Bitter Sweets: Mapping Pineapples, Hospitality and Slavery

Prompt students by asking them to reflect on how contemporary things like names, symbols, and places have histories and meanings. Allow students to provide examples like sports teams logos, and then discuss the pineapple and it's origin. Show students modern luxury items like fancy clothes or shoes. Explain that the pineapple was once a luxury good in 1853, only affordable to the rich and famous. Next provide students with history of Barnwell plantation and maps to show the distance between the good and the South Carolinian consumers. Using sources like diaries, maps, and other documents, ask student sto identify primary and secondary sources.
 After reading, provide students with excerpts from a letter written by Robert Barnwell to his mother
in 1853 (Appendix A). Students should identify places mentioned within the text for
later mapping. Questions to ask the students:
Which places are mentioned in the text? [Lauril Bay, now Laurel Bay, in Beaufort
County, South Carolina; Marsh Island, located southeast of Barataria Island, Calibogue
Sound, Beaufort County, South Carolina.]• Did the writer make a special request? [After remarking on negligent slaves, he asks
for a pineapple for an upcoming dinner.]
4. Provide students with a newspaper advertisement1 (Charleston Courier, January 12,
1853; Figure 3) to search for items that match the request in the Barnwell letter. [Near
the middle-right column is an image of a pineapple indicating tropical fruits that have
arrived aboard the Brig Somers.2 The items may be purchased at a stand located at
41 Market Street in Charleston, South Carolina. In the left column at the bottom is
another advertisement “Choice New Crop Cuba Molasses.” This product also arrived
on Brig Somers and gives students the origin of the cargo (Cuba).] Questions to ask the
students:
• Find an advertisement mentioning pineapples for sale.
• Once found, write down the name of the ship the pineapples were transported in and
the street address for where the pineapples are being sold.
• Is this ship mentioned in any other advertisements on this page? Where did the
ship’s journey begin?
5. After having read each document and recorded location data and other details, students
will use Google Earth to map the pineapple’s journey (an alternative option is to
use a paper map). Students will need to locate Cuba and two South Carolina locations:
41 Market Street in Charleston and the Lauril Bay plantation. At each location, students
may add placemarks and detail the activities that occurred there. The general
journey may be created using the “Add Polygon” or “Add Path” tools. All three of these
tools are in the Google Earth general tool bar; a short amount of time may be needed
to assist students in using these tools.
• For the Cuba placemark, a likely starting point is Havana. We have no other detail
about the actual pineapple growing area on the island or the actual port, but Havana
is a likely choice.
• For the Charleston placemark, the student may enter the 41 Market Street address
in the search bar. The student should notice how close the fruit stand location is to
the port along the Cooper River.
• For the Lauril Bay Plantation placemark, the student can use Beaufort, the nearest
town, as the plantation proper no longer exists.
• Once all placemarks are located and populated with details, the student may use the
path tool to draw the route (Figure 4). Photographs or text may be added to each
placemark if desired. The resulting image may be shown to the teacher or exported
as a KML file for later viewing to assess student success.
6. Upon map completion, engage the students in a discussion of enslavement, the trade
system, the different locations, and the roles of the various people involved in this
particular case. For example, have the students read Appendix B to
consider how the Barnwell family became wealthy enough to bring this faraway fruit to
their table. Questions to ask the students:
• How much land did Robert Woodward Barnwell own? [By 1850, 2,275 acres.]
• How was the Barnwell land used? [The improved land was used for sea island cotton,
a very desirable cash crop.]
• Robert Woodward Barnwell is often called a “planter” and in his letter home he speaks of “negligent … negroes.” Ask students:
Who do you think did most of the planting and other physical work that made the plantation successful? Is it fair to call enslaved people “negligent,” or could it be that they were engaged in a form of
resistance to enslavement? For a teacher wishing to investigate these points further,
see the work of Franklin and Schweninger (1999) referenced in Lesson Resources.
• In addition to this, students also may investigate, a list of Beaufort
Parish “slave inhabitants,” to enumerate the number of enslaved people that Barnwell
used to grow his crops and accumulate wealth—wealth that would ultimately be
used for luxury items like pineapple. 7. The lesson is concluded by returning to the role of pineapples in this story. Students
are asked to think about one symbol, the pineapple, which was not grown in America
yet came to be a major symbol of wealth, power, and hospitality. Today it is still used
as a symbol of hospitality in a variety of objects including stationary, wallpaper, and
architecture. Through this activity students learn that the pineapple has had different
meanings over time, as have many other items of material culture. Questions to ask
students:
• What was the meaning of the pineapple in 1850s South Carolina? Does the meaning
differ based on who you are (e.g., enslaver versus enslaved)?
• How was the pineapple the Barnwell family used as a dinner party centerpiece linked
to enslavement?
• What is the common meaning of the pineapple symbol in the Southeastern United
States today? How has the meaning of the pineapple changed over time? [To ensure
retention of this concept, the teacher may assign a writing prompt
whereby the student identifies another contemporary symbol (see examples in paper
introduction), charts its origin and development, and makes comparisons to the
pineapple example.]

Students are able to differentiate between primary and secondary sources by identifying
their unique characteristics from a set of teacher-identified examples.
• For the Google Earth mapping assignment, students should complete a map showing
a journey that begins in Cuba and ends near Beaufort, South Carolina. The student
should use clues from the readings (“Assignment Implementation” point 3) and add
text to the placemarks where appropriate.
• Students should provide correct answers for the questions provided in “Assignment
Implementation” point 6 to reflect on differing human experiences.
• In writing, students will explain how symbols change across different groups of people,
space, and time by referring to this specific case (the pineapple) and other historic or
contemporary comparative symbols.
• Informal assessment of student participation in discussion (identifying clues, actors, and
motivations) is also appropriate