Difference Between Northern And Southern Slavery

Northern Workers vs. Southern Slaves Throughout the antebellum period, people were working hard in both the northern and southern United States. In the north, many people were working long hours in factories. In the south, African American slaves were also working sun up to sun down. Some of the conditions northern workers and southern slaves experienced were similar, but there were also much worse conditions that African American slaves had to deal with. One of the conditions that both African American slaves in the south and people working in the north had to deal with was poor housing. According to our text book, Visions of America, some plantation owners would build houses for their slaves that were sturdier, sometimes made of brick.
Visions of America says sometimes African American slaves who were married would have different masters and live on different plantations. After a couple was married, they were not allowed to move to one plantation and live together. Each slave remained on their own plantation. Sometimes they were allowed to visit each other, but that required getting permission from the masters. Since the couple’s children lived with their mother, the father might only see his family once a week. Slaves could also be sold at any point which split families up. Often times they would not see each other ever again. Workers in the north were also sometimes separated from their family. Workers in the north had it easier though. They were usually voluntarily separated and the separation was not permanent. According to Visions of America, mill owners tried to recruit young, single women from New England. A document called Mary Paul, Letters Home (1845, 1846) in our text book Voices of The American People, is a compilation of letters that Mary Paul, a worker in the Lowell mills, wrote to her father who was still in New Hampshire. In one of her letters Mary says “Dear Father…We found a place in a spinning room and the next morning I went to work. I like it very well…”. While Mary appears like she is happy to have been able to go work at the mills, I imagine it was still
Slave masters could choose to punish their slaves however the decided. Some of these punishments included selling the slave so that they were no longer living with their family or making the slave change jobs. Another punishment was being whipped. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass describes the whipping of his Aunt Hester who had disobeyed her master by going out and meeting a man. Douglass says “Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back, entirely naked…he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon warm, red blood (amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came dripping to the floor.” This type of punishment was something people working in the north did not have to worry