In 1839 in Caswell County, North Carolina, an enslaved 18-year-old named Stephen Slade cured a strain of tobacco that was bright yellow. This strain, now called Brightleaf Tobacco, was the culmination of centuries of exploited Black skill and labor via the institution of enslavement. European descendant enslavers and farmers had been trying to grow and sell pale tobacco since the end of the 17th century. The burden of this labor was forced upon enslaved Africans and their descendants throughout the Americas. Black expertise was critical in all stages of growing lighter-colored tobacco, as precision and knowledge were necessary for reproducing seed lines, harvesting at the right time, curing at the right temperature and vigilantly monitoring the tobacco for days as it cured. Enslaved individuals also dealt with the harsh physical repercussions of this labor. Working with the raw tobacco plant placed them at risk of developing nicotine poisoning and cancer, and the process of curing tobacco caused exposure to tobacco smoke.
Labor & Exploitation
Caption: A Piedmont tobacco curing barn, similar to the one Stephen Slade would have used to cure Brightleaf. Photo courtesy of Duke Homestead State Historic Site.
Profit
Caption: Google images showing Caswell County and Danville, Virginia
The labor, knowledge, and skills of enslaved individuals were exploited by white enslavers like Stephen Slade’s enslaver, Abisha Slade, for their personal economic profit. Abisha Slade sold the tobacco strain Stephen had created in nearby Danville, Virginia, at a steep rate and quickly popularized Brightleaf tobacco. Stephen Slade’s discovery soon became a multi-million dollar economic force and ‘life-blood’ of the Piedmont region, but he received none of this profit. Both Durham and Danville became focal points for tobacco production. Danville, just a few miles away from the county where Stephen created Brightleaf, became the ‘tobacco capital of the South’ where raw tobacco was sold at market and cured. Durham became the center of the Duke-owned American Tobacco Corporation, which controlled almost 90% of the American tobacco market in the 1890s and created millions in profit.
Narrative
Mainstream narratives concerning the creation of Brightleaf tobacco were written to portray the curing process as an accident caused by Stephen’s incompetence and laziness and then perfected by his enslaver, Abisha Slade. This narrative erases the decades of Black skill and labor from countless other enslaved men and women that created the difficult strain, while simultaneously promoting paternalistic ideas of white ingenuity and tutelage.
Image: 1886 article by a white newspaper publishing the Stephen Slade myth. By reporting him as wishing to still be enslaved by his former enslaver, this story promoted the trope of the ‘happy slave’ and white paternalism. “Bright Tobacco: An Old Negro the First to Cure It.” The Progressive Farmer. April 14, 1886. Chronicling America. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92073049/1886-04-14/ed-1/seq-4/
