Domestic Slavery.

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Plantations were large farming areas where tobacco, rice and cotton were grown, most of which would be sold. Most black people would be slaves on these plantations. Slavery for the plantation owners was cheap and very useful. Life for slaves on the plantations wasn't very pleasant. Lots of white people believed that black slaves were ideal to work in hot conditions on the field since they've lived under the same climates in Africa where it was also very hot.

An OVERSEER had slaves under his control and he ran the plantation. There they were in charge of all the work groups. Overseers were responsible for making slaves work as hard as they could to make a profit and keep the plantation running. Nearly all of them used a whip to control the slaves. Overseer would be supervising the beating of a slave by the other slaves. Punishments like these were meant to ensure a complete obedience. Overseers weren't meant to kill a slave but if they did little would happen to them. Many slaves were beaten so often that they were permanently scarred. Overseers could be white or black although the majority were black and male.

The slaves had to work very long hours and in the fields. They would be woken at as early as 4 a.m, and taken from their smelly and overcrowded barns to the fields. Thirty minutes later, they would start work if they were late they would be whipped. They would have to work all day with maybe only one 15minute break. Summer temperatures could reach 100 degrees Celsius, which made working conditions impossible. Some slaves would be fitted in some sort of contraptions so they wouldn't be able to runaway and so the overseers would know where they were. Anyone who did not seem to work hard enough would be beaten. As well as whips, overseers would be carrying guns and knives and often had vicious dogs. When it came too dark to continue working they would have to go back to their barns. There they would have to light a fire and make their own meal. This was their usual way of life except on Sundays. Then they could have a rest & worship their Gods. Here's a story on life of one of the slaves.

(1) Henry Clay Bruce, Twenty-Nine Years a Slave (1895)

During the crop season in Virginia, slave men and women worked in the fields daily, and such females as had suckling were allowed to come to them three times a day between sun rise and sun set, for the purpose of nursing their babes, who were left in the care of an old woman, who was assigned to the care of these children because she was too old or too feeble for field work. Such old women usually had to care for, and prepare the meals of all children under working age. The master, who took special care to see that it was properly cooked and served to them as often as they desired it, furnished them with plenty of good, wholesome food. On very large plantations there were many such old women, who spent the remainder of their lives caring for children of younger women.

During the summer, in Virginia and other southern states, slaves when threatened or after punishment would escape to the woods or some other hiding place. They were then called runaways, or runaway Negroes, and when not caught would stay away from home until driven back by cold weather.

I hope from what I have said about "runaways," that my readers will not form the opinion that all slave men who imagined themselves treated harshly ran away, or that they were all too lazy to work in the hot weather and took to the woods, or that all masters were so brutal that their slaves were compelled to run away to save life. There were masters of different dispositions and temperaments. Many owners treated their slaves so humanely that they never ran away, although they were sometimes punished; others really felt grieved for it to be known, that one of their slaves had been compelled to run away; others allowed the overseer to treat their slaves with such brutality that they were forced to run away.

Working on the fields

A large number of early settlers in America grew cotton. To grow cotton and to pick, gin (remove seeds from the white fluff) and bale it took a great deal of work. Therefore large numbers of slaves were purchased to do this work.

The industry was given a boost invention of Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin in 1793. With the aid of a horse to turn the gin, a man could clean fifty times as much cotton as before. This increased the demand for slaves. For example, in 1803 alone, over 20,000 slaves were being brought into Georgia and South Carolina to work in the cotton fields.

Much of this cotton was exported to Britain where the invention of the Spinning Jenny, the Water Frame and the Power Loom had rapidly increased the demand for raw cotton. By 1850 America was producing 3,000,000 bales of cotton and the industry had become a vital element of the South's economy. The slaves had to work very long hours under the hot sun to bring in the cotton crop. Children as young as six years old were forced to work in the fields. Overseers were usually on horseback. All the time they had a fear of more punishment or perhaps worse, being sold away from their families and friends.
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(1) Moses Roper, Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper (1838)

Mr. Gooch, the cotton planter, he purchased me at a town called Liberty Hill, about three miles from his home. As soon as he got home, he immediately put me on his cotton plantation to work, and put me under overseers, gave me allowance of meat and bread with the other slaves, which was not half enough for me to live upon, and very laborious work. Here my heart was almost broke with grief at leaving my fellow slaves. Mr. Gooch did not mind my grief, for ...

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