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Nine out of ten slaves however, worked as farm laborers, growing cotton, tobacco, rice, and other products. About half of these laborers worked on large plantations of twenty slaves or more, while the others worked on smaller and poorer farms, often alongside their master. Patterns of life on these plantations were roughly similar. Slaves worked from dawn to dusk under the supervision of their master or of white or black overseers. Owners had unlimited legal rights to decide and administer punishment to their human property, and whipping was commonly used. Most slaves were illiterate. Slaves that stubbornly refused to obey rules were sold. Marriages among slaves had no legal standing, and families were often broken up by the selling of one or more members. “Slave holders rob slaves of themselves, also; their very hands and feet, and all their muscles, and limbs, and senses, their bodies and minds, their time and liberty earnings, their free speech and rights of conscience, their right to acquire knowledge and property and reputation.” Slaves were physically abused. They were practically starved, there wasn’t enough clothing, and living conditions were horrible. Worst of all is that they suffered throughout many whippings. For whipping the slaves in Virginia their where no rules or sympathy involved. The slave receives from the slave holder from fifty to five hundred lashes. The slave owner would think fifty lashes as an insult to the slave. If the slave is let off with fifty lashes he must show good temper. Men, women, and children must be whipped alike on their bare backs, it being an honor to whip them over their clothing. Some of the slaves have to lie down on their stomachs, flat on the ground, and stretched out so as to keep the skin tight for the lash. If they move they receive more lashes. When the slave holder expects to give his slave five hundred lashes, he gives him about half at a time; then washes him down with salt and water, and gives him the remainder of what he is to have. The poor slave is whipped till the blood runs down to the earth. Then he must work all day, cold or hot, from week’s end to week’s end. Slaves have one pair of shoes for the year; if these become worn out in two months, they get no more that year, but must go barefooted the rest of the year, through cold and heat. The shoes are very poor ones, made by one of the slaves, and do not last more than two or three months. They get one pair of stockings for the year. They have one suit of clothes for the year. This is very poor, and made by the slaves themselves on the plantation. It will not last more than three months, and then the slave gets no more from the slave holder, if he go naked. This suit consists of one shirt, one pair of pants, one pair of socks, one pair of shoes, and no vest at all. The slave has a hat given to him once in two years. “No beds are given to the slaves to sleep on; if they have any they found it themselves.” “ A physician in Alabama wrote in the Southern Cultivator in 1850: One of the most prolific sources of disease among Negroes is the condition of there houses.... Small, low, tight and filthy; there houses can be but laboratories of disease. (Rogers 8) ”Every Saturday night , the slaves receive two pounds of bacon, and one peck and a half of corn meal, to last the men through the week. The women have one half pound of meat, and one peck of corn meal. The children, one half peck of each. When this mere food is gone they have no more for the rest of the weak.” Peter Randolph grew up a slave in Virginia. Randolph was owned with 81 others, by a man named Edloe, and among them all only he could read and write. His father died when he was ten, leaving his mother with five children. Peter’s mother had to work all day for her owner, and at night for those who were dearer to her then life; because what was allowed by Edloe was not sufficient for their wants. She used to get a little corn, and boil it for them to satisfy their hunger. As for clothing Edloe would give them a course suit once in three years. The slaves have absolutely no freedom. Their entire day is scheduled out for them by their master. The slave goes to work when he sees the daybreak in the morning, and works till dark at night. The slaves have the food carried to them in the field, they have one half hour to eat in the winter, and one hour in the summer. Their time for eating is about eight in the morning, and one in the afternoon. The overseer stands by them until they have eaten, and then he orders them to work. The slaves return to their huts at night, make their little fires, and lie down until they’re awakened for another day of work. “At night, slaves were often kept under curfew in their cabins, which were frequently inspected to ensure that slave didn’t leave them. Slaves had no right to leave their homes without the permission of their owner. Those found away from their homes were treated as runaways, and subjected to punishment.” “Peter Randolph’s father, a slave-driver, was allowed to visit Peter’s mother every Wednesday and Saturday night. This was the time usually given to slaves to visit their wives.” Slaves were made a show out of, they were used to deceive. When the slave master owns many slaves, ten or twelve are always appointed to wait on himself and family. They aren’t treated so cruelly as the field slaves. They are better fed and wear better clothing, because the master and his family always expect to have strangers visit them, and they want their servants to look well. The slaves although dressed and fed better then others, have to suffer alike with those whose outward condition is worse. Although they look fine, if you look at their flesh you’ll find many lashes. They get whipped, and are sold the same as others. Sometimes their masters change, and put them on the farm, that the overseers may whip them. All the slaves, as well as their owners, are addicted to drinking; so when the slave holder wants to make a show out of his “nigger”, he gives them rum to drink. When the master knows a Northern man is to visit him, he gives orders to the overseer, and the overseer orders every slave to dress himself, and appear on the field. About the time the stranger is expected, a jug of rum is sent to the field, and every slave has just enough given to him to make him act as if he was crazy. When the stranger arrives he doesn’t see the Negroes, but the rum that is in them; he thinks that the slaves are as happy as need be, and their condition could not be bettered. This is the way the slave holder deceives his friend from the North. Slaves where torn away from their families, and loved ones. Sometimes they were kidnapped, sometimes sold. Gustavus Vasa was born in 1745 in a place named Essaka. He was one of seven children. He had a close relationship with his mother, being the youngest child. Generally, when the grown people in the neighborhood were gone far in the fields to labor, the children assembled together in some of the neighboring premises to play; and commonly some of them used to get on a tree to look out for any kidnappers. One day, when all the people where at work, and only Gustavus and his sister were left to mind in the house, two men and women got over their walls, and in a moment seized them both, and without giving them time to cry out, or resist, they covered their mouths, and ran off with them into the woods. The only comfort they had was each other. However, after ten days they were separated. She was torn from him, and immediately carried away. He was then taken to be a slave. J. W. C. Pennington, a former slave, wrote a book called the Fugitive Blacksmith. Pennington’s master once owned a beautiful girl. She was her mother’s favorite child. After the master had owned her about one year, one of his sons became attached to her. The result was that poor Rachel had to be sold to Georgia. She was taken to the very town where her parents lived, and there sold to traitors before their weeping eyes. After this her parents heard no more of her. Slave owners didn’t have sympathy on anyone. Men, women, child, sick ,or healthy, were all treated with cruelty. Tears never softened their hearts. “ Lydia Maria Child wrote numerous books, pamphlets, and articles for the abolitionist movement. She wrote about an occurrence in Natchez.” A planter had occasion to send a female slave some distance on an errand. She did not return so soon as he expected, and he got angry. At last he gave orders that she should be severely whipped when she comes back. When the creature arrived, she pleaded for mercy, saying she had been so very ill., that she was obliged to rest in the fields; but she was ordered to receive another dozen lashes, for having had the impudence to speak. She died at the whipping post; nor did she perish alone- a new born baby died with her. “Solomon Northup, a black who was kidnapped and sold into slavery, told a scene at an auction involving a slave named Eliza and her children, Emily and Randall. A buyer had shown interest in acquiring Randall. ( Rogers 5). The little fellow was made to jump, and run across the floor, and perform many other feats, exhibiting his activity and condition. All the time the trade was going on, Eliza was crying aloud, and wringing her hands. She besought the man not to buy him, unless he also bought herself and Emily. She promised, in that case, to be the most faithful slave that ever lived. The man answered that he could not afford it, and then Eliza burst into a paroxysm of grief, weeping plaintively. Freeman turned round to her, savagely, with his whip in his uplifted hand, ordering her to stop her noise, or he would flog her.… Eliza shrunk before him, and tried to wipe away her tears, but it was all in vain. She wanted to be with her children, she said, the little time she had to live. All the frowns and threats of Freeman, could not wholly silence the afflicted mother. She kept on begging and beseeching them not to separate the three. It was of no avail, the bargain was agreed upon, and Randall must go alone. (Rogers 5-6) The mother poured her heart out to Freeman but his heart would not soften. Besides for being physically abused on their bodies they were abused, even when they themselves weren’t being the ones receiving the lashes. “Women and men all have to work on the farm together. Husbands and wives must see all that happen to each other, and witness the suffering of each. They must see their children polluted without the power to prevent it.” “Peter Randolph’s father would often tell Peter’s mother how the white overseer had made him cruelly whip his fellows, until blood came down to the ground. All his days he had to follow this dreadful employment of whipping men, women, and children, being placed in this helpless condition by the tyranny of his master.” “Nehemia Adams was a Congregationalist minister in Boston Massachusetts. In 1853 he traveled for three months in the South. What he saw there caused him to question his views of slavery as an evil and oppressive institution” He saw that the slaves loved being slaves. They were always happy, and didn’t want to leave their masters. “When Adams ship arrived he was immediately surprised, all the slaves were in good humor, and some of them laughing. He asked one of the slaves to place a trunk with a lot of baggage, and he did it. Then the slave lifted his hand to his hat and said: Anything more, please sir?. The slave was so happy to help.” Adams said that “ One fellow while jumping on board, his boot was caught between the planks, and fell into the water. A slave went into the water with a happy shout to get it, as if it was a merry adventure.” “Millie Evans was a slave in North Carolina from the time of her birth around 1849 until the civil war. Now she can’t remember everything she did in those days, but they didn’t have to worry about anything. The Old Mistress was the one to worry. They had such a good time, and everybody cried when the Yankees cried out “Free” . The old Master didn’t want to part with his “Niggers”, and the “Negroes” didn’t want to part with the Old Master. So they thought by going to Arkansas they would have a chance to keep them. So they loaded the wagons, they had plenty to eat.” “Nehamia Adams told about a colored women. She and her children lived in a separate cabin belonging to her master, washing clothes for families in that place. She paid her master a percentage of her earnings, and laid up more than enough to buy her freedom and that of her children. Why, as she might be free does she not use it rather?” (90) She says that if she were to buy her freedom, she would have no one to take care of her for the rest of her life. Now her master is responsible for her support. She has no care about the future. Old age, sickness, poverty, do not trouble her. I can indulge myself and children, she says, in things which otherwise I could not get. If I buy my freedom, I cut myself off from the interests of the white folks in me, Now they feel that I belong to them, and people will look to see it they treat me well. (89-90). The slaves were treated properly. Adams then went to the city of Savannah. “ Young children and infants were there, with very respectable colored nurses- young women, with bandanna and plaid cambric turbans, and superior in genteel appearance to any similar class. They didn’t look like slaves.” “Adams says that some planters allow their hands a certain portion of the soil, for their own culture, and gave them stated times to work it; Some preferred to allow them out of the whole crop a percentage equal to such a distribution of land.” Slaves had plenty of freedom. Adams says that “it is the common law, however, with all who regard public opinion at the South, to allow their hands certain privileges and exemptions, such as long rest in the middle of the day, early dismission from the field at night, a half day occasionally, in addition to holidays.” Historian Peter Kolchin says that “ Slaves at work were closely regulated, but away from work, they lived and loved, played and prayed, in a world largely unknown to their masters.” (Kolchin 133) Nehamia Adams says that “ Some slaves are owners of banks and railroad shares. A slave women having had three hundred dollars stolen from her by a white man, her master was questioned in court as to the probability of her having had so much money. He said that he not infrequently had borrowed fifty and a hundred dollars from her, and added, that she was always very strict as to his promised time of payment.” The slaves were treated extremely well, even when not useful anymore. Nehamia Adams says Every slave has inalienable claim in law upon his owner for support for the whole life. He can not be wholly neglected when he is old and decrepit. Adams saw a white headed Negro at the door of his cabin on a gentleman's estate, who had done no work for ten years. He enjoys all the privileges of plantation, garden, and orchard; is clothed and fed as carefully as though he were useful. Adams says “ At a place called Harris’s Neck, Georgia, there is a servant who has been confined to his bed with rheumatism thirty years, and no invalid has more reason to be grateful for attention and kindness....” (88) Bibliography: Word Count: 2865
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