The UofV system also makes it possible to generate maps that show graphically the proportion of slaveholding households in a given county. This is particularly useful in revealing political divisions or disputes within a state, although it takes some practice with the online query system to generate maps properly.
Here are county maps for all eleven Confederate states, with the proportion of slaveholding families indicated in green -- a darker color indicates a higher density: Alabama , Arkansas , Florida , Georgia , Louisiana , Mississippi , North Carolina , South Carolina , Tennessee , Texas , Virginia , All States.
Note: these links often don't run run the map-generating scripts properly, so be patient and click gently. Observers will note that the incidence of slaveholding was highest in agricultural lowlands, where rivers provided both transportation for bulk commodities and periodic floods that replenished the soil, and lowest in mountainous regions like Appalachia.
The map of Virginia , in particular, goes a long way to explaining the breakup of that state during the war. You don't have to talk to a Confederate apologist long before before you'll be told that only a tiny fraction of butternuts owned slaves.
This is usually followed immediately by an assertion that the speaker's own Confederate ancestors never owned slaves, either. The number ascribed to Confederate soldiers as a whole varies—two percent, five percent—but the message is always the same, that those men years had nothing to do with the peculiar institution, they has no stake in it, and that it certainly played no role whatever in their personal motivations or in the Confederacy's goals in the war. But it's simply not true in any meaningful way.
Slave labor was as much a part of life in the antebellum South as heat in the summer and hog-killing time in the late fall. Southerners across the Confederacy, from Texas to Florida to Virginia, civilian and soldier alike, were awash in the institution of slavery. They were up to their necks in it. They swam in it, and no amount of willful denial can change that. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. Many plantations raised several different kinds of crops. Besides planting and harvesting, there were numerous other types of labor required on plantations and farms.
Enslaved people had to clear new land, dig ditches, cut and haul wood, slaughter livestock, and make repairs to buildings and tools. In many instances, they worked as mechanics, blacksmiths, drivers, carpenters, and in other skilled trades.
Black women carried the additional burden of caring for their families by cooking and taking care of the children, as well as spinning, weaving, and sewing. Some slaves worked as domestics, providing services for the master's or overseer's families. These people were designated as "house servants," and though their work appeared to be easier than that of the "field slaves," in some ways it was not. They were constantly under the scrutiny of their masters and mistresses, and could be called on for service at any time.
They had far less privacy than those who worked the fields. Because they lived and worked in such close proximity, house servants and their owners tended to form more complex relationships.
Black and white children were especially in a position to form bonds with each other. In most situations, young children of both races played together on farms and plantations. Black children might also become attached to white caretakers, such as the mistress, and white children to their black nannies.
Because they were so young, they would have no understanding of the system they were born into. But as they grew older they would learn to adjust to it in whatever ways they could. The diets of enslaved people were inadequate or barely adequate to meet the demands of their heavy workload.
They lived in crude quarters that left them vulnerable to bad weather and disease. Their clothing and bedding were minimal as well. Slaves who worked as domestics sometimes fared better, getting the castoff clothing of their masters or having easier access to food stores. The heat and humidity of the South created health problems for everyone living there. However, the health of plantation slaves was far worse than that of whites.
Unsanitary conditions, inadequate nutrition and unrelenting hard labor made slaves highly susceptible to disease. Illnesses were generally not treated adequately, and slaves were often forced to work even when sick. The rice plantations were the most deadly. Black people had to stand in water for hours at a time in the sweltering sun.
Malaria was rampant. One of the worst conditions that enslaved people had to live under was the constant threat of sale. Even if their master was "benevolent," slaves knew that a financial loss or another personal crisis could lead them to the auction block. Also, slaves were sometimes sold as a form of punishment. And although popular sentiment as well as the economic self-interest on the part of the owners encouraged keeping mothers and children and sometimes fathers together, these norms were not always followed.
Over this same period, however, former slaveholding families have built their legacies on the institution and generated wealth that African-Americans have not had access to because enslaved labor was forced. Segregation maintained wealth disparities , and overt and covert discrimination limited African-American recovery efforts. Economists and historians have examined detailed aspects of the enslaved experience for as long as slavery existed.
My own work enters this conversation by looking at the value of individual slaves and the ways enslaved people responded to being treated as a commodity. They were bought and sold just like we sell cars and cattle today. They were gifted, deeded and mortgaged the same way we sell houses today. They were itemized and insured the same way we manage our assets and protect our valuables. Enslaved people were valued at every stage of their lives, from before birth until after death.
Their values decreased on a quarter scale from three-fourths hands to one-fourth hands, to a rate of zero, which was typically reserved for elderly or differently abled bondpeople another term for slaves. For example, Guy and Andrew, two prime males sold at the largest auction in U.
Slavery was an extremely diverse economic institution, one that extracted unpaid labor out of people in a variety of settings — from small single-crop farms and plantations to urban universities. This diversity was also reflected in their prices. Robert E. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Myth 1: There were enslaved Irish people in the American colonies.
0コメント