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Impact of the institution of slavery
The effects of slavery
The effects of slavery
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House slaves usually received clothing allotments that were noticeably better in terms of fabrics and design than that was allotted to field slaves. As Monticello slave Peter Fossett, a house servant, recalled: This was not because slave holders were partial to their house slaves. Rather, slave owners and mistresses were compelled to exude their status in everything that encompassed the big house, including the house slave’s appearance. Type of clothing The casualness or dressiness of a house servant’s attire depended on several factors that included the plantation owner’s financial status, location of the plantation, and the frequency of visitors. Most plantations were so isolated and did not regularly host visitors that on a daily basis. When the slave owner did not entertain house guests, the house servants on these plantations usually were plainly dressed in which female slaves wore plain calico dresses and male slaves wore basic suits that were similarly fashioned to those that white men wore around the plantation. On a plantation that bristled with frequent visitors, house servants were required to dress elegantly on a daily basis. Some of these slaves regarded their clothing as a badge of class that separated them from the field slaves. At Mount Vernon the busy plantation owned by George Washington, house servants dressed …show more content…
Thomas Jefferson’s personal servant, Jupiter, was always dressed to the nines in a similar fashion to his owner. His wardrobe consisted of: Although a rarity, some wealthy slave owners purchased store bought shoes for their house servants. Julia Larken, a former house servant in Georgia, detailed an occasion in which she and another slave were instructed to go the plantation store or nearby general store to obtain one pair of
Slave owners consisted of more than just white males, they also included free blacks, Native Americans, mulattos, immigrants, and women owned slaves. Women, who inherited slaves from their husbands, represented ten percent of the slaveholding class (50). According to Oakes, “the typical master did not really exist” (51), the average slaveholder was about forty-four years old, most likely male and white, and by 1850 almost always native-born in the South
Nonetheless, southern women were often pulled out from their family, constrain to live a miserable life at the husband house and unable to leave their house without an escort, whether is to visit family member often hundreds of miles away. Her husband could often leave the plantation for weeks for business purpose elsewhere in the country, trusting her to run the plantation alone. In the Old South marriage was not standardized, women were forced into arrange marriage often to others family member in other to keep their wealth. The Old South was very much an undemocratic society, built on old-fashioned notions of honor and fortune, and women were captive to this far more than men were. Although they had all the luxury a person could want in the world, despite laws that forbid a woman from owning slaves and the lack of sufficient education, responsibility for managing the entire plantation often fell on her in the absence of her husband. She was responsible for taking care of her home, raise and teach her children. Beyond the fact that she took care of her children’s, she was also required to looks at needs of any slaves her husband may own, stitching their clothes, keeping a lawn to
If there was someone visiting, the slaves, except for those within the house, would be hidden away and those who worked within the master’s home would have nicer clothes and better meals prepared, all in a show for the visitors.
Most slaves in the country, as people well know, worked as field hands and jobs involving the crops and livestock, with the exception of the house slaves. In the city however, slaves worked different types of jobs. “City slaves were typically artisans and craftsmen, stevedors and draymen, barbers and common laborers, and house and hotel servants.” (Starobin 9). Frederick Douglass worked as a house servant and as ...
Slaves during the mid-1800s were considered chattel and did not have rights to anything that opposed their masters’ wishes. “Although the slaves’ rights could never be completely denied, it had to be minimized for the institution of slavery to function” (McLaurin, 118). Female slaves, however, usually played a different role for the family they were serving than male slaves. Housework and helping with the children were often duties that slaveholders designated to their female slaves. Condoned by society, many male slaveholders used their female property as concubines, although the act was usually kept covert. These issues, aided by their lack of power, made the lives of female slaves
Women in America have been described as “domestic household slaves” referring to their status in society. Do the documents support this assertion? If so what is the evidence?
Therefore, nothing was wasted because the old clothing would then be turned into a square in a quilt for the winter. Since there was not central heat a blankets were always a winter necessity (Better Homes and Garden). The women would have get-togethers to exchange fabric, squares or to sew for special occasions. Women used this time to socialize and pass on their abilities and stories to the young girls and women. These gatherings became known as quilting bees (Better Homes and Garden). The wealthy felt that quilting was manual labor and unbecoming of a proper white woman. They paid poor white women to teach the slaves how to quilt (African American Quilts). Most quilts made by slaves were made for the slave owner (African American Quilts). Occasionally, the slave women were able to save enough fabric scraps to make their own quilts (VanNess). Quilting parties, similar to the quilting bee were important social events on the plantations and were enjoyed by men, women, and children. Some plantations did not permit these socials, so the slave women would work the quilts under the safety of the night. Due to the fact slave quilts were made from scraps, and heavily used, relatively few of those personal quilts have survived to be studied today
Many plantation owners were men that wanted their plantation ran in a particular manner. They strove to have control over all aspects of their slaves’ lives. Stephanie Camp said, “Slave holders strove to create controlled and controlling landscapes that would determine the uses to which enslaved people put their bodies.” Mary Reynolds was not a house slave, but her master’s daughter had a sisterly love towards her, which made the master uncomfortable. After he sold Mary he had to buy her back for the health of his daughter. The two girls grew apart after the daughter had white siblings of her own. Mary wa...
The life of a plantation mistress changed significantly once her husband left to join the Southern army. A majority of them stayed right on the land even if they were rich enough to move to a safer place. While there, the women and children would do a plethora of things: plant gardens, sew, knit, weave cloth, spin thread, process and cure meat, scour copper utensils, preserve and churn butter, and dip candles. Another important chore for a plantation mistress was caring for all the slaves. This included providing food, clothing, shelter, and medical care.1 Since money was scarce, "everything was made at home" according to one Southern woman. In a letter to her sister, she added that they "substituted rice for coffee . . . honey and homemade molasses for sugar . . . all we wore was made at home. Shoes also. You would be surprised to see how neat people looked."2 Even a ten-year-old girl wrote in her diary how she would have to go to work to help her mother: "Mama has been very busy to day and I have been trying to help her all I could." This same little girl cooked for her family and cared for her little sister while her mother was busy keeping the plantation alive. 3 Not only did the women stay busy trying to keep...
The ante-bellum south is referred to as the Old South; south of the Cotton Kingdom and plantation slavery. The Old South did not last long but received the term, ‘Old’ in order to distinguish the Old South from the New South. Slavery in the Old South was practiced by the white man to assure subordination of the Negro’s and to determine their status, or ‘place’. The white supremacy view of life, along with the injustices of exploitation can be traced back to the old pro-slavery argument, developed by the Anglo-Saxon (Woodward, 11). Slavery in the Old South required daily interracial contact from both sides of the races such as, supervision, maintenance of order, and physical and medical care of slaves. House servants were a prime example of this type of interracial contact. Bonds of intimacy and affection were also present between races due to house servants living in the same home, attending the same church, and sharing in the family’s conversation (Woodward, 12). House servants were the only slaves to receive this type of association, which overall consisted of a very small proportion. The field hands, however, received the harsher side of slavery. Slavery in the Old South was a ‘system’ in which segregation would only pose an issue, or inconvenience. There also were a few hundred thousand Negroes within the slave states who were free, or quasi-free; not established by slavery. These Negroes received treatment relatively close to slavery, foreshadowing segregation (Woodward, 13).
What difference did it make in a slave’s life if he or she belonged to a great planter or to a small farmer?
Non-slave-owning women clung to the belief that owning slaves would relieve them of domestic chores and transform them into the figure of the Southern plantation mistress. Although wholly exaggerated, the women who did own slaves projected themselves to the rest of the South through the image of the mythical Southern mistress in order to uphold their role in society”
Although all slaves were products of racial views, their living conditions, education, and exposure to ideas differed greatly depending on their social classes and if they lived in a rural or urban setting. There are three different types of social or slave classes. The first class consisted of the city slaves, who were primarily used as domestic labor. They worked around the houses or mansions of their wealthy masters; they were called the aristocrat slaves. The first class slaves could read and write, for they quickly noticed the language in the home setting (Dailylife).
Deborah Gray White in Aren’t I a Woman: Female Slaves in the Plantation South theorizes that black women in the plantation south were the most vulnerable group in early America. These were black women in a white Southern society, slaves in a free American society, and women in a society ruled by men which gave them the least power and the most vulnerability in the plantation south. Their degradation was the result of American stigmas that understood black women as being promiscuous, licentious females who had high birth rates as well as a high pain tolerance. Although black women were seen as a part of the weaker sex, they were not seen as being as not seen as ineffectual. These women were sold for their abilities that include, but are not
The female’s slave stance, while not outwardly hesitant, looks submissive when compared to the more powerful stance the white man takes. She had no power to resist any advances made by her master, since she cannot disobey orders. If the slave on the right and left are both the same female figure, the message could be interpreted as female slaves having a twofold value: sexual value and physical labor value. Beyond these two obvious values, any child from a union between her master and female slave, because of the law stating that children take the status of the mother, would result in more slaves for the master, thus increasing his capital. This law put female slaves even more at risk for being sexually assaulted. The painting distinguishes between two different white men, the wealthy figure on the right, and the working farmer on the left. The title "Virginian Luxuries" could be referring to how the slave trade in Virginia, one of the largest slave holding states, brought satisfaction to all types of people. Wealthy men could have concubines or prostitutes, while farmers could get hard labor to work their farms. However, since many wealthy men in Virginia were plantation owners, the painting could be referring to how the slaves fulfilled both needs for a single