African American Slavery In The 19th Century

Throughout history, African Americans both free and enslaved were not treated equally nor permitted with the same rights as white men. African Americans were enslaved and not allowed to vote or hold public office. Since around the 15th century African Americans have been treated worse than other races, some even experienced brutal punishment for justifiable mistakes. The use of African American slave labor was an enormous contribution to agriculture and labor. It became a part of southern state’s economy within America. African Americans were forced or born into slavery where they endured harsh working conditions with zero pay and often times were punished by their masters. Even slaves that became emancipated or paid for their freedom were
The Barbados islands became known for sugarcane where the average sugar baron owned around 115 slaves to produce the sugar. Slaves were exploited to work on the sugar plantations, to give illustration, “ … work on a sugar plantation was a life sentence to brutal, unremitting labor. Slaves suffered high death rates.” The islands literally worked slaves to death in order to produce sugar, which in turn made plantation owners very wealthy. As Barbados’ agriculture grew larger so did the economy. This placed a higher demand on slavery; “the cultivation of sugar demanded even more intensive labor than tobacco did, the demand for slaves was extremely high, and slavery developed more rapidly.” As outlined above slaves were discriminated from other races and were forced into doing hard labor. Slave labor grew the Barbados Island sugar cane production by expanding not only their revenue, but the amount of slaves that worked for the
Indentured servants were similar to slaves, but differed in the amount of time they could work. Thus, indentured slaves were only seen as a temporary relief. Although freedom was their main goal, “before 1660 some were held as slaves for life, but others worked as servants. Additionally, others either were given their freedom or were able to purchase it.” Although at first there was an increase in the use of indentured servants, this quickly diminished. Slave owners began to see the slave labor as a better option due to the ability to overwork these types of slaves and avoid restriction laws that were commonly used with the indentured slaves. In turn slaveholders throughout the south began switching to slaves in order to get as much work out of them as possible. Furthermore, slaves were considered property. This meant they were bought and sold as needed for however long the slave owner wished or paid for. Planters, amongst others, worried more about the amount of crops they produced rather than the health of the slaves and frequently placed the slaves in awful living conditions as well as