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.
(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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(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 he flogged me nearly every day, and very severely. Mr. Gooch bought me for his son-in-law, Mr. Hammans, about five miles from his residence. This man had but two slaves besides myself; he treated me very kindly for a week or two, but in summer, when cotton was ready to hoe, he gave me task work connected with this department, which I could not get done, not having worked on cotton farms before. When I failed in my task, he commenced flogging me, and set me to work without any shirt in the cotton field, in a very hot sun, in the month of July. In August, Mr. Condell, his overseer, gave me a task at pulling fodder.
Having finished my task before night, I left the field; the rain came on, which soaked the fodder. On discovering this, he threatened to flog me for not getting in the fodder before the rain came. This was the first time I attempted to run away, knowing that I should get a flogging. I was then between thirteen and fourteen years of age. I ran away to the woods half naked; a slaveholder, who put me in Lancaster jail, caught me. When they put slaves in jail, they advertise for their masters to own them; but if the master does not claim his slave in six months from the time of imprisonment, the slave is sold for jail fees.
When the slave runs away, the master always adopts a more rigorous system of flogging; this was the case in the present instance. After this, having determined from my youth to gain my freedom, I made several attempts, was caught and got a severe flogging of one hundred lashes each time. Mr. Hammans was a very severe and cruel master, and his wife still worse; she used to tie me up and flog me while naked.
Farms and plantations
Most of the enslaved Africans ended up working on farms and plantations. New slaves that had just arrived from Africa had to be prepared for a horrible work on the fields. At first farmers and plantation owners gave them easier work than to the slaves that have been there longer, like looking after animals, weeding and gathering stones. This process was known as "seasoning".
In the American north, most farms were small, so there was only a need for 3 to 4 slaves per farm. In the tobacco and wheat growing states of the upper south, most farms were not larger than those in the north. But slaves made up a much bigger proportion of the population than in the north, where many people lived in the cities.
In the Deep South large rice plantations were worked on by the enslaved Africans, they were the ones who grew the rice. By 1720 there were so many black slaves in South Carolina that they outnumbered the whites. The rice farmers operated a 'task system', in which slaves were given a job to complete each day. Only when their task was finished they were allowed to stop working. Masters hardly ever visited their fields, they left overseers to supervise the slaves' work.
Domestic Slavery
Although most slaves worked on the fields or on the plantations, many also worked in the houses as domestic servants or in towns as skilled craftspeople.
On the plantations everywhere most of the time women worked as domestic servants, washing, cleaning, polishing. Other women had more specialised work such as nurse, cook or dressmaker. All servants must be ready to come to their master and also to their master's wife, who often were more horrible than their master, whenever they wish to need them. For many female slaves, the worst part of their slavery was the sexual demands of their white masters.
Male slaves were able to find work away from the fields much faster than the women because there was much better variety of jobs to choose from for them. Possible occupations included shoemaker, painter, blacksmith, carpenter, groom, some slaves did several of these jobs.
Men who were skilled workers, had more freedom than all the other workers. They could move around the plantation when doing their tasks and were sometimes allowed to leave it altogether. But this happened mainly when masters hired them out to neighbouring planter for a fee.
The North American colonies differed from the Caribbean islands in the domestic environment as well as in the fields. Almost all American planters lived on their plantations and thought of them as home. Planters that were very rich lived in a Great House on a home estate while owning some other smaller farms in a neighbourhood. Many wealthy Caribbean planters lived for most of the year in Europe, leaving their plantations in the care of overseers. The planters who did stay they build Great Houses where they enjoyed all the luxuries that money could buy. There was hardly anything to do on the islands so most of the planters lead a life of crude behaviour, drunkenness and sexual excess.
A life of slavery
Working in the fields
Millions of black slaves were taken to America in order to grow crops on large plantations. In West Indies it was mostly sugar cane. In North America it's cotton tobacco and rice and coffee and sugar in central and South America.
In the West Indies the strongest women and men dug and planted the sugar canes cleared the land, cut the ripe canes or work in the mill house. Bigger boys and girls did most of the weeding and young children attended to the animals and garden.
In North American plantations children at 5 or 6 began work as water toters at 10 they began general work in the fields. As they grew older they began other work in the fields as 'quarter hands' then 'half hands' then 'three-quarter hands' and at 18 they became full hands. The same happened in reverse as they became old. Very hard work and regular punishments, a poor diet and lack of medical care meant slaves did not live for long.
House Servants
Slaves were divided into house servants or field hands on large plantations. There were many different jobs for the house servants like cooks, housemaids, coachmen, butlers and children's nurses. These slaves were often better dressed and had a better diet than the field slaves.
Lewis Clarke, Narrative of the Sufferings of Lewis Clark (1845)
"There were four house-slaves in this family, including myself, and though we had not, in all respects, so hard work as the field hands, yet in many things our condition was much worse. We were constantly exposed to the whims and passions of every member of the family; from the least to the greatest their anger was wreaked upon us. Nor was our life an easy one, in the hours of our toil or in the amount of labour performed. We were always required to sit up until all the family had retired; then we must be up at early dawn in summer, and before day in winter. If we failed, through weariness or for any other reason, to appear at the first morning summons, we were sure to have our hearing quickened by a severe chastisement. Such horror has seized me, lest I might not hear the first shrill call, that I have often in dreams fancied, and have leaped from my couch and walked through the house and out of it before I awoke. I have gone and called the other slaves, in my sleep, and asked them if they did not hear master call. Never, while I live, will the remembrance of those long, bitter nights of fear from his cruel punishment pass from my mind. Hence, they were usually found in the field "betimes in the morning," (to use an old Virginia phrase), where they worked until nine o'clock. They were then allowed thirty minutes to eat their morning meal, which consisted of a little bread. At a given signal, all hands were compelled to return to their work. They toiled until noon, when they were permitted to take their breakfast, which corresponds to our dinner."
Some slaves' living accommodation was also better than those of other slaves. In some cases the slaves were treated like the slave-owners children. When this happened close bonds of affection and friendship usually developed. Even though it was illegal, the women in the family educated some house slaves. Trusted house slaves who had provided good service over a long period of time were sometimes promised their freedom when their master's died. However, there are many cases where this promise was not kept.
Living Conditions
Clothes were usually made of cotton called 'homespun' or coarsest wool. Children were made shoeless even in winter! Food varied by food from the slave's vegetable plots; either corn meal or sweet potato, if permitted. The meat when available was of poor quality. The housing varied but normally it consisted of just one overcrowded room. The slave living quarters were behind the plantation owner's house set in rows. Their living conditions were so overcrowded that with the poor sanitation, it was perfect breeding grounds for diseases.
Slave Families
Slaves' working lives were controlled by the demands of their masters. During their free time, most of them tried to set up family lives to help them bear the hardships of their everyday existence.
In north America slaves had to ask their owners before marrying. Some slaves married people from different estates, which was known as 'marrying abroad' some planters disapproved of that kind relationship, because the male slaves hardly ever visited their wives and relatives. Slaves couldn't leave the plantation without a pass, which meant that they remained under their masters' control.
When it was easy and cheap to import slaves from Africa, planters in the Caribbean didn't want their slaves to marry and have children because they didn't need young children on the plantations and most of them would die within weeks of their birth from lack of food and disease. However in the 18th century planters became worried because the supply of slaves from Africa was about to end and so they began to encourage slaves to have children and marry on their plantation.
In the British Caribbean and in North America slave marriages had no legal responsibility and slave families were not formally known.
Even so slaves fought against all the odds to defend the family network. Most planters didn't think twice about separating members of the family. Male slaves were often hired or sold to a different estate, leaving wives to bring up their children on their own.
Children inherited their mothers' position as slaves. Some slave children were put out to work in the fields as young as 4yrs of age such as pulling out weeds or picking up rubbish. Older children looked after the younger children while their mothers were busy.
Family life
Family life meant a lot to slaves but it often ended in grief. Even though slaves were allowed to marry the marriage was not accepted by white law. Slave families were often split up.
For whites, slaves only got marriage to produce more slaves, so that they could be used or sold off to someone else. However for some slaves if they had kind masters marriage saved them from misery. Overseers and some white masters took advantage of black slave girls. Their children would also be sold as slaves.
Booker Washington was an ex-slave he recollect how he and his wife never sat down to eat at the same time. He turned out to be a spokes man for his people and a teacher.
Many slaves died young because they never had enough to eat and whatever they had was shared between their family which was most of the time germ-ridden, and let in the cold and the rain. Killer diseases spread like fire. It is thought that only four out of every 100 slaves lived till the age of 60.
The earliest slaves lived in farm outbuildings, or in dormitories. But as slave families got bigger many planters built a tiny log cabin for each family unit.
The accommodation provided for slaves usually consisted of wooden shacks with dirt floors. According to Jacob Stroyer they were built to house two families: "Some had partitions, while others had none. When there were no partitions each family would fit up its own part as it could; sometimes they got old boards and nailed them up, stuffing the cracks with rags; when they could not get boards they hung up old clothes."
Another slave, Josiah Henson wrote, "Wooden floors were an unknown luxury. In a single room were huddled, like cattle, ten or a dozen persons, men, women, and children. We had neither bedsteads, nor furniture of any description. Our beds were collections of straw and old rags, thrown down in the corners and boxed in with boards; a single blanket the only covering."
CABINS
The cabins that slaves lived in were about 5 meters by 5.5 meters built out of bricks or wood. Some slave cabins are of single pen construction. Others are double pen-two rooms next to a central chimney. Others consist of two single pens, which are roofed with an otherwise open area called a dog- trot between them. Anyhow, the cabin floor is usually beaten earth because well-seasoned floorboards are hard produce and are expensive. Typical slave cabins have one small window with a wooden cover up, which is designed to let in fresh air rather than light. Doors are made of wood, with wooden hinges.
In some areas slaves were given cabins to live in with their families, in others slaves built their own homes. At first their homes were like the houses from their part of Africa. All had thatched roofs. Thatching was a prized skill among slaves as were the basket making, pottery, weaving of matting and carpentry.
Jacob Stroyer, My Life in the South (1898)
Most of the cabins in the time of slavery were built so as to contain two families; some had partitions, while others had none. When there were no partitions each family would fit up its own part as it could; sometimes they got old boards and nailed them up, stuffing the cracks with rags; when they could not get boards they hung up old clothes. When the family increased the children all slept together, both boys and girls, until one got married; then a part of another cabin was assigned to that one, but the rest would have to remain with their mother and father, as in childhood, unless they could get with some of their relatives or friends who had small families, or unless they were sold; but of course the rules of modesty were held in some degrees by the slaves, while it could not be expected that they could entertain the highest degree of it, on account of their condition. A portion of the time the young men slept in the apartment known as the kitchen, and the young women slept in the room with their mother and father. The two families had to use one fireplace. One who was accustomed to the way in which the slaves lived in their cabins could tell as soon as they entered whether they were friendly or not, for when they did not agree the fires of the two families did not meet on the hearth, but there was a vacancy between them, that was a sign of disagreement.
Most religious groups in America supported slavery. In the South black people were not usually allowed to attend church services. Those churches that did accept them would segregate them from white worshipers. One of the main reasons why masters did not want their slaves to become Christians involved the Bible. They feared that slaves might interpret the teachings of Jesus Christ as being in favour of equality. This was one of the main reasons why most plantation owners did what they could to stop their slaves from learning.
Slaves were also forbidden from continuing with African religious rituals. Drums were also banned as overseers worried that they would be used to send messages. They were particularly concerned that they would be used to signal a slave uprising. Black people in the North were much more likely to attend church services. In 1794 Richard Allen founded the first church for black people in Philadelphia. Two years later Peter Williams, a wealthy tobacco merchant who felt unwelcome in the local Methodist Church, established a similar church in New York. In 1816 a group of churchmen led by Richard Allen formed the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Then Allen became the church's first bishop.
William Wells Brown, Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave (1847)
Slaveholders hide themselves behind the church. A more praying, preaching, psalm-singing people cannot be found than the slaveholders at the south. The religion of the south is referred to every day, to prove that slaveholders are good, pious men. But with all their pretensions, and all the aid, which they get from the northern church, they cannot succeed in deceiving the Christian portion of the world. Their child-robbing, man-stealing, woman-whipping, chain-forging, marriage-destroying, slave-manufacturing, man-slaying religion, will not be received as genuine; and the people of the free states cannot expect to live in union with slaveholders, without becoming contaminated with slavery. The American slave-trader, with the constitution in his hat and his license in his pocket, marches his gang of chained men and women under the very eaves of the nation's capitol. And this, too, in a country professing to be the freest nation in the world. They profess to be democrats, republicans, and to believe in the natural equality of men; that they are "all created with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." They call themselves a Christian nation; they rob three millions of their countrymen of their liberties, and then talk of their piety, their democracy, and their love of liberty.
Black Americans have always gained a great deal of comfort from worshiping God. In Africa, long before the European slave traders had arrived, religion had been an important part of their everyday life. Many Africans were Muslims revering to Qur'an as their holy book and believing in the prophet Muhammad. There were also members of other religions, who worshipped various gods or dead ancestors.
Slave-owners tried really hard to wipe out these religious beliefs that their slaves had brought from Africa. Christianity was put on them and they were banned to worship in any other way. Sometimes slaves pretended to worship as Christians while in secret worshipping their own Gods. In the West Indies some black slaves went to the Christian ceremonies so they could worship their own Gods without their white masters realising it. Slowly African religions began to pressure Christianity in the Americas in many ways that can still be seen today.
Some slaves found it hard to accept the religion that was trained by the slave owners. All the same, Christianity with its promise of heaven after a life of suffering did appeal to many of the slaves. Later in the 19th and 20th centuries black churches gave help, friendship and possibility in the face of racial discrimination. Some black Christian preachers, such as Martin Luther King, came forward to give guidance in the campaign to get independence and equal opportunity.
Black slaves were not allowed to worship with their white masters, so they held their own religious meetings often in secret.
African traditions also survived in the music and songs of the slaves. The emotional style of black churches today has roots, which have survived the cruelty of the slave plantations. Even the spirituals that the slaves sang in their religious meetings had origins in African music.