Live Oaks: A Symbol of Strength

Live Oaks: A Symbol of Strength. . , Building the Nation , The use of live oaks played a critical role in helping the nation grow from a colony to what it became, the United States of America. Ships were an essential means of transportation for moving people and products, and for protecting the nation. A variety of ships were made: fast moving packets that carried passengers and material goods, as well as slavers that brought Africans to the Americas., African American Slavers , Many of the carpenters, shipwrights, and other craftsmen who provided the skilled labor to build America's first ships were African Americans. Some free African Americans even owned and operated their own shipyards., Enslaved Labor , Enslaved African Americans provided the dangerous, back-breaking labor of harvesting and processing the live oaks needed to build America's first ships. Live wood oak was so hard that it quickly dulled saws and axes., [Captions:] , In 1794, the U.S. government ordered the construction of six frigates made of live oak, which formed the basis of the U.S. Navy. One of the ships, the USS Constellation, was nicknamed "Old Ironsides" after her live oak hull survived repeated cannon fire from British ships during the War of 18 12., Left Many of the trees, described as "hard as iron," were harvested in swampy, hot, and disease-ridden areas., Before escaping slavery in 1838, abolitionist Frederick Douglass worked as a caulker in a Baltimore shipyard, making ships watertight.