Slave Working Conditions

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There were many differences between the working conditions of slaves in the south before the American Civil War. Slaves worked as field hands, butlers, waitresses, nurses, dairymaids, gardeners, carpenters, and shoemakers. Some slaves even worked as engineers, blacksmiths, and weavers, as well as house workers from cooks to coachmen. In the south numerous slaves were employed as unskilled laborers and skilled craftsmen. The working conditions for a slave were usually determined by the type of job they occupied or the location of where they worked. Slaves were property and near the start of the war masters put extreme emphasis on making sure slaves knew the difference between slave and owner. Slaves were kept in line with violence and threats. Blacks had to work through a life of incessant tedious continuous labor, severe punishment, and the fear that their families would be separated by sale. …show more content…
They were barley clothed and housed poorly. Slaves that worked inside the home were sometimes better off because they were given handy downs and had more assess to food. Their field counterparts had to work in the southern heat where diseases thrived on the humid weather. Even though the slave trade was closed and whites became augmented with their slave’s health, disease ran rampant through the slave community. Slaves that worked on the sugar fields had to endure some of the harshest work conditions, requiring slaves to work all day in order to harvest the sugarcane before it spoiled. Slaves that worked in the field were forced to work from first light to sundown, with small breaks for meals. Slaves had to work quickly if they wanted any leisure time to hunt, relax and tend to their

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way of life in the South, where it existed in many different forms. Across the South slaves represented one third of the population with the largest plantations in the deep South, where 25% of slaves lived on slaveholdings of between one and nine slaves, 50% of slaves lived on a slaveholding of between ten and forty slaves, and the other 25% lived on slaveholdings with more than 50 slaves. The experience of slaves varied as this was dependant on their type of work and their owners. It is argued by…

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