The Nature of Slavery. The First Emancipation During the American Revolution slaves called for freedom (using revolutionary ideals) Most northern states.

The Nature of Slavery

The First Emancipation

• During the American Revolution slaves called for freedom (using revolutionary ideals)

• Most northern states started to end slavery

• Free blacks increased in number, but most were still slaves.

• 1800, 89% of blacks are slaves

Life Under Slavery

• The Expansion of SlaveryWhitney’s cotton gin (1793) made cotton cultivation profitable

• Influences the rapid and extensive expansion of slavery after the American Revolution

• “Trail of Tears” removal of indigenous people for cotton land

• Vast increase in slaves in 1800’s• Slave population increases 7 times

between 1790-1860• Grew fastest in cotton producing states• Alabama & Mississippi• Virginia still has largest slave population• Slavery looks much different in deep

south

Slave Labor in Agriculture

• Geography and region shaped the slave experience (environment & work)

• 55% of slaves cultivated cotton

• 10% Tobacco

• 10% Sugar, rice, hemp

• 15% Domestic servants

• 10% Factories

• Tobacco: Important in VA, MD, KY

• Difficult crop to produce-long growing season, careful cultivation

• Rice: Remained in SC, GA. Slaves worked according to the task system, allowing some slave autonomy. Families together

• Sugar: LA, Missouri. Required constant labor. Hard work. Deadliest. Mostly men-no families

• Cotton: Most important crop of the South. All day work.

Price of Slaves Increases

• 1830s, male = $1,250

• 1860, male = $1,800

• Expensive

• For the very wealthy

• 1/4 of whites own slaves

House Servants & Skilled Slaves

• 75% of slave workforce are field hands• In order to keep plantations and farms self

sufficient masters used slaves as house servants and craftsmen

• House Slaves: Often women, cook, clean, tend children, nurses. Men, butlers, gardeners.

• Work was sometimes less strenuous, but under constant supervision. Lived in mater’s house. Never get a break. On duty 24/7

Domestic Slaves Cont.

• House servants did not live in slave communities. (no slaves quarters)

• Skilled slaves were more elite than domestic/house slaves.

• They were carpenters, blacksmiths, millwrights, etc.

• “Hire their time”• Frederick Douglass was a caulker -- gave %

of wage to owner--mostly men

Urban and Industrial Slavery

• Most skilled slaves who hired their time lived in southern towns and cities

• Urban slaves: Worked for wages, could eventually buy freedom for themselves and family members--very rare

• Women urban slaves worked as domestics, washer women

• Men as waiters and artisans

Industrial Slavery

• Often employed slaves from urban areas

• Men, women and children worked in textile mills in GA, SC

• Worked in factories

Domestic Slave Trade

• Expansion of slavery in south and west increased the domestic slave trade

• Owners sold men, women and children to slave traders

• Traders shipped slaves to slave markets in New Orleans and other cities

• Families torn apart

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• Slaves would be threatened…”Sold down the river”

• Sent down Mississippi as punishment.

• Slavery was worse in the South



• Number of those traded was huge

• 1820-1860=50% of slaves were moved to the South

• Slave Prisons & Slave Pens

• Held in cities awaiting trade

• Humiliating process

• “Coffles”: Most victims of trading moved on foot in groups called cofffles.

• Chained or roped together

• People are making tons of money on this









Slave Families

• Sought to preserve families

• Marriage was unbinding

• Most slaves could choose their own mates, although there is evidence that masters often did this

• Procreation

• Assumed men would be less rebellious

• Reproduction of “human chattel”

• Thomas Jefferson: “I consider a slave woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man on the farm”

Sally Hemmings

• African American Jefferson’s what to be buried at Montechello along with all Jefferson’s white children and family.







• Many slave marriages endure despite dislocations and distance

• Slave marriage ceremonies ranged from “taking up”

• To “jumping the broom”

• Various rituals to signify marriage





In spite of difficulties enslaved parents instructed their children in family history, religion and survival skills

Extended family relationships are very important

• High infant mortality: 50% of children born into slavery died before the age of 5

• Diets lacked necessary nutrients

• High rate of disease

• Care of children often fell to the elderly or older children

• House servants often took children with them to the master’s house

• On small farms women strapped their babies to them while they worked in the fields

• On larger plantations-elderly look after children

• Infanticide

• Adults taught children about the realities of plantation life

• Children learned survival skills• “careful what they said to whites”• Children started doing “light work” at 5

or 6• 55-65 years of free work out of one

person

• Sexual abuse of slave women & the impact of this on the family

• Long term relationships between women and their masters were common

• White southerners justified sexual abuse in several ways:

• Blame the women as being promiscuous, as jezebel

• Said they seduced white men• Failed to note the impact of rape on black women • Also failed to look at the inability of black men to

protect their wives and daughters

Food and Clothing

• Diet: cornmeal, slat pork, self grown vegetables

• Deficient in calcium, vitamin C, protein, iron

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• Generally received clothing allotments twice a year (fall & spring)

• Black women individualized clothing--dyed clothing to make it their own.

Socialization of Slaves

• Children are provided with skills to protect themselves

• Folktales• Tricksters: Animals w/ human personalities • Most famous: Brer Rabbit, who uses his wits

to overcome threats from vicious antagonists • Whites believe in the “Happy Slave” and

likened slavery to a school and stated that they were protecting slaves

• Uncle Remus Stories

• Disney “Song of the South” 1948

• Ideology of the “happy slave”





• Divided consciousness: “two faced” behave one way in front of the master, and another way in front of other slaves

Religion

• Protestantism: By the mid 19th century, most slaves practice

• In plantation churches, white masters told blacks that Christian slaves must obey their god and their masters

Religion

• Semisecret black church: church services run by slaves

• Black preachers• Emphasized Moses: Deliverance from

bondage• Services include singing, dancing and

music• Kumbaya

The Character of Slavery

• Historians have debated the character of slavery for over 100 years

• First historians believed slavery was fantastic--like a school where masters were actually loosing money

• Portrayed as benign, paternalistic

• Helping slaves

• Other historians, however, have denied that paternalism had much to do with a system that rested on force.

Punishment

• Masters often offered incentives to entice slaves to perform well.

• Yet slave labor is forced labor based on the threat of physical violence

• Whites believed slaves would not work unless they were threatened with the whip

Punishment

• Fear of the lash: drove slaves to do the work and cooperate

• Parents teach children how to behave to avoid punishment





















Resistance to Slavery

• Resistance took on many forms:

• Work slowly

• Break tools

• Injured oxen, mules and other draft animals

• Spit in food

• Poisoned masters

Resistance

• Fought off attempts at violence • Learned to read and write • Practiced own religions • Ran away• Lived in maroon communities & with Native

Americans• Mounted violent rebellions

Resistance

• Arson

• Suicide

• Infanticide

Resistance

• Over 250 armed revolts recorded

• Stono Rebellion

• Gabriel & Nana Prosser (1800)

• Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831)

• Denmark Vessey (1822)

• Amistad (1839)

The Nature of Slavery. The First Emancipation During the American Revolution slaves called for freedom (using revolutionary ideals) Most northern states.

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