A Slavery in the Antebellum Period

Basically, it was located in southern regions, and this is where it had a variety of forms. People were enslaved on large plantations, small farms, cities, houses, in the fields, different industries, etc. It’s true that slavery had many faces, but its key concepts were the same. The main one is that slaves were property only because of their skin color, and this kind of status was enforced by threatened and actual violence. It’s no wonder their lives took different forms that should be considered when studying this subject.

The Most Important Slavery Concepts

It’s obvious that slaves and masters hated one another, but some of them managed to care for each other. However, their caring was limited by some certain power imbalance. If you consider slavery and its narrow confines, you will understand that human relationships turn from compassionate to contemptuous, but they never approached equality.

The common imagine of this type of slavery is that there were many slaves on large plantations, but this situation was rare. Keep in mind that most Southern white people didn’t have any slaves and they were yeoman farmers. This means that the slavery institution didn’t help them much. When it comes to non-slaveholding people who lived in this region, they still defended this institution for different reasons. As an example, some of them resented the power of large slaveholders and they wanted to own slaves to join this privileged class. Another important fact is that slavery provided them with a feeling of their superiority.

The Main Responsibility of Slaves

Most of them worked and lived on cotton plantations because cotton was the leading cash crop, but they also raised sugarcane, rice, corn, etc. The main reason is that most plantations raised a variety of crops at once. Besides harvesting and planting, slaves had other jobs on farms and plantations, including clearing new land, hauling and cutting wood, digging ditches, making different repairs, and so on. They also worked as drivers, mechanics, carpenters, blacksmiths, and in other similar industries.

Black women had their extra burden of taking care of their relatives because they needed to cook, raise children, weave, spin, sew, and do other things. Some slaves worked as standard domestics so that they provided masters with specific services and they were house servants. However, they all were under the control of their masters and could be called to do their work at any time. Serving slaves had less privacy than those who did their job in the field.