produce and meat supplemented their rations. Acts of buying and sellingof crops, goods, cash, and labor-powerwould remake the South in freedoms image. Over 400 years, nearly 13 million Africans were kidnapped and imprisoned on European slave ships bound for the Americas. What if we could clean them out? Susan McIntosh remembered that, in contrast to the coarse and rough shoes provided by her masters, she and her companions bought calico, muslin and good shoes, pants, coats and other nice things for their Sunday clothes.[4] In his 1859 autobiography, escaped slave Charles Ball described this process in more detail, elaborating spending priorities. Slavery - Agriculture | Britannica Okra is found in many African dishes, especially in the stews they serve out of big cauldrons. In many areas, however, it was customary for slaves to work Saturday afternoons and Sundays on their own time, devoting daylight hours to cash-earning activities similar to that of their lowcountry brethren. For an overview, see Sidney Mintz, Caribbean Transformations (1974); Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan, eds., The Slaves Economy: Independent Production by Slaves in the Americas (1991). Few of us sit down to a plate of food and contemplate the historical significance of it. As small as they were, these potato holes allowed a tiny sense of privacy and self control in a life that rarely had boundaries. While it might be fun to think about boiled sweet potatoes and cornbread, we must also remember the dark truth of slavery. Others hoped that property ownership might induce enslaved people to work harderfor themselves and, by extension, their masters. 25 Slaves often gardens grew sweet potatoes in their gardens, utilizing skills that African Americans passed down from generation to generation. Once landed, the survivors were sold as chattel labor to work colonial mines and plantations. The first plantations occurred in the Caribbean islands, particularly, in the West Indies on the island of Hispaniola, where it was initiated by the Spaniards in the early 16th century. Plus, a sweet potato puree adds creamy richness. The next time you sit down to a piece of cornbread, a stewed gumbo, or a roasted sweet potato, take a moment to reflect on the story of this food. Number of slaves in the Upper South: 1,208,758 (29% of total population) 4,165 million. Can we bring a species back from the brink? Gibbs also mentions that the most "industrious" slaves were allowed to have their own gardens and chickens to tend to, and were able to sell their crops/goods for their own profit. 5 0 obj Unauthorized use is prohibited. "If we want to understand current relationships, then we need to go back to these very uncomfortable pasts and explore how Africans actually contributed to American culture. For the women who wrote and preserved the receipt books, these recipes, the products of African foodways, were something worthy of remembering, re-creating, and establishing as Americana. As crops failed and the Union blockade tightened, goods became scarce. More troubling to slaveholders, enslaved people also bought stolen goods in a thriving interracial network of underground exchange. She is a doctoral student at the University of Georgia. "Okra is connected indelibly with the American South," says Harris. Too dear to purchase legally, watches in particular found a ready trade, highlighting an important characteristic in the consumption of stolen goods. 2: 21; Booker T. Washington and Frank Beard, An Autobiography: The Story of My Life and Work (1901), 1617; Rawick, American Slave, 2, pt. They were also found in Africa and Asia were also based on slavery. Some indentured servants were also leaving to . This letter was clearly written, and later published, to give the public a firsthand view of how southern slaves were treated. "Slave owners sent back and got seeds for what the slaves were used to eating, because they weren't used to the food here in America. Choice implied agency and that agency undermined masters rule. Edit View history The health of slaves on American plantations was a matter of concern to both slaves and their owners. Life was harsh for enslaved people, and as a result, many people resisted slavery through. In Ehtiopia, injera bread serves the same purpose. 9 'Facts' About Slavery They Don't Want You to Know My angry audience member was likely raised on the old enslaved-cook narrative in which these images took root, where the cook was loyal, passive, and purportedly happya non-threatening being whose ultimate goal was to help a white woman fulfill her own domestic vision. As Booker T. Washington recounts in his Slave Diet Bulletin, a common breakfast was cornbread and pork. The Bantu people originated in Central Africa, near Nigeria and the Congo. Do let me know what you think of the recipes that you try. The slave diet was very simple. SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA is a production of Thirteen/WNET New York. Which travel companies promote harmful wildlife activities? They . Frederick Douglass On How Slave Owners Used Food As A Weapon Of - NPR Food items included alcohol, sugar, molasses, flour, coffee, rice, spices, butter, cheese, bacon, candy, cakes, and tea. There was waste and urine throughout the hold; this caused the captives to get sick and to die from illnesses that could not be cured. <> Only about 6% ended up in the North American colonies, while the majority were taken to the Caribbean colonies and South America. In 1786, Washington noted that his plantation produced enough woolens to satisfy his needs. But from its most famous to its anonymous practitioners, the story of Southern cuisine is inseparable from the story of American racism. Mahatma Gandhi's investigation of indigo workers' claims of exploitation led to the passage of the Champaran Agrarian Bill in 1917 by the Government of India. According to Ball, earned money was. In Bailey's family, the tiny red legume, with its thin, firm shell; creamy interior; and sweet, buttery flavor was just another staple she and her family planted, harvested, and cooked. "Yet gumbo has become totemic," says Harris, "linked forever in the American mind, particularly with southern Louisiana.". B@k E0ZCl#a=y/%7rpVV{@h`zh-IFOVdRi9~ijt4z{;)'B1[tK [2R-mLhLCdF4jXp01]'7 *J0TzH}1dhl0&v7oN\"7nHi g r#H]lxVooIH*m'z!doXZ@WJFpDm;zr~ozJZ@Q,@|]4cv As consumers, slaves challenged slaveholders looking to maintain mastery. Her story might have been lost if Shields had not dug through news articles and obituaries to re-create her life. But now, the Examiner and the Whig warned, auctioneers patter announced something else entirely, another symptom of the breaking down of the barriers that, until this war, kept the negro in his proper sphere. Enslaved men and women had taken to gathering at the auctions, using grossly improper language in the presence of, and even to, white women. Worse, ladies and gentlemen at auctions [were] forced to bid in competition with bondpeople, men and women who audaciously monopolize[d] the most eligible positions and claim[ed] the nod of the auctioneer. As white Richmonders sold off possessions to make ends meet in hard-pressed times, the citys slaves were going shopping. Food George Washington's Mount Vernon Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1979. So why cant we, as Americans today, look at this history for what it was? It is often smoked or roasted at Fall Pumpkin festivals. The plantation owners then turned to enslaved Africans for labor. . Buying goods in the Old Southa piece of peppermint candy, a silk cravat, a stolen watch, ones own bodyrevealed the fragile politics at the heart of master-slave relation. [10] Agricultural Survey of the Parish of St. Matthews, Southern Cabinet, 1 (1840), 202; Thomas S. Clay, Detail of a Plan for the Moral Improvement of Negroes on Plantations (1833), 2122. Researcher Alicia Cromwell says one major challenge is "studying the silences," a phrase coined by Harris, which forces researchers to engage in detective-style deductions to piece together a more complete view of history in the absence of primary documents like diaries and letters written by slaves. Privacy Statement Most often foods such as okra, rice and kidney and lima beans accompanied them. The primary challenge, Harris says, is reconstructing history when one group of peoplein this case, white slave ownersdid their best to subjugate Africans to the point where they were nearly left out entirely. Not according to biology or history. He was one of 10 slaves owned by James Burroughs in 1861. For decades, the bang of the gavel had broadcast both triumph and tragedy in Virginias capital as propertylivestock, furniture, human soulstraded in the citys busy auction houses. Another ingredient that came from Africa was okra. His great-great-great grandfather Jupiter Gilliard, the man who purchased the farm, was born a slave in 1812. Slavery. Bondpeople in urban and rural areas alike had long sold their labor power, bought property, earned credit, and incurred debts through participation in what historians and anthropologists call the slaves internal economy.[2] Spending money they earned after and between labor completed for their masters, enslaved consumers sought to provide material comfort to themselves and their kin, to differentiate themselves from their peers, and perhaps most importantly, to acquire material markers of freedom in a world that hemmed them in at every turn. What documentation exists of what rations slaveholders provided is typically from later periods, but it would be in their own interest to ensure that their labor force was well-nourished enough to work effectively. * It is also the story of countless unnamed cooks across the South, the details of their existences now lost. Jeff Forret and Christine Sears (2015). [1] Daily Richmond Examiner, Dec. 2, 1864; Richmond Whig and Public Advertiser , Jan. 3, 1865. Your email address will not be published. Beef and hawgs and bacon and syrup and sugar and flour was plenty. My favorite plant-based okra recipe involves a quick saute with garlic, tomato, and herbs. An illustration depicts slaves crushing the sap out of sugar cane on a sugar plantation in New Orleans. Before long these enslaved cooks took the roles that had once been occupied by white indentured servants. Journal of the American Revolution also produces annual hardcover volumes, a branded book series, and the podcast, Dispatches. Fantastic work and writing. \ .2LE_mm5!aq e2z(~i+Lj4 +a,bN^e8w)q~A0*,A|EncL&L3upPm4Y]}R"XNeFWeoN;N&hS3LW0Km]-+SNjzq"-b5m:-`v]zf6P5'm0t"~VK,Le-}9r"v Given the difficulty of saving such an enormous sum, why not spend cash more immediately on food and clothing to make daily life less miserable? This is relevant to our general understanding of Chapel Hill, as well as the foodways of the time, because it gives us a clear insight to what is claimedto be the diet and well-being of an average southern slave was in the mid 19th century.It also may have had a significant impact on keeping slavery practices in the American south. Prohibition on the College Campus Bob Payne, Sorghum Production during the Great Depression, Suspension of All UNC Dances During Prohibition Era, Goochs Cafe Advertisement featured in the Yackity Yack, 1925 Alison McKinney, The Dramatic Closing of the Tar Heel Cafe, The Daily Tar Heel Persuasive Article on the Success of the Prohibition, January 26, 1932, A Recipe from Marion Browns The Southern Cook Book, Tar Heel Investigates Local Food Situation As Price Panel Releases Violation Decisions, Extensive Effects of Food Rationing on UNC Students, Carolina Alumni Review Article Discusses GI Bill and Changes in Lenoir Dining Hall, Restaurants in Chapel Hill- The Carolina Inn, Leaflet written by the participants of the Holy Week fast. What enslaved men and women did with that cash or creditand what it meantchallenged the institution of slavery. You can find their faces throughout early 20th-century black Americana, and they are still on the grocery shelves today, though modified to reflect a more dignified image. The revisionism went full throttle during the era of Jim Crow, when new laws made segregation the norm. The Southern Colonies: Plantations and Slavery, Plantation System. Boiling ground grains into a porridge called polenta was a longtime Roman and Italian practice, which they quickly adapted to corn when that originally came over from America. For masters and bondpeople alike, the internal economy both challenged the institution of slavery and shored it up. Why wetlands are so critical for life on Earth, Rest in compost? The children were then called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush; some with oyster-shells, others with pieces of shingle, some with naked hands, and none with spoons.. What did the slaves eat on the plantations? In fact, okra is what helps thicken gumbo. Peddlers and wagoners roved from farm to plantation, selling trinkets, candies, cakes, and often alcohol. On days when that wasnt available, hed head to the animal shed. You also see evidence of this multi-cultural transformation in so-called receipt books, handwritten cookbooks from the 18th and 19th centuries. Serve in slices, or mash it up with a little salt. Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Alicia Cromwell is a doctoral student at the University of South Carolina. (n.d.). x}Y%q)kOIf5WN'|2k@[46 > TY4!4BF/>xu~}q%xdG?4O/ W?yqyP ^jrq:|'1Yv>=~uuZo? watermelon. This in turn may have had a very wide impact on the foodways of the entire country, as plantations and other slave-owning businesses played vital roles in the production and circulation of food and food-related items in early America. 2, 149; Ibid., 12, pt. Purchased clothes were garish and gaudy, they scoffed. African rice often accompanied slave voyages. In urban and rural areas alike, storekeepers petitioned local legislatures to expand trade hours to promote slave shopping, especially during the Christmas season. This cornbread was crumbled into the bottom of the bowl to soak up the last bits of savory flavor. Indeed, the progress of the plantation system was accompanied by the rapid growth of the slave trade. What Did Slaves Eat? - Cooking Tom Collard leaves are wrapped around a savory rice filling with toasted pecans. Black-Eyed Peas and Rice. In fact, okra is what helps thicken gumbo. She earned admirationand job offersfrom Presidents Garfield, Arthur, and Cleveland, who sampled her fabulous meals of terrapin and canvasback duck, Lynnhaven oysters and crab salad, hominy cakes and fabulous confections, prepared when Jones worked as a cook at New York clubs in the late 1870s. Franklin Street and its Changing Foodways, 2018, Average Age of Death and Average Income Across Durham County, 2014, The Reputation of Carolina Inn Restaurants, UNC Department of Nutrition Cookbook 1983, Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen Owner Interview, 2017, The Expansion of Chinese Restaurants in Chapel Hill During the 1980s, Vincenzo Marrone Interview, The IP3 Story, Student Resistance to Labor Rights Movements (2005), Student at Vending Machines, Carolina Union, 1983, Foundational and Colonial Culinary Encounters, Thomas Hariot Book Excerpt (1590)- Maddie Dyer, Letter from Florence OSullivan to Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, Instructions to William Berkeley Concerning the Settlement of Carolina, Hannah Wolleys Original Orange Pudding Recipe, Turkey and Deer Bone Awls from Lower Sauratown, John Whites Secotan Indian Village Watercolor Painting, The Journeys of Needham and Arthur Through the Piedmont, John Smiths observations on Native Virginia Plants and Native American Food Practices, Day Book 1774 No. 6 cups (1.25 liter) water (19721978), 15, pt. Should they free themselves individually or wait until they had saved enough to buy kin as well? They adapted these to the harsh living conditions on plantations. Yet, many of the plant-based foods in our current diet are reflections of our nations history. What the Slaves Ate. Rather than ham hock, use the vegan secret weapon of smoked paprika. If a traveler showed up, day or night, bells would ring for the enslaved cook to prepare food. Preheat oven to 400 F (200 C). The seeds of the 1969 UNC food service worker strike. Office of Secretary of State. The slaves were not only responsible for the cultivation and harvesting of the sugarcane, but also the production of sugar. [7] Hilliard, Masters, Slaves, and Exchange, 6993. Fruit as Food and Medicine Orange County Observer July 7, 1883, U.S. House of Representative Speech of North Carolina on Food Adulteration, H. H. Patterson Account Books from the 1880s, A Cure for Consumption by Jillian Fellows, Catherine Roulhacs Recipe for Infant Food, Foodways During Enslavement and War Bob Paynes Object, Letter from Nathan P. Neal to Aaron and Elizabeth Neal, September 2, 1857, Letter of Charles P. Mallett to Charles B. Mallett, 18 April 1865, Letter from Elisha Mitchell to Maria North, February 11, 1818, October 12, 1863 Letter from Judge William H. Battle to his son, Richard Battle, Food wanted for North Carolina Solders in the trenches around Petersburg Riley Bechter, Circular from UNC President to Parents on Student Alcohol Use, September 30 1840, President James K. Polks Visit to Chapel Hill (1847), Hireling Labor and Slave Labor in Farmers Journal, Raleigh, May 1854, Mrs. Anne Ruffin Camerons Red Cabbage Pickle, Decadence and Opulence in Smart Society Dinners, Fight Taken Up for Oleomargarine, The German Club & a Tradition of Cotillion at UNC, The Carolina Medical Journal: Health in the Age of Decadence. Rice is not native to the United States. Hercules, who cooked for George Washington, and James Hemings, an enslaved cook at Thomas Jeffersons Monticello, were both formally trained, albeit in different styles. Underneath the slave ship's decks, Africans were held chest-to-chest and could not do much moving. Ice Cream and Oppression when food becomes the measure of equality. 6 cups (1 1/4 liter) chicken stock Fewer than one-third of Southern families owned slaves at the peak of slavery prior to the Civil War. In Slave culture, these big pots of stewed greens drew a direct resemblence to the stews of Western Africa. We feature smart, groundbreaking research and well-written narratives from expert writers. These have been a great deal of fun to work on, and I love getting feedback from readers. In a burgeoning market society, finding goods for sale was not terribly difficult, as store merchants were more than happy to take slaves cash. A reason many did not make it to the colonies at all was disease and illness. Gibbs also mentions that the most industrious slaves were allowed to have their own gardens and chickens to tend to, and were able to sell their crops/goods for their own profit. [9] Goodloe, Management of Negroes, 13031; James M. Towns, Management of Negroes, Southern Cultivator, 9 (1851), 86. In 1836 the Southern Cabinet reported that some South Carolina slaveholders stocked plantation stores with goods most likely to be in request among the negroes, selling them at cost to enslaved consumers. There were many African grown crops that traveled along the slave ship with slaves. F. from the Cameron Papers, Letter from John and Ebenezer Pettigrew to Charles Pettigrew, October 3, 1795, Lenoir Family Papers Account of Corn, 1785, Business Invoice from the Cameron Papers, 1774, Fiddle Headed Teaspoon, late 1700s / early 1800s, Distilling Method for Corn Whiskey Lenoir Papers (1790s), Newspaper Advertisement from The Pennsylvania Gazette (Dec 5, 1771), Accounting Record of Spice Purchases for the Household of William Lenoir (May 30, 1772), Sunflower Oil Recipe and Mangel-Wurzel Cultivation, Financial Document The Lenoir Family Papers, Excerpt from A Tour in the United States of America, Blums Farmers and Planters Almanac for the year 1870, Star Brand Fertilizers Advertisement in The Danbury Reporter, Liquid standard presented to UNC in 1883, Planting Fruit Trees to Secure Success by Abigail Bowdish, The Bennehan Familys Sugar and Rum Purchases, Mary Ann Bryan Masons Mrs. Masons New Cookery. Most Southern Soul Food dinners will include a big pot of stewed greens. New York, New York: Berg, 2012. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. What did Jamaican slaves eat? - 2023 favorite foods. [2] The number of slaves in the 15 States was just shy of 4 million in a total population 12.4 million and the percentage was 32% of the population. My presentation covered 300 years of American history that started with the forced enslavement of millions of Africans, and which still echoes in our culture today, from the myth of the happy servant (think Aunt Jemima on the syrup bottle) to the broader marketing of black servitude (as in TV commercials for Caribbean resorts, targeted at white American travelers). 2014. Each of these plant-based foods impacted the history of our eating traditions. % But cooks wielded great power: As part of the front stage of plantation culture, they carried the reputations of their enslaversand of Virginiaon their shoulders. Take [your] negroes to the nearest dry goods store (do not let them go alone) and let them select such things as suit their fancies, he advised. My favorite plant-based recipes for corn are Roasted Corn with Garlic Shallot Buttah and Peppery Corn Grits with Tomato Jam. Hercules was taught by the well-known New York tavern keeper and culinary giant Samuel Frances, who mentored him in Philadelphia; Hemings traveled with Jefferson to Paris, where he learned French-style cooking. Douglass was born on a plantation in Eastern Maryland in 1817 or 1818 - he did not know his birthday, much less have a long-form birth certificate - to a black mother (from whom he was . It's possible it was incorrectly annotated. Weekly food rations usually corn meal, lard, some meat, molasses, peas, greens, and flour were distributed every Saturday. They may well have also added greens like collards, but this is really quite a nourishing meal. A sure indicator that theyre done is that they start to leak caramelized sugars into the pan. Enslaved Africans were brought from Africa by European slave traders to the Americas. However, they closely resembled the yams harvested in West Africa. Africans made up 40 percent of the Souths population.[1]. Her essay derives from that book and her current book project Bonds Burst Asunder: The Revolutionary Politics of Getting By in Civil War and Emancipation, 18601867. What struck me is the summary of the June 1777, I agree, and checked my source before submitting. Honor the Boycott Flyer Protesting Dining Halls, A Little Bit of China in Chapel Hill Daily Tar Heel Article, February 9, 1979, Lambda, 1977: Tea Dance and Carolina Gay Association, On-Campus Kitchens of as a Social Center of UNC Housing. Robert Allston. NNDB. The sugar was then shipped back to Europe. Tableware, too, attracted slave cash, as did toiletries, watches, and tools.[7]. Organization of American Historians Joyner Rare E444.B58, Special Collections Department, J.Y. Enslaved cooks brought this cuisine its unique flavors, adding ingredients such as hot peppers, peanuts, okra, and greens. The Campus of The University of North Carolina, Located in the Village of Chapel Hill. Planter James Goodloe posed two questions to readers of the Southern Cultivator in 1860. It was to the economic advantage of owners to keep their working slaves healthy, and those of reproductive age reproducing. Ethiopias gomen wat and Ghanas kontomire stews both resemble the stewed collard greens of the American South. The fact that we still eat many of these foods today is a testament to the spirit and strength of these early African Americans. This was called mush. The 'extreme cruelty' around the global trade in frog legs, What does cancer smell like? Slave health on plantations in the United States - Wikipedia yams. According to the 1840 United States Census, one out of every four families in Virginia owned slaves. For Trinidadians, Callaloo is one part of their national dish: Crab and Callaloo- a dish which was created by the African slaves sometime around 1530 when the island was under Spanish occupation. For the cooks, it must have been a different kind of experience. Cuba - Sugarcane and the growth of slavery | Britannica That meant the slaves could plant for themselves," says Bailey, who has recruited other local farmers to plant the crop this spring. Modern chefs have rediscovered this grain and are now putting it on their menus. Manufactured goods, of higher value, were then sold both to Africa and the New World. I delivered the talk to an audience of 30 at the Maier Museum of Art in Lynchburg, Virginia. House Slaves: An Overview | Encyclopedia.com It means that whilst the dish may be a national staple on both islands in Trinidad and Tobago . Offerings such as pepper pot, okra stew, gumbo, and jambalaya became staples on American dining tables. [2] Historians and anthropologists across the Caribbean and the United States have explored the mechanics and meaning of the slaves internal economy. There are endless plant-based recipes for sweet potatoesincluding Ash Roasted Sweet Potatoes. It also ties us to the past. You can even change up the collards for other greens like Swiss chard, kale, mustard greens, and cabbage. Miles places the number of enslaved people held by Cherokees at around 600 at the start of the 19 th century and around 1,500 at the time of westward removal in 1838-9. Yet, this technique draws directly from Africa. Cookie Policy Your Privacy Rights They also sold items at the weekly market in Alexandria to earn small amounts of money. Certainly, enslaved people found timepieces desirable because they were useful, but also because they were markers of wealth and status. And, ground corn continues to appear on menus in everything from cakes to breading on fish. Its double-edgedfull of painbut also of pride. Its easy to make a plant-based version of Smoky Collard Greens. Which is to say, capitalismsfor better and worse. "The strange dishes they were serving us weren't strange to me, because I was going, 'Hey, we eat this back home.' Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Plantation complexes in the Southern United States, https://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Plantation, "How Slavery Helped Build a World Economy", http://abolition.e2bn.org/slavery_42.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Slave_plantation&oldid=1115516973. Southern foodenslaved cooks foodhad been written into the American cultural profile. Wrap in foil: All rights reserved. Reckoning with it can be cumbersome, but its also necessary. All rights reserved, Culinary historian and author Jessica Harris. With the 19th-century abolition of slavery, plantations continued to grow sugar cane, but sugar beets, which can be grown in temperate climates, increased their share of the sugar market. How Enslaved Africans Helped Invent American Cuisine - VOA Sugar plantations everywhere were disproportionate consumers of labor, often enslaved, because of the high mortality of the plantation laborers. 84. eBook. black-eyed Peas. Maize, rice, peanuts, yams and dried beans were found as important staples of slaves on some plantations in West Africa before and after European contact.