Slavery In US
Cruelty can be defined as an inhumane action done
to an individual or
group of people that causes either physical or mental
harm. Slavery, at its very
core, was a cruel and inhumane institution. From
the idea behind it to the way
that it was enforced, it degraded the lives of
human beings and forbade the
basic liberties that every man deserves under
the Constitution of the United
States. Three major areas where cruelty
was especially prevalent were in the
slaves working conditions, living
conditions, and loss of fundamental freedoms.
Working conditions for
slaves were about as bad as can possibly be imagined.
Slaves worked from
dawn till dusk and sometimes even longer. Solomon Northrup
describes his
experience as a slave on his Louisiana plantation: The hands are
required to
be in the cotton field as soon as it is light in the morning and
with the
exception of ten or fifteen minutes, which is given them at noon to
swallow
their allowance of cold bacon, they are not permitted a moment idle
until it
is too dark to see, and when the moon is full, they often times labor
till
the middle of the night (Northrup 15). The slaves lived in constant fear
of
punishment while at work, and it was that fear that drove them to obey.
Northrup
continues to say that, "No matter how fatigued and weary he may
be...a slave
never approaches the gin-house with his basket of cotton but
with fear. If it
falls short in weight—if he has not performed the full task
appointed him, he
knows he must suffer" (10). He goes on to explain that
after weighing,
"follow the whippings" (10). This was not the end of the
workday for a
common slave though. Each slave had his or her own respective
chores to do.
"One feeds the mules, another the swine—another cuts the
wood, and so forth
(Northrop 11). Then there were jobs to do in the slaves’
quarters, jobs that
were necessary for their basic needs and survival:
Finally, at a late hour, they
reach the quarters, sleepy and overcome with
the long day’s toil. Then a fire
must be kindled in the cabin, the corn
ground in the small hand-mill, and
supper, and dinner for the next day in the
field prepared (Northrup 12). The
slaves got very little sleep because, "an
hour before day light the horn is
blown," and it was "an offense invariably
followed by flogging, to be found
at the quarters after daybreak" (Northrup
14). "Then the fears and labors of
another day begin; and until its close
there is no such thing as rest..." (Northrup
14). After an extremely
difficult day of labor, the cruelty continued when the
slaves returned to
housing that could be described as "inadequate" at best.
Jacob Stroyer,
one of fifteen children, was born on a plantation in South
Carolina in
1849. He relates the conditions that his family lived in: Most of
the cabins
in the time of slavery were built so as to contain two families; some
had
partitions, while others had none. When there were no partitions each
family
would fit up its own part as it could; sometimes they got old boards
and nailed
them up, stuffing the cracks with rags; when they could not get
boards they hung
up old clothes (Stroyer 14). Families were forced to live
under less than ideal
conditions, and sleeping was a challenge: When the
family increased the children
all slept together, both boys and girls, until
one got married; then a part of
another cabin was assigned to that one, but
the rest would have to remain with
their mother and father, as in childhood,
unless they could get with some of
their relatives or friends who had small
families, or unless they were sold (Stroyer
14). The hot summer months
made it impossible to sleep indoors so, "when it
was too warm for them to
sleep comfortably, they all slept under trees until it
grew too cold"
(Stroyer 16). Francis Henderson was another slave who, after
escaping from a
slave plantation outside of Washington, D.C. at the age of 19,
described
living conditions on his plantation: Our houses were but log huts- -
the tops
partly open- - ground floor- - rain would come through. My aunt was
quite an
old woman, and had been sick several years; in rains I have seen her
moving
from one part of the house to the other, and rolling her bedclothes about
to
try to keep dry- - everything would be dirty and muddy. I lived in the
house
with my aunt. My bed and bedstead consisted of a board wide enough to
sleep on-
- one end on a stool, the other placed near the fire. My pillow
consisted of my
jacket- - my covering was whatever I could get. My bedtick
was the board itself.
And this was the way the single men slept- - but we
were comfortable in this way
of sleeping, being used to it. I only remember
having but one blanket from my
owners up to the age of nineteen, when I ran
away (Drew 45). These living
conditions caused many to resort to immoral
methods of survival, as Henderson
relates: Our allowance was given weekly- -
a peck of sifted corn meal, a dozen
and a half herrings, two and a half
pounds of pork. Some of the boys would eat
this up in three days- - then they
had to steal, or they could not perform their
daily tasks. They would visit
the hog- pen, sheep- pen, and granaries. I do not
remember one slave but who
stole some things- - they were driven to it as a
matter of necessity. I
myself did this- (Drew 48). Mealtime was far from a
joyous occasion. In
regard to cooking, sometimes many had to cook at one fire,
and "before all
could get to the fire...the overseers horn would sound: then
they must go at
any rate" (Drew 50). Slaves like Henderson "never sat down
at a table to eat
except at harvest time" (50). He says, "This (eating at
harvest time) was
more like people, and we liked it, for we sat down then at
meals," (50). The
slaves did not feel like people for they were treated as
animals. They were
beaten regularly, and most of the time unjustly accused.
Henderson
describes how one of his master’s four sons remained at home to be a
driver.
"He would often come to the field and accuse the slave of having taken
so and
so. If we denied it, he would whip the grown-up ones to make them own
it"
(Drew 51). Though the son would often punish them for idleness, under
the
harsh conditions, idleness is obviously an excusable act. "If any had
been
idle, the young master would visit him with blows" (51). And perhaps the
most
cruel and unmanly act that this master’s son committed was his
mistreatment of
women. Henderson relates that, "I have known him to kick my
aunt, an old woman
who had raised and nursed him, and I have seen him punish
my sisters awfully
with hickories from the woods" (52). Perhaps the most
blatantly cruel and most
obvious element of slavery is the fact that the
slave loses his/her freedom.
Slavery is the possession of another person
as one’s own property, thereby
relieving them of their basic liberties and
freedoms. This total disrespect for
humanity was shown in a variety of ways.
The slave had no rights whatsoever.
Henderson tells about the situation
with the poor white patrols that would pay
the slaves for goods they (the
slaves) stole, and encourage them to steal
whatever they could. Henderson
says, "It's all speculation- - all a matter of
self- interest, and when the
slaves run away, these same traders catch them if
they can, to get the
reward. If the slave threatens to expose his traffic, he
does not care- - for
the slave's word is good for nothing- - it would not be
taken" (Drew 56).
White southerners did not regard slaves as people, and thus
did not treat
them as such. Former slave Josiah Henson wrote an autobiography in
which he
explains the lack of rights afforded to slaves. He describes a scene in
which
his father is being hunted because he attacked the overseer who was trying
to
molest his mother. "The fact of the sacrilegious act of lifting a
hand
against the sacred temple of a white man's body...this was all it was
necessary
to establish. And the penalty followed: one hundred lashes on the
bare back, and
to have the right ear nailed to the whipping- post, and then
severed from the
body" (Henson 32). They eventually captured his father and
inflicted this
penalty. His father was shipped off and for a while his family
lived in relative
peace, until the owner of the plantation died, and they
were forced to leave.
Henson laments that: Our term of happy union as one
family was now, alas! at an
end. Mournful as was the Doctor's death to his
friends it was a far greater
calamity to us. The estate and the slaves must
be sold and the proceeds divided
among the heirs. We were but property- - not
a mother, and the children God had
given her" (Henson 35). Henson further
describes the slave trade experience
with amazing detail, saying: Common as
are slave- auctions in the southern
states, and naturally as a slave may look
forward to the time when he will be
put upon the block, still the full misery
of the event- - of the scenes which
precede and succeed it- - is never
understood till the actual experience comes.
The first sad announcement
that the sale is to be; the knowledge that all ties
of the past are to be
sundered; the frantic terror at the idea of being
"sent south;" the almost
certainty that one member of a family will be
torn from another; the anxious
scanning of purchasers' faces; the agony at
parting, often forever, with
husband, wife, child- - these must be seen and felt
to be fully understood
(35). In an accurate depiction of what an incredible
burden slavery was on
families and how cruel it was, Henson remembers how the
rest of his family
was sold. "My brothers and sisters were bid off first, and
one by one, while
my mother, paralyzed by grief, held me by the hand. Her turn
came, and she
was bought by Isaac Riley of Montgomery County. Then I was offered
to the
assembled purchasers" (Henson 36). Henson’s mother wept profusely and
begged
the man who purchased her to buy him as well, but he simply disregarded
her
and kicked her out of the way. This is a fine metaphor for the way
that
slaves and African-Americans were treated in the early 1800’s. Slavery
was a
cruel institution, and the slaves were treated cruelly. The slaves were
treated
inhumanely. Perhaps Henson sums it up best with his reaction to the
treatment of
his mother at the slave trade: "This was one of my earliest
observations of
men; an experience which I only shared with thousands of my
race, the bitterness
of which to any individual who suffers it cannot be
diminished by the frequency
of its recurrence, while it is dark enough to
overshadow the whole after-life
with something blacker than a funeral pall"
(36).
Bibliography
Drew,
Benjamin. A North-Side View of
Slavery. Boston: 1856. Genovese, Eugene. Roll,
Jordan, Roll: The World
the Slaves Made. New York: Random House, 1972. Halasz,
Nicholas. The
Rattling Chains. N.Y.: Van Rees Press, 1966. Henson, Josiah. Uncle
Tom's
Story of His Life: An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson.
London:
1877. Northrup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of
Solomon Northrup.
Auburn, N.Y: 1853. Roark, James. Masters without
Slaves. New York: Norton and
Company, 1977. Stroyer, Jacob. My Life in
the South. Salem, Mass.: 1898.