Slavery - Life On The Plantations :: Slavery Essays

knuckle down Life The warm climate, boundless fields of fertile soil, long exploitation seasons, and numerous waterways provided favorable conditions for farming plantations in the southernmost (Foster). The richness of the South depended on the productivity of the plantations (Katz 3-5). With the invention of the cotton gin, expansion of the country occurred. This called for the propagate of slavery (Foster). Slaves, owned by one in four families, were controlled from parenthood to death by their white owners. Black men, women, and children toiled in the fields and houses beneath horrible conditions (Katz 3-5). The slave system attempted to destroy black family grammatical construction and take away human dignity (Starobin 101). Slaves led a disfranchised life on the Southern plantations. Most slaves were brought from Africa, either kidnapped or interchange by their tribes to slave catchers for violating a tribal command. Some were even traded for tobacco, sugar, and oppo site useful products (Cowan and Maguire 518). Those non killed or lucky enough to duck the slave-catching raids were chained together (Foster). The slaves had no understanding of what was happening to them. They were from antithetic tribes and of different speaking languages. Most captured blacks had never seen the white skinned foreigners who came on long, fantastic boats to journey them across the ocean. They would never see their families or native lands again. These unsuccessful people were shackled and crammed tightly into the holds of ships for weeks. Some refused to eat and others committed self-annihilation by jumping overboard (Foster). When the ships reached American ports, slaves were unloaded into pens to be exchange at auctions to the highest bidder. One high-priced slave compared auction prices with another, saying, "You wouldnt capture bout fifty dollas, but Im wuth a one thousand" (qtd. in Foster). At the auctions, potential buyers would examine the captives muscles and teeth. Mens and womens bodies were exposed to look for lash marks. No marks on a body meant that he or she was an obedient person. The slaves were required to dance or jump around to prove their limberness. Young, fair-skinned muttaloes, barely clothed and ready to be sold to brothel owners, were kept in private rooms (Foster). It was bankable to teach the slaves skills so that during the crop off-season they could be hired out to work. Although they were not being paid, some were doing more skilled work than poor whites were.