In the comments box, please answer any one of the questions listed below in a short paragraph. Also respond to two additional posts over the course of the week.
1.
2. What were some of the specific features of slave labor in agricultural communities? How was it different from the work house servants and skilled slaves performed? How was it different from the work urban and industrialized slaves performed?
3. How and why were slaves punished?
4. How did the domestic slave trade effect the family structures in slave communities? How did it effect the diet and health of slaves?
5. Describe the conflicts that the section "The Character of Slavery and Slaves" articulates.
There are several charts from the book that may add context to the questions.
3. How and why were slaves punished?
ReplyDeleteSlaves were punished in a multitude of harsh and inhumane ways. Slaveholders often punished enslaved peoples through whippings, burnings, beatings, hangings, and imprisonment amongst other methods. These acts of "discipline" were often times implemented in response to disobedience (however that was defined) or just to reassert authority or fear over their slaves.
Slaves would be punished by slave owners for "misbehaving". Which includes not listening to the slave owner, not working enough, or sometimes for a power trip by an overseer or the slave owner. They were punished by flogging, shackling, hanging, burning, beating, imprisonment, and mutilation.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 3
DeleteIn agricultural communities, slave labor was mostly field work. Although there were slaves who did domestic work in the homes of their masters, many did manual labor outside, tending to whatever cash crop (cotton, tobacco, or rice) that their particular plantation produced. The work of house servants and skilled slaves was usually less intense physically and these workers were not typically physically abused to the extent of those working in the fields, but they had to deal with the constant oversight of their master and his family. Slaves working in urban areas sometimes hired themselves out and gaining freedom from their work. Others worked in Southern factories, producing textiles, chewing tobacco, iron or lumber.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 5:
ReplyDeleteThis section describes how scholars have compared slavery in the American south with slavery in Latin America and found that slaves had more protection against their masters and less racism in Latin America because of the routes to freedom,through self purchase, and the wider acceptance of interracial marriage.
This section also discusses how certain historians portrayed slavery as a "paternalistic institution in which slave holders cared for largely content slaves", which is completely false. Historians such as Ulrich Phillips argued that enslaved African Americans were content with being enslaved because it was a fact of life for African Americans at this time. Historians have also argued that rather than dehumanizing black people, slavery led them to create institutions, which allowed control over their lives.
Slave punishment was often done without reason; these beatings would include whippings,public humiliation, burning, amputation of body parts, rape and hanging. The slaves could encounter these punishments by being tired, looking at their master a certain way, talking poorly of the master, or just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. These acts of cruelty were in my opinion, what helped keep t slavery around for 200 plus years.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 4
ReplyDeleteThe diets and health of slaves during the slave trade were poor in all aspects. The physical, emotional, and psychological state of a slave were completely shattered due to the poor conditions on slave ships and the torment that slaves saw and received on a daily bases.
4. How did the domestic slave trade effect the family structures in slave communities? How did it effect the diet and health of slaves?
ReplyDeleteThe domestic slave trade separated families, slave owners in the North didn't want to take care of slaves that became free. Slaves became free at the age of 28 and if slave owners didn't trade them they would be taking care of the free slave, so instead they traded with the south. The diet and health of slaves was very poor. They were malnourished due to the lack of food they received.
How did the domestic slave trade effect the family structures in slave communities? How did it effect the diet and health of slaves?
ReplyDeleteThe domestic slave trade effect the family structures in slave communities by separating the family in two ways. The first way was by the slave owner selling the slaves. The owner did not care about the family structure of the slaves so they did not care about how the selling of one slave effect the other slaves. The second way was by inside the plantation. Not every slave had the same job, some slaves had to work in the house other had to work in the fields. By them being separated then the slaves wouldn't be connected to their family. This effected the slave's diet and health in a negative correlation.