The ante-bellum period of the old South is often
considered the pinnacle of Southern aristocracy. Although the aristocrats owned
a majority of the wealth and land, it was their slaves who made the plantations
a success.
The Work: Slavery became the most
absolute involuntary form of human servitude. Their labor services are obtained
through force and their physical beings are regarded as the property of others.
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Most slaves were given tasks to perform
according to their physical capability.
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A work day consisted of 15-16 hours a day,
during harvest time and, could go on during harvest and milling for 16-18 per week 7 days a week.
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Their was little sex differentiation in the
field work. Women who were well- along in their pregnancies, were still sent to
work at plowing and hoeing.
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"Hard driving" was quite common, and
consisted of working slaves past their physical capabilities, as what they
regarded as normal.
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In the South there was no rest season, the
climate was always considered good enough to work in and, so, everyone was
economically active all year round.
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Children between the ages of six and ten might
be active as water carriers. Children between the ages of ten and twelve were organized
into gangs and put to weeding.
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Besides planting and harvesting, there were
numerous other types of labor required on plantations and farms. Enslaved
people had to clear new land, dig ditches, cut and haul wood, slaughter
livestock, and make repairs to buildings and tools. In many instances, they
worked as mechanics, blacksmiths, drivers, carpenters, and in other skilled
trades. Black women carried the additional burden of caring for their families
by cooking and taking care of the children, as well as spinning, weaving, and sewing.
Punishment was a basic part of
the slave system. Not only was physical punishment brutal but the mental and
sexual abuse were also an inherent part of slavery.
The Punishments: While each
plantation had its own set of social, religious, and labor codes, all had the
basic format for an instilled hierarchy in which the slave master reigned as
God. He maintained the element of slave misery, by controlling the degree of
pain.
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Treatments were given such as mutilation,
branding, chaining, and murder, which were supposedly regulated or prohibited
by law.
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Whippings, beatings, drownings,
and hangings were as unpredictable as they were gruesome.
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It was clear to plantation owners that slavery
could not survive without the whip (even though owners were forbidden to deliberately
kill or maliciously mutilate a slave). Males and females were whipped
indiscriminately. The severity of whipping depended on the number of
strokes to the type of whip. Fifteen to
twenty lashes were generally sufficient, but they could range much higher.
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Other items used for punishments included
stocks, chains, collars, and irons.
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Slaves could also be hanged or burned at the stake.
The slave standard of living started with a poor,
and often, inadequate diet.
The Food: The food was generally adequate in bulk, but
imbalanced and repetitive.
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Typical food allowance was a peck of corn meal
and three to four pounds of salt pork or bacon per week per person. This diet
could be supplemented by vegetables from their gardens, by fish or wild game,
and molasses (not usually).
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The slaves prepared their own food and carried
it out to the field in buckets.
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Lack of variety and vitamins made the slaves
susceptible to nutrition related diseases.
The Clothes: Slaves were not
well-clothed. They had inadequate clothing for people engaged in heavy labor
all year.
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Children would dress in long shirts.
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Male slaves were provided with two shirts,
woolen pants, and a jacket in the winter. Along with two shirts and two cotton
pants in summer. Women were provided with an insufficient amount of cloth and
made their own clothes.
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The cloth was cheap material, produced in
England ("Negro cloth").
The Home: Plantation slaves were
housed in slaves cabins. Small, rudely built of logs with clapboard sidings,
with clay chinking. Floors were packed dirt. They were leaky and drafty and the
combination of wet, dirt, and cold made them diseased environments.
The Diseases: The South was a disease
environment for everyone due to the hotter weather and the swamp and marsh.
Physicians were in short supply, and medical knowledge poor. There was no
concept of bacterial transmission of disease, or insect borne diseases.
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Life expectancy for Southerners was lower than
Northerners and life expectancy of slaves was lower than whites.
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Diseases included malaria, Asiatic cholera,
dysentery, pneumonia, tuberculosis, tetanus, and pellagra.
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Rice Plantations were the most deadly because of
malaria – one plantation
in Georgetown reported a 90% child mortality
rate for slaves.
The Image of Slavery: The standard
image of Southern slavery is that of a large plantation with hundreds of
slaves. In fact, such situations were rare. Fully 3/4 of Southern whites did
not even own slaves; of those who did, 88% owned twenty or fewer. Whites who
did not own slaves were primarily small farmers. Practically speaking, the
institution of slavery did not help these people. And yet most non-slaveholding
white Southerners identified with and defended
the institution of slavery. Though many resented the wealth and
power of the large slaveholders, they aspired to own slaves themselves and to
join the privileged ranks. In addition, slavery gave the farmers a group of
people to feel superior to. They may have been poor, but they were not slaves,
and they were not black. They gained a sense of power simply by
being white.
In the lower
South the majority of slaves lived and worked on cotton plantations. Most of
these plantations had fifty or fewer slaves, although the largest plantations
have several hundred. Cotton was by far the leading cash crop, but slaves also
raised rice, corn, sugarcane, and tobacco. Many plantations raised several
different kinds of crops.
House Slaves: Some slaves worked as
domestics, providing services for the master's or overseer's families. These
people were designated as "house servants," and though their work
appeared to be easier than that of the "field slaves," in some ways it
was not. They were constantly under the scrutiny of their masters and mistresses, and could be
called on for service at any time. They had far less privacy than those who
worked the fields.
Children: Because they lived and
worked in such close proximity, house servants and their owners tended to form
more complex relationships. Black and white children were especially in a
position to form bonds with each other. In most situations, young children of
both races played together on farms and plantations. Black children might also
become attached to white caretakers, such as the mistress, and white children
to their black nannies. Because they were so young, they would have no
understanding of
the system they were born into. But as they grew older they would learn to adjust
to it in whatever ways they could.
Sale of Slaves: One of the worst
conditions that enslaved people had to live under was the constant threat of
sale. Even if their master was "benevolent," slaves knew that a
financial loss or another personal crisis could lead them to the auction block.
Also, slaves were sometimes sold as a form of punishment. And although popular
sentiment (as well as the economic self-interest on the part of the owners)
encouraged keeping mothers and children and sometimes fathers together, these
norms were not always followed. Immediate families were often separated. If
they were kept together, they were almost always sold away from their extended
families. Grandparents, sisters, brothers, and cousins could all find
themselves forcibly scattered, never to see each other again. Even if they or
their loved ones were never sold, slaves had to live with the constant threat
that they could be.
Discipline: The drivers, overseers,
and masters were responsible for plantation discipline. Slaves were punished
for not working fast enough, for being late getting to the fields, for defying
authority, for running away, and for a number of other reasons. The punishments
took many forms, including whippings, torture, mutilation, imprisonment, and being
sold away from the plantation. Slaves were even sometimes murdered. Some
masters were more "benevolent" than others, and punished less often
or severely. But with rare exceptions, the authoritarian relationship remained
firm even in those circumstances.
Slaves In the City - While most slaves were concentrated on the
plantations, there were many slaves living in urban areas or working in rural
industry. Although over 90% of American slaves lived in rural areas, slaves
made up at least 20% of the populations of most Southern cities. In Charleston,
South Carolina, slaves and free blacks outnumbered whites. Many slaves living
in cities worked as domestics, but others worked as blacksmiths, carpenters,
shoemakers, bakers, or other trades people. Often, slaves were hired out by
their masters, for a day or up to several years. Sometimes slaves were allowed
to hire themselves out. Urban slaves had more freedom of movement than
plantation slaves and generally had greater opportunities for learning. They
also had increased contact with free black people, who often expanded their
ways of thinking about slavery.
Religion: Many slaves turned to religion for inspiration
and solace. Some practiced African religions, including Islam, others practiced
Christianity. Many practiced a brand of Christianity which included strong
African elements. Most rejected the Christianity of their masters, which
justified slavery. The slaves held their own meetings in secret, where they
spoke of the New Testament promises of the day of reckoning and of justice and
a better life after death, as well as the Old Testament story of Moses leading
his people out of slavery in Egypt. The religion of enslaved African Americans
helped them resist the degradation of bondage.
Clothing: Every year, slaves usually received two linen
shirts, two pairs of trousers, one jacket, one pair of socks, one pair of
shoes, an overcoat, and a wool hat.
Resisting slavery: Slaves often used passive resistance, which is to
annoy, hurt, or kill the master or the person in command in an indirect way.
Some examples of passive resistance are sabotage, refusing to work, singing,
and poisoning. Sabotage is when slaves would break their tools purposely to get
out of doing their work. For example, the slaves would break a hoe and then
repair it just enough to look repaired. Then the tool would break when the
slave was in the fields, working. Refusing to work would often result in the
slave being beaten. Singing was another popular form of resistance. In the
fields slaves would sing songs about the master, when someone was going to
runaway, or just plain silly song, for enjoyment. Slaves would sometimes try to
poison their master. If the slaves were really mad and really wanted their freedom,
they would ask the cook, a slave, to put some poison into the master’s food.
Housing: Slaves houses were usually wooden shacks with
dirt floors, but sometimes houses were made of boards nailed up with cracks
stuffed with rags. The beds were collected pieces of straw or grass, and old
rags, and only one blanket for a covering. A single room could have up to a
dozen people-men, women, and children. Slaves were not allowed to own land and
lived in a small cabin with as many as 10 or 12 other slaves.
Childhood: When a slave was only 12 months old his/her
mother could be sold away from them. When a slave was as young as four, they
were often expected to care for the younger slave children while the parents
were working. When a slave was around the age of five, they would begin to run
errands such as carrying water to the field slaves. By the age of eight
children would be expected to work in the field or as a house slave.
Families: Over 32% of marriages broken up by masters as a
result of the slaves being sold away from each other. A slave husband could be
parted from his wife, and children from their mothers. Because a slave could be
sold at any time and separated from their families they were not allowed to
legally marry. They were also not allowed to name their children after
themselves.
Punishments: Slaves could be killed for murder, burglary,
arson, or assault upon a white person. Plantation owners believed that this
severe discipline would make the slaves too scared to rebel.
In South Carolina
one slave owner would put nails in a barrel, then put the slave in and roll
him/her down a very long and steep hill. Another punishment slave owners used
was to whip their slaves. Other slave owners in Virginia smoked their slaves
like. This involved whipping them and putting them in a tobacco smokehouse. The
most common form of punishment was to be beaten with something, such as a whip,
chair, stick, broom, shoe, etc.
Religion: Slaves were often encouraged to attend church where the preacher would speak about slavery being in the bible and deference to their “betters.” Slaves were also taught that good Christians are thankful for what they have and that they should be pleased with how much their master has given them
