The Life of a Field Slave VS the House Slave
Slavery was a ruthless and dreadful way of life for all slaves. Yet there were differences in rank between slaves. Minor class slaves were “field slaves”. Superior class slaves were “house slaves”. The daily routines of these slaves differed to a great extent. Field slaves only function was production. Their duties were to plant and cultivate the crops, clear the land, flame the undergrowth, roll the wood, split rails, transport water, restore fences, spread fertilizer, and break the soil. Working since sunrise to sunset was purely and analogy for slave labor, they regularly worked before sunrise and considerably past dusk. A house slave every day routine incorporated
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Any time one group thought that another group was getting something that they weren’t getting tensions often rise. The field slaves were mindful of the better treatment such as the cultural and travel opportunities, and educational opportunities that house slaves received. This normally caused tension with field slaves and house slaves because field slaves felt it was biased.
According to some African literature books the classification of these two classes were created base on physical appearance and skin color. The more the skin completion of the slave favor the master the likely it would be for this slave to be a house slave, and the darker skin complexion of the slave would classify them to be a field slave. History show that slavery on those ranks was in both genders it wasn’t a sense of discrimination against the slave. After all slaves were treated equally, it was a way that the institution was design to control the slave.
Overall slavery was about the same for both of those classes when viewing it in labor and suffering ways. Both the field slave and the house slave were treated on very inhuman ways. Anybody who loses their dignity and freedom will feel like they would have nothing to live
“Indentured servitude declined over the century, and most of these domestic servants were now either free women or slave women” (Coryell, pg. 104). Those who worked in a servitude role were indentured servants, who had the ability to work a number of service years in order to earn their freedom and they would be given a small plot of land, afterwards, to continue to thrive. Eventually, in order to compensate for the growing American need of lower overall costs to purchase labor workers, longer time in servitude, and to decrease the need to give land lots, the term of indentured servant changed to slave, which limited potential freedoms and humanity. This demand for labor changed the owner and slave relationship. “Owners began providing minimal clothing and food. Owners viewed all of slaves’ labor as their own” (Coryell, pg. 105). By forcing a dependent relationship, owners were able to maintain their
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Slavery has been a major component of human civilization all throughout history. People turn to slavery for many reasons, such as fear of different ethnicities and fear that these new foreign people will take over land that is not theirs. The conditions under which slaves work and live varies greatly by the time and location of which the slaves lived. Slaves play a major role in their society and contribute greatly to their communities, often forming one of the largest masses of the population. Though the accuracy of the information from primary sources may be tainted with exaggeration and bias, it is easy to deduce from primary works the treatment of slaves and the working and living conditions surrounding them. According to many sources,
According to Beverly, what were the most important differences between servants and slaves? Male servants and slaves’ differences include clothing and food. White female servants do not put in work out doors. They have a law that make working in the ground tithables. That means you have to pay one tenth tax on them. On the other hand, female slaves do work out doors also, they do not have a law stating anything about taxes.
Factory conditions were harsh. Workers in the Lowell Factory were under such harsh conditions that the women were not sure they could endure it. (Document A) They took women from their homes and relocated them closer to the factories. The women received almost no pay, the air was bad, and the factories were deafening loud. It was said that freedom for women was the most beneficial thing about working in these factories. In fact, Mary S Paul mentions that she has not been able to find enough time to even write a letter for about a week. If a whole week goes by, is there really freedom at all. (Document A) Catharine Beecher talks about how there was only half an hour allowed to eat before bed and right back to the mill in the morning. (Document J) Is it worse to be on a strict schedule with the lie of freedom, or is it worse to know the truth of slavery? On the greener side, slave owners could maximize cotton production and a cost-benefit
Slave by definition is a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. That about sums up what slavery really is in our mind and is pretty much the definition that we all picture when we think about slaves and slavery. But this is not what slavery truly was within the antebellum time period. Most of the slaves had a whole different outlook on the way they viewed, and acted and while living in their unfortunate circumstances. This is one of the few things that will be discussed further on within this paper. The main concept of this paper will be to discuss slavery in three sections; these sections will be discussing the types of people who were enslaved, and the nature of their bondage in the first section. The
There was also the psych battle between the farm owners and the overseers of the slaves. I can understand why the ones managing the slaves progress where only ever at a single farm for a year or two before parting ways. Not only is it a physically demanding job but it isn’t a very rewarding one. Those who got paid based on production couldn’t stay at one place for a very long time because more than likely they drove the slaves too hard and risked their health. The book talks of owners who purposefully pushed their slaves to exhaustion for a time period of 7 years only to get rid of them and get others to do the same. I know that they would beat them for disobeying but I don’t know why they wouldn’t want to protect their assets as much as possible, although the reward for doing so must have been great.
Indentured servants were used in early colonial times as a means of passage to the new world. The cash crops of the early settlers were exhaustingly labor intensive. In fact, U.S. History (2015) indicated that “the growth of tobacco, rice, and indigo and the plantation economy created a tremendous need for labor in Southern English America” (p. 1). The technology did not exist at the time for machinery that clears the ground and works the land as it does today. The work had to be done by hand; from clearing and prepping the fields to harvesting the crops, it was all manual labor for which the new land did not have ample supply of.
Slavery lives on all era in world history till lately, but its life has not constantly had the similar economic trait. Two questions ought to be answered to properly examine any definite cause of slavery: (1) what further systems of labor live in the civilization also to slavery? And (2) what system of labor is leading? In this manner we can make a difference among ancient slavery (e.g., in Greece and Egypt where free farmers live together with slaves, but slavery was leading) and antebellum slavery in the United States (which live together with free farmers, but was conquered by the industrially-based capitalism of the urban North). The past dominance of capitalism in the United States made antebellum slavery the most uncivilized system of slave work. Not
Slavery and indentured servitude were the primary means of help for the wealthy in America. Either as a slave or as an indentured servant a person was required to work in the fields maintain crops, as a house servant or as the owner of debtor so chooses. The treatment of both was very similar, but the method and means to which they came to America were uniquely different as the following examples will illustrate.
Imagine, if you will, rising earlier than the sun, eating a mere “snack”- lacking essentially all nutritional value - and trekking miles to toil in the unforgiving climate of the southern states, and laboring until the sun once again slipped under the horizon. Clad only in the rags your master provided (perhaps years ago), you begin walking in the dark the miles to your “home.” As described by the writers Jacob Stroyer and Josiah Henson, this “home” was actually a mere thatched roof, that you built with your own hands, held up by pathetic walls, over a dirt floor and you shared this tiny space with another family. Upon return to “home,” once again you eat the meager rations you were provided, and fall into bed
Looking back in time, slaves were differentiated into mulattoes and pure blacks. Pure blacks did most of the outside labor leaving the house labor to mulattoes. For mulattoes, being a house servant brought advantages including food, shelter, and clothing. Mulattoes were trained for skilled occupations and these skills allowed mulattoes to separate themselves from other blacks. The light skinned blacks were exposed to cultural views and practices such as proper speech, dress, and mannerisms. Once a mulatto was emancipated, he/she was better prepared for negotiating with whites because mulattoes knew how to handle them. Mulattoes had a sense of being superior over the darker slaves. Because of the color similarities between mulattoes and whites, the mulattoes were the middle class between blacks and whites.
that treatment, and the conditions that lead to resistance by the slaves working in their various
In American history, every event and person plays a part in the future. For example, rich plantation owners helped America advance their economy. However, that would not have been at all possible without the help of their slaves. The time and institution of slavery is a time of historical remembrance. It played a primary role during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The treatment, labor conditions, and personal stories of these slaves’ treatment and labor conditions are all widely discussed around the world to this day.
Such a dramatic switch as the one from indentured servants to slaves was not the only transformation in American slavery. Slaves underwent many integral changes as the years of servitude progressed. The slave-owner relationship directly represented how times changed for slaves while working. As they were brought over to America and were in culture shock, they were often treated like absolute dirt. The inferiority of slaves is illustrated as Kolchin states that “It was easy to look upon Africans in an instrumental manner: they were “savages” imported to work, and few planters expressed much interest in their lives, except for a lively concern with training them in that work or securing their obedience (p. 59).” As time progressed however, and less slaves were directly from Africa, the ideology towards slaves changed. Kolchin writes that “Slave owners were changing too: just as the slaves were becoming America-born, so, too, were the masters (p.59).” Slave owners started to look at slaves at as people instead of objects. This was a very monumental step in slavery. Slaves began to gain more freedoms from their masters. These freedoms included religious Sundays off, family visitations, and the ability to make money on the side. While some slaves were still met with the hardships of harsh southern slave owners beating them, as time went on, slaves became more of