How Slaves Were Treated
Clay Kansteiner
English-III
How Were The Slaves Treated? A slave is a person who is owned by another person. Slave owners had total control over their slaves by forcing them into doing hard, painful, and dangerous work. Being owned by another person completely destroys the slave’s freedom. Many African Americans spent their entire lives in slavery, never knowing what it would be like to live their own life, rather than work and obey orders given by harsh and ungrateful masters. Slaves were not allowed 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, driving the owner anywhere they want, planting and harvesting crops, and performing any repairs that needed to be done on the plantation, if they refused they were beaten. A few slaves retaliated by murdering their owners, burning barns, killing horses, or work really slow. Slaves absolutely did not receive proper nutrition, especially for the physically tasks that they worked. Since they worked all day and into the night without receiving well rounded meals, their immune systems were not so good. Without the proper nutrients and energy, people cannot work under such intense conditions. The weekly food ratio for a slave would be 3lbs of meat, a pack of corn mill, maple syrup, and buttermilk. However, if they did not follow their master's orders exactly, they were whipped and beaten. When slaves misbehaved they were threatened with being sold. Being sold was horrible for them because they were often separated from their families. Most slave sales were either whole families or individuals at an age when it would have been normal for them to leave the family. Slave masters tried to keep mothers and their children together but that would not always happen. Once a slave was sold, they probably would never see any of their family ever again. But some slave masters treated their slaves well by giving
English-III
How Were The Slaves Treated? A slave is a person who is owned by another person. Slave owners had total control over their slaves by forcing them into doing hard, painful, and dangerous work. Being owned by another person completely destroys the slave’s freedom. Many African Americans spent their entire lives in slavery, never knowing what it would be like to live their own life, rather than work and obey orders given by harsh and ungrateful masters. Slaves were not allowed 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, driving the owner anywhere they want, planting and harvesting crops, and performing any repairs that needed to be done on the plantation, if they refused they were beaten. A few slaves retaliated by murdering their owners, burning barns, killing horses, or work really slow. Slaves absolutely did not receive proper nutrition, especially for the physically tasks that they worked. Since they worked all day and into the night without receiving well rounded meals, their immune systems were not so good. Without the proper nutrients and energy, people cannot work under such intense conditions. The weekly food ratio for a slave would be 3lbs of meat, a pack of corn mill, maple syrup, and buttermilk. However, if they did not follow their master's orders exactly, they were whipped and beaten. When slaves misbehaved they were threatened with being sold. Being sold was horrible for them because they were often separated from their families. Most slave sales were either whole families or individuals at an age when it would have been normal for them to leave the family. Slave masters tried to keep mothers and their children together but that would not always happen. Once a slave was sold, they probably would never see any of their family ever again. But some slave masters treated their slaves well by giving