Life in the Plantations: The Runaways and the Underground Railroad

Scattered along many of Louisiana’s rivers and bayous are majestic, historical homes built during a time of Southern prosperity. In the South, these homes and surrounding property often called plantations, were the product of middle to upper class slave-owning planters. Central Louisiana is home to a plantation that is “the oldest standing structure” in this area. During a recent visit to Kent House Plantation, I learned of the history, operations, and current events that help to keep the past alive.

In the 1700’s and 1800’s, the planter elite class of the American South conspired with both federal and state governments and other whites to institutionalize slavery in order to protect their economic and social power and way of life. Their efforts were generally wide spread, simple, blatant and generally very effective.

“The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave” revolves around the life of Esteban Montejo: who once set his life is the Caribbean island of Cuba; in which this story provides readers with another distinctive approach to teaching the lives of slavery. As the narration progresses through this writing, readers consequently have many opportunities to annotate how the abolition of slavery played a great role in his personal life. Evidently, whether it is intentional or unintentional, the narrator frequently mentions the ending of slavery, as he substantially detailed “…till slavery left Cuba,” (Barnet 38); “… I got to know all these people better after slavery was abolished,” (Barnet 58); and “It was after Abolition that the term ‘effeminate’ came into

Sally Thomas and her family were an atypical slave family in the antebellum South. Sally herself was a “quasi-free” slave, owned as property with personal benefits and liberties, by “[hiring] herself out as a laundress, a practice common among urban slaves.” The “quasi-slave” title was not uncommon in the South, where the blacks outnumbered the whites and the whites allowed the blacks to have mediocre peasantry jobs, however, they performed the job better than many whites, and allowed for them to earn money and make their own profit. All three of Sally’s son were born into bondage, Henry, James, and John. Even though their fathers were free whites, the slave title was heretical under their mother’s name

The article draws on evidence gathered from plantation owner’s personal writings, bondwomens accounts, relatives accounts and statistics to demonstrate the everyday events and repertoires that occurred in Antebellum plantations. Using plantations accounts such as William Ervin, Camp is able to give us an insight into the formation of the plantation and the spatial borders that limit slaves. Furthermore, plantation accounts from owners gives insight into the punishment that bondpeople receive. This essential knowledge provides an understanding into the conditions that bondpeople dealt with every day and the psychological mind set of plantation owners. Camp builds on these fundamental ideals by using primary accounts from enslaved people to bring an understanding in why truancy was an everyday occurrence. Specifically, Camp uses bondwomen’s accounts to understand the gender norms that led to different acts and rates of rebellion inconsistent with men. Camp focuses on the gender issue of women and the expectations laid by other slave members as described by Patience M. Avery. The last essential primary evidence that Camp uses to form her argument is through statistics of slave women which demonstrate the lack of women escaping to the north in specific states. However, some of her statistics have the potential to limit her argument as shown in describing incidents of truancy on plantation farms in South Carolina. These statistics occur in different years, 1828 and 1831 to show the rate of women committing truancy, however the differences in years could indicate that these rates could be an anomaly. Therefore, although Camp brings in useful and relative source to build a constructive argument there are areas which could limit the article. Camps overall uses vital primary sources builds on her contention

The slaves prepared their own food and carried it out into the field in buckets. Slaves were housed in slave cabins. Small, rudely built of logs with clapboard sidings, with clay chinking. The Floors were packed with dirt, and they were leaky and drafty. The combination of wet, dirt, and cold made them diseased infested environments.

During the 19th century slavery was a very prominent and controversial issue between the north and the southern states. In the South, most people believed that slavery was a profitable way of life and if the slavery was to be abolished it would then affect their economy. On the hand the northern had different opinions about slavery and intended to stop it. The fact that the perception were different between the two led to a very difficult situation in resolving the issue.

“I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person… There was such a glory over everything. The sun came up like gold through the trees, and I felt like I was in Heaven.” Harriet Tubman uttered these words when she arrived in Pennsylvania, a free woman at last (National Geographic). Years later, when talking about the reasons she ran away, Ms. Tubman would state, “[There are] two things I [have] a right to and these are Death and Liberty. One or the other I mean to have. No one will take me back alive” (America’s Civil War, 42). While most research on the Underground Railroad focuses on the northern states, the state of Iowa played an essential role in the

“Planter not only held the majority of slaves, but they controlled the most fertile land, enjoyed the highest incomes, and dominated the state and local offices and the leadership of both political parties” (Foner 411). There were fewer than forty-thousand families that possessed about twenty or more slaves that qualified them as planters. There were also fewer than two-thousand families owned about a hundred slaves or more. The ownership of slaves provided the route to wealth, status, and influence. Slavery was the profit-making system, and slave-owners kept a close watch on world priced for their products to invested in enterprises such as railroads and canals.

There are three slave systems described in this essay. The first was a Northern nonplantation system. The second and third were Southern plantation systems, one around Chesapeake Bay and the other in the lower

The Underground Railroad was an intricate system of households and farmhouses alike that were all connected throughout many towns and villages in the mid 1800s. It was formed by the common goal of people taking a stand against the law and helping thousands of black slaves escape from the south to gain their rightful freedom in the north. This happened because many people began to see slaves as human beings with value, rather than brutes that were valued less than a human. Throughout the mid 1800s, there were many cases of runaway slaves attempting to escape to freedom without anywhere to hide or anyone to help. A lot of people realized that this was a very impactful movement so they began to open up their minds and homes to these fugitive slaves as an attempt to help them make it into the north. Many people helped these runaway slaves because they believed it was morally right, that black oppression was a crime; slaves held value and deserved to keep their family together and lead a life as any other man or woman would, and former slaves shed light on these critical issues.

Slavery was a big problem in the south in the 1800’s. Slaves were whipped, shot, and tortured in every way possible. They were often auctioned off for money, so they had many different friends and families. Nightjohn was a free slave who had something no one could ever take from him. He had letters. He shared these letters with a female slave named Sarny for some tobacco. Slaves weren’t supposed to know letters, so they had to have private lessons and no one could know.

On the plantations, slave labor was the primary source of workers. These slaves were brought to the colonies by ship, once they arrived they were sold at auctions. The slave auctions had just men, just women, just children or whole families up for bid. Southern plantations were predominantly black, male slaves. At one point it was believed to be seven male slaves to every one female. The slaves were purchased and then became the property of the

Slaves had no rights at all in the south. Many worked as servants and farm laborers. Some practiced skill trade as shoemaking and others worked on cotton plantations as field hands. Men and women did harsh backbreaking labor in the fields. They cleared new land, planted seeds, and harvested crops in all weather. Teenagers worked alongside the adults pulling weeds, picking insects off the crops and carrying water to the other workers. Some slaves became skilled workers such as blacksmiths and carpenters. Some slaves worked in cities but their earnings belonged to their owners. Planters often hired these skilled workers to work on their plantations. Older slaves like women worked as servants in the planter’s house. They cooked, cleaned and did other chores under the supervision of the planter’s wife.

The protection provided by slave owners was too stingy. Many slaves lived in small stick houses with dirt floors, not the log slave cabins often depicted in books and movies. These shelters had cracks in the walls that let in cold and wind, and had only thin coverings over the windowpanes. Again, slave owners supplied only the minimum required for survival; they were mainly concerned with