How Were Slaves Treated?

Fundamentally, a slave is a person who is owned by another person. In the United States, slave-owners exercised total control over their slaves by forcing them into doing demeaning, painful, and dangerous tasks.

Being owned by another person completely diminished the slaves' freedom and humanity. Their lives were not their own to create, and their decisions were not their own to make. Many African Americans spent their entire lives in slavery in the United States, never knowing what it would be like to obtain their own desires and needs rather than execute plans at the hands of oftentimes harsh and ungrateful masters.

Slavery in America has its origins in the 16th century, when Juan Ponce de Leon arrived in Florida in 1513 accompanied by slaves. However, the mass transport of slaves from Africa to the United States started in 1619, when a cramped, filthy Dutch vessel full of stolen Africans arrived in Virginia. The conditions on the ships were unsafe and dangerous, and the Africans were not given enough food or water. In fact, the dead lay amongst the living until the shipmen saw it fit to throw their bodies into the ocean.

From the very beginning, African slaves were treated terribly as they were stolen from their homes and made to endure awful conditions aboard the ship. No doubt exists that these people were horrified and frightened of what lay ahead. Between 1500 and 1900, approximately 12 million Africans were forced out of their homes and transported to various areas in North America to serve as slaves.

In the early stages of slavery in the United States, both the northern and southern states held slaves. However, by 1830, slavery existed for the most part, only in the south.

Slave Treatment

Degrading Tasks

Slaves were not allowed to better themselves or to strive for their own goals. For many of them, their days consisted of slaughtering animals, digging ditches, cutting wood and bringing it back to the house, planting and harvesting crops, and performing any repairs that needed to be done on the plantation or home. Women often performed tasks such as cooking and sewing. Furthermore, they frequently had to take care of the children of the house, as opposed to looking after and raising their own children.

Perhaps these tasks do not seem dreadful at first glance. Many present day farmers engage in the same labors. However, imagine working in a hot field in the south from sunrise to sunset without being allowed to stop for a drink of water or a bathroom break when needed. From that perspective, the situation is awful and totally dehumanizing. Furthermore, those who worked in the home were forever under the eyes of their masters, and had absolutely no privacy.

Food

Slaves absolutely did not receive proper nutrition, particularly for the physically straining tasks that they worked. Since they worked all day and into the night without receiving wholesome and well-rounded meals, their immune systems suffered. They also became part of a vicious cycle. Without the proper nutrients and energy, people cannot work under such intense conditions. However, if they did not follow their master's orders exactly, they were whipped and beaten.

Slaves who worked inside the home sometimes received better meals since they had more access to food. Still, they were operating on someone else's clock. Even if they were eating with the family, they were most likely attending to one of the family member's needs.

Health

Closely associated with their inadequate diets were problems with their health. The high temperatures and rates of humidity were dangerous for everyone living in the south, but particularly the blacks because they performed back-breaking labor in the conditions. When a slave got sick, he or she was not treated immediately, if at all.

On rice plantations, slaves were forced to stand in water in the burning sun for hours at a time, and malaria was often the consequence. Children suffered immensely, and child mortality rates on rice plantations were around 66%.

Sexual health was also a serious problem for women. Slave masters often raped the slave woman. No protection was used, and they did not have access to medical care. Therefore, in addition to the emotional scars, the slave women were at high risks for contracting diseases from these slave masters.

The Sale of Slaves

When slaves misbehaved, or when the owners were going through a time of economic hardship, the slaves were threatened with being sold. Being sold was horrible for them because they were often separated from their families. Slave masters allegedly tried to keep mothers and their children together; however, that practice was not always put into play. Once a slave was sold, they lost much of their hope that they would ever see any of their family ever again. The psychological impact was immense because of the loss of family, and because masters used the threat of sale as a tool of manipulation.

Denying the Treatment

Revealing the conditions as to how were slaves treated should be a disturbing process. However, some argue that certain slave masters treated their slaves "well" by giving them money or allowing them some free time. Others say that too often the portrait is of a large plantation with many slaves working in a cramped area and that many homes with slaves were not like that. Yet at the heart of the matter is the undeniable cruelty of being forced into giving up one's home, country, family, friends, and ambitions to serve at the hands of a racist master.