What different groups made up southern society?
What challenges did free African Americans face in the South?
Section 3: The Slave System
If YOU were there...
You are a reporter for a newspaper in Philadelphia in the 1850s. You are writing articles about the slave system in the South. To get background information for your stories, you are planning to interview some African Americans in Philadelphia who used to be slaves in the South. Some have bought their freedom while others have successfully escaped from slavery.
What questions will you ask in your interviews?
You are a reporter for a newspaper in Philadelphia in the 1850s. You are writing articles about the slave system in the South. To get background information for your stories, you are planning to interview some African Americans in Philadelphia who used to be slaves in the South. Some have bought their freedom while others have successfully escaped from slavery.
What questions will you ask in your interviews?
Building Background: While most white southern families were not slaveholders, the southern economy depended on the work of slaves on large plantations, and also on smaller farms and in the cities. Enslaved African Americans did not have many chances to escape their hard lives.
Slaves and Work
Most enslaved African Americans lived in rural areas where they worked on farms and plantations. Enslaved people on small farms usually had many different jobs. On large plantations, most slaves were given one or two specific jobs. Slaves that worked in the fields were called field hands. Most slaveholders demanded that slaves work as much as possible. Supervisors known as drivers were sometimes slaves themselves. Their job was to make sure that slaves followed orders. Drivers also carried out punishments.
Working in the Fields
Most plantation owners used the gang-labor system. In this system, all the field hands worked on the same task at the same time. They usually worked from sunup to sundown. Former slave Harry McMillan had worked on a plantation in South Carolina. He recalled that the field hands usually did not even get a break to eat lunch. “You had to get your victuals [food] standing at your hoe [tool],” he remembered.
Men, women, and even children older than about 10 usually did the same tasks. Sickness and poor weather rarely stopped the work. “The time I hated most was picking cotton when the frost was on the bolls [seed pods],” recalled former Louisiana slave Mary Reynolds. “My hands git sore and crack open and bleed.”
Men, women, and even children older than about 10 usually did the same tasks. Sickness and poor weather rarely stopped the work. “The time I hated most was picking cotton when the frost was on the bolls [seed pods],” recalled former Louisiana slave Mary Reynolds. “My hands git sore and crack open and bleed.”
Working in the Planter's Home
Some slaves worked as butlers, cooks, or nurses in the planter’s home. These slaves often had better food, clothing, and shelter than field hands did, but they often worked longer hours. They had to serve the planter’s family 24 hours a day.
Working at Skilled Jobs
On larger plantations, some enslaved African Americans worked at skilled jobs, such as blacksmithing or carpentry. Sometimes planters let these slaves work for other people for money. Often planters collected a part of what was earned but allowed slaves to keep the rest. In this way, some skilled slaves earned enough money to buy their freedom from slaveholders. For example, William Ellison earned his freedom in South Carolina by working for money as a cotton gin maker. For years, he worked late at night and on Sundays. He bought his freedom with the money he earned. Eventually, he was also able to buy the freedom of his wife and daughter.
Life Under Slavery
Many slaveholders viewed slaves as property, not people. Slaveholders bought and sold slaves to make money. The most common way of buying and selling slaves was at an auction. The auction decides whether families would be kept together or separated. Sometimes a buyer wanted a slave to fill a specific job, such as heavy laborer, carpenter, or blacksmith. The buyer might be willing to pay for the slave who could do the work, but not for that slave’s family. Families would then be separated with little hope of ever getting back together.
Slave traders sometimes even kidnapped free African Americans and then sold them into slavery. For example, Solomon Northup, a free African American, was kidnapped in Washington D.C. He spent 12 years as a slave until he finally proved who he was and gained his release.
Slave traders sometimes even kidnapped free African Americans and then sold them into slavery. For example, Solomon Northup, a free African American, was kidnapped in Washington D.C. He spent 12 years as a slave until he finally proved who he was and gained his release.
Living Conditions
Enslaved people often endured poor living conditions. Planters housed them in dirt-floor cabins with few furniture and leaky roofs. The clothing given to them was usually simple and made of cheap, rough fabric. Some slaves tried to brighten up their clothing by sewing on designs from old scraps of material. In this way, they expressed their individuality and personalized the clothing that was given to them by the planters.
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Similarly, many slaves did what they could to improve the small amount of food they ate. Some planters allowed slaves to keep their own gardens for vegetables, and chickens for eggs. Other slaves were able to fish or pick wild berries.
Punishment and Slave Codes
Some planters offered more food or better living conditions to make slaves more obedient. However, most slaveholders used punishment instead. Some would punish one slave in front of others as a warning to them all. Harry McMillan recalled some of the punishments he had seen.
“The punishments were whipping, putting you in the stocks [wooden frames to lock people in] and making you wear irons and chain at work. Then they had a collar to put round your neck with two horns, like cows’ horns, so that you could not lie down...Sometimes they dug a hole like a well with a door on top. This they called a dungeon keeping you in it two or three weeks or a month, or sometimes till you died in there.” -Harry McMillan, quoted in Major Problems in the History of the American South, Volume I, edited by Paul D. Escott and David R. Goldfield
In order to control slaves’ actions even more, many states passed strict laws called slave codes. Some laws prohibited slaves from traveling far from their homes. Literacy laws in most southern states prohibited the education of slaves. Alabama, Virginia, and George had laws that allowed the fining and whipping of anyone caught teaching enslaved people to read and write.
“The punishments were whipping, putting you in the stocks [wooden frames to lock people in] and making you wear irons and chain at work. Then they had a collar to put round your neck with two horns, like cows’ horns, so that you could not lie down...Sometimes they dug a hole like a well with a door on top. This they called a dungeon keeping you in it two or three weeks or a month, or sometimes till you died in there.” -Harry McMillan, quoted in Major Problems in the History of the American South, Volume I, edited by Paul D. Escott and David R. Goldfield
In order to control slaves’ actions even more, many states passed strict laws called slave codes. Some laws prohibited slaves from traveling far from their homes. Literacy laws in most southern states prohibited the education of slaves. Alabama, Virginia, and George had laws that allowed the fining and whipping of anyone caught teaching enslaved people to read and write.
Slave Culture
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Many enslaved Africans found comfort in their community and culture. They made time for social activity even after exhausting work days. This made their hard lives easier because they could spend time with their friends and family. |
Family and Community
Family was the most important aspect, or part of slave communities, and many slaves feared separation more than they feared punishment. Josiah Henson never forgot the day that he and his family were auctioned. His mother begged the slaveholder who bought her to buy Josiah, too. The slaveholder refused, and Henson’s entire family was separated. “I must have been then between five or six years old,” he recalled years later. “I seem to see and hear my poor weeping mother now.”
Enslaved parents passed down family histories as well as African customs and traditions. They also told folktales, or stories with a moral, to teach lessons about how to survive under slavery. Folktales often included a clever animal character called a trickster. The trickster- which represented slaves- defeated a stronger animal by outwitting it. Folktales helped slaves survive because it reminded them that they could outsmart their more powerful slaveholders.
Enslaved parents passed down family histories as well as African customs and traditions. They also told folktales, or stories with a moral, to teach lessons about how to survive under slavery. Folktales often included a clever animal character called a trickster. The trickster- which represented slaves- defeated a stronger animal by outwitting it. Folktales helped slaves survive because it reminded them that they could outsmart their more powerful slaveholders.
Religion
Religion also played an important part in slave culture. By the early 1800s many slaves were Christians. They thought they were kind of like the Hebrew slaves in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. According to the story, the Hebrew slaves were chosen by God in ancient Egypt and they had faith that they would someday live in freedom. African American slaves believed this about themselves too. They worshipped in secret so slaveholders would not punish them.
Some slaves sang spirituals, emotional Christian songs that mixed African and European music, to express their religious beliefs. For example, “The Heavenly Road” was about how in the eyes of God, everyone is equal no matter the color of their skin.
“Come, my brother, if you never did pray,
I hope you pray tonight;
For I really believe I am a child of God
As I walk on the heavenly road.” -Anonymous, quoted in Afro-American Religious History, edited by Milton C. Sernett
Some slaves sang spirituals, emotional Christian songs that mixed African and European music, to express their religious beliefs. For example, “The Heavenly Road” was about how in the eyes of God, everyone is equal no matter the color of their skin.
“Come, my brother, if you never did pray,
I hope you pray tonight;
For I really believe I am a child of God
As I walk on the heavenly road.” -Anonymous, quoted in Afro-American Religious History, edited by Milton C. Sernett
Seeds of Rebellion
In small ways, slaves rebelled against the slave system every day. Sometimes they worked slower in order to protest long hours in the fields. Other times they ran away for a few days to get away from an angry slaveholder. Some slaves tried to escape forever, but most left only for short periods, often to go and visit relatives.
Gaining freedom by escaping to the North was hard. If they were discovered, slaves were captured and sent back to their slaveholder, where they would be punished or killed. However, thousands of enslaved people succeeded in escaping.
Gaining freedom by escaping to the North was hard. If they were discovered, slaves were captured and sent back to their slaveholder, where they would be punished or killed. However, thousands of enslaved people succeeded in escaping.
Slave Uprisings
There were not very many slave revolts, but white southerners were scared of them. Two planned rebellions were stopped before they began. Gabriel Prosser planned a rebellion near Richmond, Virginia, in 1800. Denmark Vesey planned one in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1822. Local police killed most of the people who had planned these rebellions. Many people who were against slavery thought Denmark Vesey was a hero even though he was killed for leading the rebellion.
The most violent slave revolt in the country happened in 1831 and is known as Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Nat Turner, a slave from Southampton County, Virginia, believed that God had told him to end slavery. On an August night in 1831, Turner led a group of slaves in a plan to kill all of the slaveholders and their families in the county. First, they attacked the family that held Turner as a slave. Soon they had killed about 60 white people in the community.
More than 100 innocent slaves who were not part of Turner’s group were killed when the white slaveholders tried to stop the rebellion. Turner himself led police on a chase around the countryside for six weeks. He hid in caves in the woods before he was caught and brought to trial. Before his trial, Turner made a confession. He expressed his belief that the revolt was justified and worth his death: “I am willing to suffer the fate that awaits me.” Turner was executed on November 11, 1831. After the rebellion, many states strengthened their slave codes. The new codes placed stricter control on enslaved people. Slavery continued to spread even though the slaves tried to rebel.
The most violent slave revolt in the country happened in 1831 and is known as Nat Turner’s Rebellion. Nat Turner, a slave from Southampton County, Virginia, believed that God had told him to end slavery. On an August night in 1831, Turner led a group of slaves in a plan to kill all of the slaveholders and their families in the county. First, they attacked the family that held Turner as a slave. Soon they had killed about 60 white people in the community.
More than 100 innocent slaves who were not part of Turner’s group were killed when the white slaveholders tried to stop the rebellion. Turner himself led police on a chase around the countryside for six weeks. He hid in caves in the woods before he was caught and brought to trial. Before his trial, Turner made a confession. He expressed his belief that the revolt was justified and worth his death: “I am willing to suffer the fate that awaits me.” Turner was executed on November 11, 1831. After the rebellion, many states strengthened their slave codes. The new codes placed stricter control on enslaved people. Slavery continued to spread even though the slaves tried to rebel.
Summary and Preview: Several groups of African Americans tried to end slavery by rebellion, but they failed. In the next chapter you will read about efforts to change American society.