Slavery: Slavery in the United States and Slaves Essay examples

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Elyse Beckwith
History Book Project
1-2-13
Slavery By: William Dudley

I read the book Slavery By,William Dudley. This book had so many interesting facts that I didn’t know about slavery. You would think that this topic is so broad but really you can learn so much from it! I do recommend this book if you are interested in learning about slaves and the intricate details of their lives. At the time of the American revolution, slavery was a national institution. The number of slaves were small and they lived and worked in every colony. The states in the North were abolishing or passing laws about slavery. Around 1820, slavery was concentrated in the tobacco-growing areas of Virginia, North Carolina, and Kentucky. Also along the the coasts of South Carolina. By 1860, it had expanded in the deep South and down to Texas. There was a time period known as the Cotton Kingdom. Cotton production was originally limited because separating the seeds from the fiber of the plant that grew in the South was very time-consuming. Very little of the slaves were domestic servants, which is working in a planter’s house as cooks or nurses, seamstresses or a coachmen. An even smaller amount worked as laborers or craftsmen. Sometimes owners of the slaves would have what they called “spare” slaves, which they would use to become mill or factory workers. But sadly, most of the slaves were field hands, picking cotton and planting and harvesting rice, tobacco, and sugar cane. If they didn’t do as they were told their masters would use whips to whip them until they did. The expense to planter for housing, clothing, and feeding slaves was considerably less than the value they produced. As cotton production expanded and the demand for slaves increased, their prices rose accordingly. The highest prices were paid for “prime field hands,” usually healthy young men in their late teens and twenties, but women with like agricultural skills were often sold for the same amounts. There were many sections. One is called planters. These were people who owned twenty or more slaves to work plantations of about a thousand acres. Another is called Yeoman Farmers. This was the largest single group of southern whites who were family farmers. These people praised by Thomas Jefferson was considered the backbone of a free society. There were the poor whites. They were considered the “hillbillies”, “white trash”, “clay eaters”, or “crackers”. They just barely survived as subsistence farmers. There were also the free blacks in the south. Blacks who were able to buy their freedom or were freed by their masters, a practice outlawed throughout the South during the 1830’s, were in a strange place in society. A work day for the slaves consisted of sixteen
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