American+Slaves-Myth+or+Reality



Definition of a Slave: //A slave is a human being who is forced to work for someone else with no pay and is regarded as the property of that person. Slavery is not a job, for the people who are forced into it, its life. Because these people have a difference in their appearance, or culture they are captured. Because they are unique, they are oppressed. They are forced into submission by their master and the whip that they yield. And if they are beaten or killed, no punishments is handed down to their murderer. A cruel way to live... // __What was the lifestyle of slaves in the American south? What was myth and what was truth?__  Sometimes, the hardest part for a slave was right after they were captured. Most slaves were imported to the Americas from Africa. The journey that they had to travel from their home to the new life they were going to have to face was a harsh route to take. They had to deal with the emotional aspect of being captured and having their freedoms stripped away, but also the conditions that they traveled in had deadly impacts on their bodies. Because slaves were considered as no more than animals they were treated as such, possibly even worse. They were crammed together below the decks of the large ships so closely together that movement was nearly impossible. They were forced to row the oars that carried the ships across the treacherous water and if their bodies faltered, they were whipped and scolded. Since some of the slaves often died during the harsh trip, their bodies were given a watery grave in the ocean. Since the slaves were so closely packed together and there was physical contact, disease spread quickly. Water and food were also common, but came in little amounts. The amounts they were given were just enough to keep them alive, not healthy. Many slaves did not survive the passage. At night, they were jammed into such a small space, and the breathing was difficult. One man who had come across a slave ship and fought to free it wrote when they had boarded, "But the circumstance which struck us most forcibly was how it was possible for such a number of human beings to exist, packed up and wedged together as tight as they could cram, in low cells three feet high, the greater part of which, except that immediately under the grated hatchways, was shut out from light or air, and this when the thermometer, exposed to the open sky, was standing in the shade, on our deck, at 89'. The space between decks was divided into two compartments 3 feet 3 inches high; the size of one was 16 feet by 18 and of the other 40 by 21; into the first were crammed the women and girls, into the second the men and boys: 226 fellow creatures were thus thrust into one space 288 feet square and 336 into another space 800 feet square, giving to the whole an average Of 23 inches and to each of the women not more than 13 inches. We also found manacles and fetters of different kinds, but it appears that they had all been taken off before we boarded." If a ship was to sink, the slaves went down with it since their feet were shackled to the ground. It was in this condition which they arrived in America and were traded and sold. Slave owners would cover up the scars or other "defects" with dried mud or put some sort of clothing on them. It is often thought that slaves, since they were regarded so poorly of sold for very little. However, this is a myth. Slaves were considered property and they were a fairly good investment if you owned a cotton plant. They worked all day every day for only the essentials they needed to survive. The money the southerners made because of them was enough that the demand for slaves and their price grew. One lame slave was sold for $695 (around $15,300 today) and a strong healthy slave for $1,600 (around $35,200 today.) People would travel from far away for a slave auction. It was a big event and well advertised before it was put on. In some auction, families where sold together (families consisting of a husband wife and their children), but this rule was more of a suggestion than a code and was easily broken. Often slave’s families were broken apart. When slaves were auctioned off they were put on display and treated like property. White men could come up to them and open their mouths to view their teeth pinch them in various places to feel their muscles, and other such things. They were forced to walk up and down and bend in different manners in evaluation to see if they were worth the money. All this they did without one cry of argument, for the fear of getting beaten. They were forced to face their fate silently. They were put on a stand in front of the crowd full of cruel faces. Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, wrote in one article what he observed. "...The expression on the faces of all who stepped on the block was always the same, and told of more anguish than it is in the power of words to express. Blighted homes, crushed hopes and broken hearts were (sic) the sad story to be read in all the anxious faces." Another myth that was they were commonly beaten. Hollywood--when creating movies about slavery-- tends to exaggerate the amount of beating and harshness. Beatings were used but not as often as many think. When the Underground Railroad was created many slaves started to try and run away. Beatings started to increase in this time period. They often only beat one salve for an example to the others. If you harmed a slave it could possibly damage the work effort they were able to give out. That would damage your income. Slave drivers didn't just go out and beat the slaves because they didn't pick enough cotton or some t hing like that. They only beat them when they thought it was necessary.     

Slaves, had a hard life from the day they were captured from their homes to the day they took their dying breath. However, the extent of there troubles depended on the kindness or cruelty of the master and slave driver who bought them.

Slavery was a part of the United States since the beginning. All thirteen colonies were a part of the action. However, slavery wasn't handled until much later because of political views. Conditions in the South made slavery an economical advantage. Since the soil was fertile and farmers needed the extra farming hands to plant and gather the crops, slavery provided them with an opportunity. They could get the work done without having to pay hardly any wages to the workers. The only pay the slaves received was food and shelter. Some of the luckier slaves, such as house slaves, would live in the house with the masters and would tend to their children and almost become part of their master's family. The field slaves had a much different connection with their master since they really had little to no contact. Slaves would generally get some medical help in order to keep them healthy enough to work, but when slaves started running away the idea that beating them into submission became more well-known and used more often. However, beating your slave would decrease your benefit of how much work they could handle. In the North, because they had shifted from more of an agricultural economy to an industrial one, the need for slaves was in less demand. Although there were still many farms, the growing conditions of the North were much worse than those in the South. Eventually slavery began to die down in the North because of the geographical conditions. In 1789, when the Constitutional Congress met, they formed a compromise to smooth over the issue of slavery. The first part of the compromise was that slaves would only count as 3/5 of a person and second that Congress could not abolish the slave trade until after 1808. However, this compromise did not clarify that individual states could not forbid the slave trade in their states by themselves. So, in 1787, New Jersey and Rhode Island were the first states to do so, and several other states soon followed their example. In 1808, importing slaves was made illegal, and the number of slaves in the remaining slave states began to drop. It did not drop tremendously, however, because at this point there weren't very many slaves left. In fact, had Eli Whitney not invented the cotton gin, slavery may have died out on its own. But with the invention, slave owners were able to harvest quicker and therefore plant more crops. Because they were able to get larger farms they needed workers to plant the crops and sow the ground. So the population of slavery began to grow. Some slaves were imported illegally, but this was a small percent of the slave population. Many slave owners took measures to make sure that their slave women stayed pregnant. Also, slaves took refuge in a strong family, and that usually meant a large one.

From Africa to America: Freedom to Bondage Ellie's Story... Ellie lived in the beautiful, rich green Africa where all you could feel as the heat of the sun beating on your back and you woke up in the morning just in time to see the gazelles moving in beat with each other with the sun steadily rising in the background. Her family, although they were not rich, survived. They were happy and since they had each other. Now she had nothing. She clutched her hand against her heart as the reality of what had happened sunk deeper into her heart. Her thoughts were interrupted by the cruel shout of the man at the bow of the boat. She was snapped back to what she was working on and concentrated on moving her arms back and forth to row the oar to the rhythm of the ocean. Ever since the day that she went out to gather water from the stream a distance away from her small, gentle house her life had been turned upside down. The gentle sway of the ocean lured her back into that fateful day... As she lowered her water pot into the water her arms were ripped to the side and behind her. The river was extremely high today, she thought and tried to grasp unto the pot. She made the mistake of releasing one of her hands in an effort to sustain a grip on the rough clay pot, but the pot fell into the water with a splash and cracked. Then almost the same thing that happened to her head. Suddenly she felt an presence of danger but as she scrambled to get up her attacker forced her face into the water and the air that remained in her lungs was quickly depleted. The blackness began to close in on her with every kick and struggle she made to escape her enemy soon disintegrated into a waste of breath. She knew she would loose but she would not go down without a fight. If these were going to be her last moments then she refused to back down. She had spent her whole life trying to gain her Father's respect and she knew what he would want her to do. Try her hardest, and that is exactly what she was going to do. That's when the being holding her gave her a skull rattling jolt to her head, and then blackness flooded her mind... Since then she hadn't received a decent meal and it was a miracle that she was still alive. The little water they received was bitter, and the air stale from the many beings that were crammed into the small space and the rotting bodies of the sick and dying. Disease spread quickly through the air and physical touch since there was so little space. Movement was near impossible, especially at night when they were wedged together. She had hardly more than thirteen inches to cram her body into and the men only twenty three. She hadn't had a breath of fresh air or seen the sunlight since before she had been aboard the ship. It wasn't uncommon for a slave to die of suffocation, and when they did, if the ships people could get to them there bodies were thrown into the unforgiving sea. "Hey are you okay?" The man next to her whispered as he watched her body wavered from her exertion of energy. She quickly glanced to the white man in the front of their compartment and then back the man. He was about her age, but unlike her, his arms were corded with muscles from years of hard labor. She hadn't seen this man before so she assumed he must have been captured at the last stop the slave ship made. Each new day she was paired with a new slave. Ever since the beginning of her journey of what seemed like an eternity she had been paired with the older people making her chances of survival slimmer. She had to work harder since she was paired with elders that had little to no muscles on their bones to row. She nodded to the man next to her and stared at his arms. He was now doing most of the rowing and even then her strength was still draining, fast. He gave her a worried and a 'you don't look so okay' glance then his eyes dropped to the oar. Ellie regretted making this poor man next to her row with little of her help so she put most of her remaining energy into forcing the oar to obey her and not the sea.

Her head snapped up as the sound of a whip cracked in her ears. "Alright! We are taking a relive stop here!" The white man had a grim line pasted on his face as he walked up and down the isles. A white, lanky boy stumbled down the stairs almost splashing all of the stale water on the floor. The bigger white man shoved the boy in front of him and cussed as the boy went around giving life water back to her and the rest. She carefully passed the pitcher to the man next to her and he barely drank any. "I would drink more. You're going to need it." She told him before taking the pitcher. "I think they need it more." He slightly gestured to the older couple paired up behind them. Ellie was slightly ashamed thinking she should have done the same as him. She blushed and turned her head away from him and waited for the command to start rowing again. The days past and her body weakened, she didn't know how much longer she could survive in these conditions. It was late afternoon when the grating of stones sounded on the bottom of the ship. They had docked, and hopefully this time it was for good. She forced herself not to hope that she might soon be able to get of the ship, if she did, and her hopes were crushed, her spirit would snap in half. Death did not seem like such a bad fate compared to the hell she had had to go through for the past several weeks. But when she thought of the sun her efforts were crumbled and she was hopeful. It was a good thing then that the slave driver came down and row by row pulled the slaves towards the stairs that led to the closest thing they had felt to freedom in a long time. A little of Ellie's will to survive when she was pulled to the ships deck and she couldn't help but give a weak cry of joy. Little did she know that her troubles had only just begun. The next day Ellie and several other slaves were selected out of the slaves that had survived and were forced to walk a mile to the town. She tripped and the man she had been sitting next to earlier grabbed her elbow before her weak legs gave out. "Thanks." She said and then tried to divert her mind off of the man and unto the hardships ahead. The ships captain and several of the slave drivers handed the chain that bound several of them together to a new man in exchange for several silver coins. The new man forced her to wash down and then gave her a simple white shirt and pants. "The better you appear the better you'll sell!" he said with a big laugh and with that he stomped away. The tongue was not her native language so she had a hard time understanding it, but she had a terrible feeling it wasn't good. "He means we are going to be bought by another white man." The man who had sat by her once again spoke. She turned and smiled at him. "Thanks. You know I need to know your name since you seem to be helping me so much." "Kabunda." He said back trying to force a smile on his face, but he was preoccupied with what he knew would become of both him and the sweet girl. She found out the next week when she was put on display in front of a room full of hard faced white men. After seeing the other slaves she had been with being auctioned of and sold, hot tears weld up in her eyes blurring her vision, but she refused to let the tears stream down her face. She had a feeling that these men enjoyed pain and suffering and she wouldn't give them the satisfaction. A hard slap on her back forced her forward until she to was the one being auctioned off. Another man was pushed beside her and bumped into her. She quickly moved over so she wouldn't cause the man any trouble. "These two are being auctioned off as a pair. Both are moderately healthy and are fresh out of the oven," The man laughed sourly at his own joke. "They will supply you with many years of work." Ellie looked to the man standing next to her that was also doomed to the same fate. His jaw was tight and his eyes were narrowed, but he seemed extremely concentrated on something although she couldn't quite put her finger on what it could possibly be. His stiff body showed he was just as overwhelmed as Ellie was. Although Ellie found some comfort seeing as the man was Kabunda. He seemed to have a great amount of knowledge on his side, even though she didn't know where he had obtained it. Then the men from the audience came up and poked, and pinched and stretched her in many ways, examining her to see if she would be adiquit for the hard labor ahead. The same happened for Kabunda, but the mean while his fists were balled up to the sides of him. The sound was overwhelming, the yell of numbers and laughing made Ellie's head spin. She stared straight ahead blocking out the moment. She was guided out without realizing it, glossy eyed and stiff. It was only when the iron that had been bound around her ankles and wrists snapped off and replaced with a rope did she focus back into reality.

Life on the Plantation It had been years since the day she was sold, although it felt longer than that to her. At first the work was unbearable, she was still recovering from the many days deep within the dark heart of the ship when her master put her to work. She was 14 at the time and fortunate enough to be given a job in her masters house. If she had been put to work in the fields, she doubted she would have survived. Sometimes her master would send her out to check on the slaves in the field and she would sneak in morsels of extra food for Kabunda, who over the years had begun to grow extremely fond of her. Every morning when the sun began to peek over the horizon she was woken up and rushed to do her duties. She worked in the kitchen most days scrubbing dishes and preparing food. Sometimes she was needed to tend to the children. Ellie, like this job more than all her other responsibilities. The children were kind to her and although she did not have the full ability to discipline them- because if she was caught being to harsh she would be punished severely- the job was easier and offered her freedom from the cruelness of grown men. She worked her jobs till late at night when she stumbled back to her small hut which she shared with several other slaves. If she was lucky, the women who watched that she was doing her work, would give her a few small loaves of bread to take back to her friends. Her hut was the only comfort in this new life. Not because it was comfortable, but because it was where her "family" was. The hut was a refuge and the people who shared it with her helped her adjust to the new ways. They sung songs with her and shared whatever they could sneak away from the fields with her. She often did not except these gifts however because when she was in the mansion she could look down through the window at her fellow blacks and see them straining there backs to gather the cotton crops and the young men who yielded the whips eager to use it on any one who was disobedient. Everyday the guilt was eating away at her soul. While she was here tending the children and gorging herself with more than a field slave would get in three days, the others were breaking their backs under the harsh, unforgiving whip. She shook her head trying to recapture her wandering thoughts and decided to go and check on the field slaves. Her hollow footsteps echoed through the mansion as a small toddler hung unto her skirt. "Miss Ellie, where are you going?" The small child asked. Innocent eyes staring into hers. It was unimaginable that this small child would soon grow to be a monster like his father. "I'm going to see how the others are doing down in the field, Caleb." She cooed to him then hoisting him up on her hip to hold him. She kept walking as the small toddler toyed with her hair. She took a left turn then two more rights and finally found herself up in her master's office. She gently knocked on the door. "Who is it?" A gruff voice answered from the other side of the cherry oak door. "It's Ellie," She said then quickly added, "Sir." She gently set the child down and watched him skip into the kitchen where Beth was probably cooking. "Alright, come on in." The voice admitted her but remained in the constant monotone he usually used. She gently swayed the door open and looked at the floor. For some reason she could never met her master's harsh, hard eyes. She quietly and meekly walked in and kept her eyes to the floor. "What?" The harsh voice said again. Ellie could feel her master's stare it was so intense. "Sir, I was wondering if you would permit me to check on the field slaves." She replied in such a small voice that he almost couldn't hear her. He didn't respond for a while and all she could do was wait, not daring to ask again. The scrape of the quill against the piece of paper was annoying her. She finally summoned up the courage to ask him again when, "Yes," He dropped his glare, once again concentrating on the paper. "Go check if Dimitri is having any suckles with keeping the rebels more..." He paused as if trying to find the right word. "Controllable." Ellie twitched at the harshness of the word not wanting to know what was really happening in the field. She once again, as she did daily, prayed, thankful she worked in the house. "Yes, sir." She said quickly.

After five more years Ellie had a child with Kabunda, but she died in childbirth. The child was sold despite Kabunda's pleads. <span style="display: block; font-size: 120%; color: rgb(123,82,36); font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; background-color: rgb(249,249,210); text-align: center;"> CONCLUSION: <span style="display: block; color: rgb(123,82,36); font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; background-color: rgb(249,249,210); text-align: center;"> The life of slaves was never a easy life, but some slaves were treated with more respect. Overall slaves were mostly treated as the myths say, but they myths also greatly over exaggerate everything. Slaves weren't beaten often, but yes some were beaten. Slaves, however, were never cheap. Most often the roughest part of the trip would be on the slave ship. Slaves often had various job: some traveled with their masters to explore, some worked out in the cotton fields, some were cooking in the house maintaining the children, and others served as companions.

Sources: [] [] <span style="color: rgb(123,82,36); font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; background-color: rgb(249,249,210);"> <span style="display: block; background-color: rgb(249,249,210); text-align: center;">http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASdomestic.htm http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/slavelife.htm http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/01071/slavelife.htm <span style="display: block; color: rgb(123,82,36); font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; background-color: rgb(249,249,210); text-align: center;">

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