Page 18 - Tree Line - North Carolina Forestry Association - Fourth Quarter 2024

A turpentine distillery in North Carolina
with yellow pine, white oak, and cypress.
Virginia planter Landon Carter ordered
the enslaved laborers on his plantation
to cut down trees in the winter for fuel,
and in 1770, he foresaw the devastation of
the forests, saying, “I must think that in a
few years, the lower parts of this country
will be without firewood.” Even early
on, it was clear to many that the timber
industry had a long-lasting impact on the
Southern landscape.
The more sawmills, the higher the
demand for enslaved labor. Close to 10,000
enslaved men worked in the turpentine
forests at the height of the industry during
this time, with nearly 5,000 sawmills
in the region. Most industrial laborers
were men, but there were some women
and children, exemplified by a firsthand
account from Solomon Northup, who
stated that there were a few skilled
lumberwomen in the Southern forests.
On the turpentine plantations, laborers
were made up of enslaved Africans, hired
Africans, and a few white laborers.
Labor in the Longleaf
Turpentining was a seasonal practice.
The trunk of a longleaf pine tree contains
a system of tube-like resin canals lined
with a tissue called epithelium, and once
the tree matures, the canals secrete resin.
Resin flows in warm weather, starting
around mid-March, peaks in July and
August, and ends around the beginning of
November or the year’s first frost.
From November through March
was boxing season. Using an ax with
an elongated head, a hole, or “box,” is
cut eight to 15 inches wide and three to
four inches deep. These boxes were cut
at an angle at the base of the tree trunk
and could hold one to two quarts of raw
turpentine. These boxes were not attached
to the tree’s exterior, like maple sap
collection, but were cavities that dug into
16 ncforestry.org / FOURTH QUARTER 2024
© HARPER’S WEEKLY. TURPENTINE INDUSTRY SUBJECT COLLECTION
3, FOLDER FP3T957I42. CREDIT: MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS
IMAGE COLLECTION, WILSON SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY,
UNCCHAPEL HILL.
The turpentine industry
“The legacy of slavery cannot be
understood without a full appreciation
of the way in which slaves worked.”
– Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan, Authors of Cultivation and Culture
the tree. It was widely thought that new
hands could not cut as well as experienced
ones, so they were tasked with fewer boxes
to cut. Overseers of the plantations feared
that low-quality cutting would cause
inadequate yield from the trees, something
to be worried about when dealing with
money-hungry plantation owners.
A turpentine handbook of sorts
for those interested in the industry
recommended that “beginners will not
cut at first more than 50 boxes a day, and
there is nothing gained by tasking them
too high until they have gotten well-used
to the proper shape and size of boxes.”
This exemplifies the level of skill and
specificity that the overseers demanded
from their enslaved labor. This seems to
differ from other types of plantation labor
that required little skill but a similar
amount of physical labor.
Experienced laborers were expected
to cut 75 to 100 boxes per day. The
largest longleaf pine tree had three to four
boxes collecting resin simultaneously,
quickening the collection and the
depletion process. Enslaved men who
collected sap from the boxes were called
“dippers”; they used a paddle to scoop
the sap into buckets. It was easy to tell
who did this job — dippers’ hands were
often covered with gum, which was nearly
impossible to remove, and they would
have layers of dried sap and dirt on their
skin and clothes. Inhaling the turpentine
fumes was toxic for the dippers, which
led to constant dizziness and raw throats.
Some turpentine barons utilized women
and children as dippers, although most
were men. Dippers were highly skilled and
could service more than 2,500 trees spread
over a dozen acres daily.
© HARPER’S WEEKLY. TURPENTINE INDUSTRY
SUBJECT COLLECTION 3, FOLDER FP3T957I42.
CREDIT: MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS IMAGE
COLLECTION, WILSON SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
LIBRARY, UNCCHAPEL HILL.
Above (left to right): African laborers making turpentine boxes on a longleaf pine.
Longleaf pine that had been used for turpentine extraction shows characteristic scarring.
© FRANK LESLIE’S ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPER. TURPENTINE
INDUSTRY SUBJECT COLLECTION 3, FOLDER FP3T957I42. CREDIT:
MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS IMAGE COLLECTION, WILSON SPECIAL
COLLECTIONS LIBRARY, UNCCHAPEL HILL.
© EMERSON DASANAIKE/TNC