Slave Life: What Different Areas and Situations to Try to Avoid

The historical article “Living Conditions” by Nicholas Boston from pbs.org on Slavery in the Making of America, talks about how the living conditions of a slave were determined by their location, and by the financial status and management style of their owners.

We have very recently been learning in history class about how during the early 18^th century, at the time of the Great Awakening, there was a rapid growth of race-based slavery because indentured servants started to fight back against the people they were working for. We have been learning that indentured servants were people who came over to the colonies to work in return for money, land, and guns to start a new life in the colonies. However, they often never got these things. People didn’t know what to do with all these freed indentured servants who were done their work, and eventually the servants started to fight back because they were angry.

However, we have also learned that they thought that race-based slavery would be the perfect solution to this problem. They were a permanent labor force that could be racially set apart. This means that they didn’t have to worry about paying the slaves because they were already considered inferior because of their race, and they could use that against them. So, thousands of African-American slaves were sent over to the colonies, and this article talks about how the conditions that the slaves had to live in varied.

One of the major variations in living conditions was that slaves in urban areas were treated much better than slaves in rural areas. Frederick Douglass, who was a survivor of this slavery, wrote, “A city slave is almost a freeman, compared with a slave on the plantation. He is much better fed and clothed, and enjoys privileges altogether unknown to the slave on the plantation." This doesn’t mean that slave owners were nice to their slaves in urban areas, in fact they were usually cruel, but not as horrific as in rural areas. Scholars say that one reason for this might have been that since the slave owners were so much closer to each other in urban areas, it might have caused them not to be so inhumane to these other individuals.

These slaves usually did comparably less strenuous physical labor such as working in shipyards or brickyards, or they worked as apprentices in businesses such as tailoring, butchery, or masonry. There were some slaves that did have to perform harsh labor like construction projects, and their living conditions deteriorated. But for the most part, urban slaves were given an attic or back room of their slave owner’s house to sleep in, or they were given a separate building. They were also given moderate clothing.

Shipyard

However, in rural areas, the vast majority of slaves were forced to work the fields on their owner’s plantations. Farms usually had 20-30 slaves on it. Weekly food rations were small, and the slaves often didn’t have enough food. The food was also not nutritious, and often made the slaves sick. Clothing was only given out once a year, and they often weren’t sufficient enough for keeping warm in the winter season. They were usually given small, simple cabins outside the owner’s house to live in, and when they misbehaved, they were harshly beaten.

Scars from severe whipping on a slave's back

 

Slaves on a plantation

Another important aspect of a slave’s living conditions was a slave’s relationships with other slaves and with their owners. House slaves, for example, would usually make good relationships with their owners, and this could be helpful to them because in return they were often treated better and given better living conditions. But the slaves also needed to have good relationships with their fellow slaves because sometimes one slave could be helpful to the group of slaves because they could serve as a gossip about the master’s plans. However, this could also go the other way, and they had to be careful because sometimes certain slaves would help their masters by giving information to the master about the slaves’ secret plans.

I found this article very interesting because of how it related to the unit we are working on right now about the Great Awakening. It helped me to better understand how horrible people were to slaves, and how innocent they were. This also helps me to realize how helpless the slaves were because the slave laws that were are learning about allowed for this cruel behavior. There were many aspects that contributed to the conditions that the slaves had to endure, but the conditions were always bad; it was only a matter of how bad. Slavery was unjust and unfair, and it is hard to imagine that even in a country where people said “all men are created equal”, slavery could have been so prominent and not be questioned.

Bibliography and Pictography:

 

 

“Living Conditions.” Nicholas Boston. PBS.org -Slavery in the Making of America.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/experience/living/history.html