SOURCE C: An extract from a newspaper article explaining the experiences of slaves when they arrived in their new destination. Flashcards
Determine what kind of source it is?
Extract from a newspaper article
Find out when the source was created?
2004
Determine the context in which the source was created?
It’s a secondary source, as Boston has written from his perspective on the topic of Slaves. He never experienced slavery himself though, and he is writing about the past.
Find out who created the source?
Nicholas Boston
Which history subtopic does this source relate to?
Working conditions during the Industrial Revolution
How many slaves were in small farms two decades before the Civil War?
20-30
What two types of slaves were there?
field slaves and house slaves
What did the two types of slaves do?
The vast majority of plantation slaves labored in the fields, while a select few worked at domestic and vocational duties in and around the owners’ houses.
What were the Weekly food rations?
Weekly food rations – usually corn meal, lard, some meat, molasses, peas, greens, and flour – were distributed every Saturday.
Morning meals were prepared and consumed at daybreak in the slaves’ cabins. The day’s other meals were usually prepared in a central cookhouse by an elderly man or woman no longer capable of strenuous labor in the field. Recalled a former enslaved man: “The peas, the beans, the turnips, the potatoes, all seasoned up with meats and sometimes a ham bone, was cooked in a big iron kettle and when meal time come they all gathered around the pot for a-plenty of helpings!”
How was clothing distributed?
Clothing, distributed by the master, usually once a year and often at Christmastime, was apportioned according sex and age as well as to the labor performed by its wearer. Children, for instance, often went unclothed entirely until they reached adolescence.
Where did slaves live?
Most slaves lived in similar dwellings, simple cabins furnished sparely.
What were the relationships between the slaves?
The relationships of slaves with one another, with their masters, with overseers and free persons, were all to a certain extent shaped by the unique circumstances of life experienced by each slave. House slaves, for example, sometimes came to identify with their masters’ interests over those of fellow slaves. Female house slaves, in particular, often formed very close attachments to their mistresses. On the other hand, girls who waited upon tables could serve the slave community as rich sources of information, gossip, and warnings.
What were slaves limited to?
In many colonies, slaves could not participate in wage-earning trade or labor. In others they were denied the right to own property. The slave’s resulting dependence on his or her master for the most basic necessities – food, clothing, shelter – was integral to the preservation of the master’s power and the sustaining of the slave society.
Which type of slaves were more favourable?
Slaves who lived in urban areas, estimated in the early nineteenth century at less than six percent of the entire enslaved population, generally existed under more favorable conditions than their rural counterparts.
Were the urban slaves stronger than the rural slaves?
The urban enslaved performed comparatively less arduous physical labor – in shipyards, brickyards, cotton presses and warehouses.
wherever urban slaves were put in a group to major construction projects, their living conditions sharply deteriorated, closely approximating those of their counterparts in rural areas.
