What Was Life Like for Enslaved People on the Plantations?

What was life like for enslaved people on the plantations?
In the 1400s to the 1900s, many Americans asked for slaves in exchange for American goods, and forced them to work on their fields for no money at all. The Americans treated the Africans cruelly, and were extremely violent with their punishments. The slaves were taken to a variety of places in The New World, such as the West Indies and South America (Ms. Jones 2013). In this essay, I will be finding the answer to the question “What was life like for enslaved people on the plantations?” while using a range of resources to guide me throughout the essay.

On the plantations, people of all ages were forced to work about 18 gruelling hours a day, going to sleep at midnight and waking up at 4am. The only thing that jobs were based on was the age of the slaves. Enslaved children were allowed to do easier jobs, such as feeding chickens, scaring crows away. (library.thinkquest.org 26/4/13) However, when those children grew up to the age of 12, they would have to start doing jobs similar to an adults. These ranged from being field hands-this meant that you worked on the plantations as pickers or planters-to house slaves-working inside the home as a butler, or as a servant, doing the laundry and making dinner. Finally, when the slave was considered too old to help out on the fields, they were given the job of minding toddlers or small children. (cliffsnotes.com 26/4/13)

Living conditions in the plantations were certainly very squalid. Usually about 10 people would live in a hut with absolutely no protection whatsoever against strong winds. In the huts, the slaves would sleep on a dirt floor, with no beds, except for a coarse blanket. In the hut, it would be scorching hot in the summer, while freezing cold in the winter. (americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu 26/4/13) Sometimes, slaves were given cooking utensils, but usually they had to make their own. Most slave owners did not spend much money on their slaves, so they had to deal with fatty meat or cornbread instead. Luckily though, a few slave owners were very kind and caring towards their slaves. These kind slave owners gave them a small plot of land to grow their own crops in their own free time, which would be either once or month, or if the owner was extremely kind-every Sunday. (www.historyonthenet.com 27/4/13)

Punishments were often given to slaves in order to remind them not to do bad things. Punishments were for theft, being absent from work, working too slow, running away etc, and consisted of neck rings, whipping, beatings, confinement, chopping off some body parts, or even death. Normally, some punishments were connected with certain cities. These punishments were given to slaves in front of many other slaves to make them too afraid to rebel. (spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk 28/4/13)

One source that I have used is Historyonthenet.com. This source is fairly reliable, as the purpose of it is to teach people about all kinds of history. HOwever, there was not much information on the site, so it did not provide a lot of use. It did not go into detail about the living conditions of the slaves, only basic facts and information. This showed its lack of detail, even though it is a rather reliable site. Another thing about the website, is that it did not give much evidence such as quotes, it gave many pictures instead, which weren’t labeled with a caption so noone would know where the picture had come from.

In the 1400s to the 1900s, many Americans asked for slaves in exchange for American goods, and forced them to work on their fields for no money at all. The Americans treated the African slaves very badly, giving them terrible living conditions and working hours. They made people of all ages work, and punishing them regularly.

I used many different sources to research in this essay, using one or two different sources in each paragraph. It took about 2 days to completely finish researching, and I feel that my research has been done successfully, because I spent a lot of time and effort on it. To answer the research question, I broke my research up into 3 main categories: jobs, punishments and living conditions so as to make researching easier.

Bibliography
Name Date accessed
Ms. Jones 2013 library.thinkquest.org 26/4/13 cliffsnotes.com 26/4/13 americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu 26/4/13 www.historyonthenet.com 27/4/13 spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk 28/4/13

Bibliography: Name Date accessed Ms. Jones 2013 library.thinkquest.org 26/4/13 cliffsnotes.com 26/4/13 americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu 26/4/13 www.historyonthenet.com 27/4/13 spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk 28/4/13