Life of a Slave

When Africans arrived in America after they’re long journey on the slave ships they were sold to their new owner. Most were taken to plantations and had to rely on their master for food, clothing and housing. What they were given was not always that sufficient but they dared not complain, because if they did there was the fear of possible whippings or even worse punishments then that so the men and women would just get on with what they had been given to avoid this.

   On plantations there was a designated area for the slaves living quarters. In some of the plantations the plantation owners would have homes ready for the men and women when they arrived but others left that to the men and women themselves. In plantations where the slaves had to build their homes themselves they built them as if they were building a home for themselves back home in Africa, they made them with thatched roofs just like what they were used to back home. But living conditions were very small, with up to and over ten people sharing a home at once it got quite cramped. The beds they sleep on was nothing but a pile of straw on top of a wooden block, if the men and women were lucky enough they would be given one blanket.

    Slaves were very badly fed; the food they were given was very basic, their master would not spend a high amount of money to give the Slaves a better diet.  Most of the Slaves would have worked very long days on the plantations and when it came to cooking food they didn’t have much time to prepare a full meal so most of them would have lived on a diet consisting of mainly fatty meats and cornbread as these were cheap enough to buy and didn’t take too long to prepare, a common way of cooking these foods was to hollow out a pumpkin and use it as a pot.

  When the men and women arrived at their new life as plantation workers or whatever else their master had in line for them to do, they were usually given a pair of shoes and three pieces of clothing each year they worked for their master. The clothes were more often than not too big for the Slaves and were made out of cheap material that was very harsh on the skin and uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time, most of the of the people got used to having these harsh clothing in and just got used to them over time.

   On plantations most of the of the owners allowed for the Slaves to have a rest day, on some plantations this was every Sunday and others it was once a month, these days where the Slaves free days and they spent them making pots and pans for cooking and just relaxing before they had to go back to work on the plantation. But on the very rare plantation the owners never let the slaves have a day off.

Jennifer

http://www.whowaswhoinamericashistory.com/classroom.php
http://www.blackhistory.noaa.gov/civilwar.html
http://www.old-picture.com/civil-war/Working-Slaves-001.htm
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~arihuang/academic/abg/slavery/history.html
http://histclo.com/country/la/car/stlu/hist/sl-hist.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2123695/Steal-away-home-Stunning-portraits-men-women-born-slavery-photographed-seventy-years-Emancipation-Proclamation.html