During the Antebellum period, the southern United States was an agricultural based society built on the exhausting labor of approximately 4 million African American slaves. Antebellum in Latin means “before the war” and in historical terms, Antebellum used to describe the period of time before the Civil War and after the War of 1812. Slaves during this time frame were considered property and little to no legal rights. Slaves were a vital part for the southern economy yet put through the most hardship. Apart from the grueling labor the slaves had to perform, the slaveholders made things more difficult by mistreating and abusing the slaves, separating them from their families, and by depriving slaves of their legal rights. Slave owners would …show more content…
They used whips, wooden rods, boots, fists, dogs, and much more to punish the slaves for any type of misconduct regardless of the age or gender of the slave. Threats of separating a slave from family was one of the most feared punishments for slaves. Women were often sexually assaulted or raped by their owners and could not do anything to stand up for themselves. Celia, a slave repeatedly abused and raped by her owner, was hanged and killed for defending herself and killing her master. For five years, Celia has been trying to stand up for herself to avoid being raped but being an African American slave, she could not do anything. When one day she finally killed her master who was about to rape her again, she was sentenced to death because the …show more content…
African Americans were often separated from their families to be put into slavery. Not only did they not get to see their loved ones, but they had to live with the idea of not being able to protect them. This applied especially to the slave men who were incapable of protecting their wives and children from slavery or abuse. John Rudd, a slave who had his mother and brother sold away, said, “If’n you wants to know what unhappiness means, jess’n you stand on the slave block and hear the auctioneer’s voice selling you away from the folk you love.” Slave marriages were illegal in the south and married couples were separated during slave auctions. Henry Bibb writes in his autobiography Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, “When we were about to separate, Malinda clasped my hand exclaiming, ‘oh my soul! My heart is almost broken at the thought of this dangerous separation.’” Some slaves however took risks to keep relationships with their loved ones. They would sneak out and escape to see their families despite the punishment that occurs with it. No one would want to be separated from their families, but slaves during the Antebellum period had no
Antebellum America was commonly thought of as the time of slavery and the divide between the North and South. In the Invention of Wing, Kidd went into great depth to illustrate the everyday struggles of slaves and women by describing the lives of Handful and Sarah. However, despite their significant weight in the book, slaves and women only represents a slice of the antebellum American world. The ones who truly defines America from 1812 - 1860 were the white, anti-abolitionist landowners like Judge Grimké. While they might not be the majority of the population, their wealth and political power dominated the society and ultimately shaped the world into the way it was.
Slave owners were full of themselves, they valued their slaves as domestic
Struggles of slavery in the American south Difficulties of slavery in the American south shows that slave families split up and physical pain was normal life struggles for slaves. ’’In the text Harriet Tubman’’she gets hit by a two pound weight by her overseer because she refused to listen. This shows me that slaves did not get treated well even for their hard work for other people. ‘’
People that owned slaves were mostly planters, yeoman, and whites. A slave is a person who is legal property of another and is forced to obey and that 's exactly what slaves did, they obeyed every command. Slaves were used for a lot of things in the 1800s. Slave women were usually used for cooking, cleaning, and helped with planter’s children.
Many slaves during this time period were looking to escape to the north but only if they could bring their families. In most cases they would have to leave them behind in order to obtain their own
The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South takes a profound look into slavery in America from the beginning. The author, Kenneth Stampp, tells the story after doing a lot of research of how the entire South operated with slavery and in the individual states. The author uses many examples from actual plantations and uses a lot of statistics to tell the story of the south. The author’s examples in his work explains what slavery was like, why it existed and what it done to the American people.
The treatment of slaves between the North and the South was drastically different. Slaves in the North typically lived in the same house as their master and worked by themselves, or in small groups (pg. 94). Slaves in the South tended to live in large plantations in which they were housed in plantation outbuildings (pg. 104). The difference between the North and the South in housing and working environment had a direct effect on the integration of African Americans into their new American society. When they were housed in the North with their masters and had limited exposure to other slaves, they tended to adopt the ways of their masters.
Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. The foundation of America is freedom. Freedom from Britain. However, the freedom is limited to white males who own property. When colonists started to immigrate to America, they wanted to escape from under the rule of Britain.
The impact of slavery on the Old South is a difficult measure to establish because slavery was the Old South. While the popular adage was “Cotton is King,” it was simply a microcosm of the delusion of the day. Truly, slavery was king. Slavery was the growing tension of the time, political catalyst and ironically crux of American power. To the masses, slavery was a social defining stance; the “peculiar institution” to some and a defining moral line to others, American life was changed depending on what view you took of slavery.
Have you ever wondered how life was for the slaves in the South? Slaves in the South suffered through many consequences. For example, they suffered through many whippings with cow skin if they didn't obey their master, they also got separated from their family mostly the fathers, so, they can be sold to a very mean slave owner. Even if they were living a miserable life on the farms, they had their own culture and they managed to even get married in the farmland or where they worked. Not only did the slaves live on the farm.
Slavery, the War on Black Family While slavery in America was an institution that was started over 400 years ago, the affects were so horrific that it is still felt today by modern day African Americans. Many families had to deal with the constant stress of being sold which made it difficult to have a normal family life. Slaves were sold to pay off debts, an owner dying and his slaves were sold in an estate sale, or when an owner’s children would leave the home to begin a life of their own, they would take slaves with them. Often times, children were not raised by their parents, other family members of someone designated to watch the children because the mother and father had to work long hours and the children were too young to join them.
The slaves were often separated from their families. Slaves were treated poorly because in the owner’s eyes the slaves weren’t equal to them. The slaves were “property,” nothing more. Those involved in this situation responded to the adversity with different emotions. (“Civil War”)
“The South grew, but it did not develop,” is the way one historian described the South during the beginning of the nineteenth century because it failed to move from an agrarian to an industrial economy. This was primarily due to the fact that the South’s agricultural economy was skyrocketing, which caused little incentive for ambitious capitalists to look elsewhere for profit. Slavery played a major role in the prosperity of the South’s economy, as well as impacting it politically and socially. However, despite the common assumption that the majority of whites in the South were slave owners, in actuality only a small minority of southern whites did in fact own slaves. With a population of just above 8 million, the number of slaveholders was only 383,637.
For slaves, their lives and value were dictated the plant they labor for and their slave holder philosophy of a slave life expectancy. The slave trade focused with particular intensity on people of “prime age” which being fifteen to twenty five. Slaves were viewed in an animalistic and dehumanized connation. A Mississippi planter John Knight discussed how a planter ideal slave force would be “ half men and half women…young say 16-25,stout limbs, large chests, wide shoulders and hips, etc.”(159) Walter Johnson illustrated “slave labor was a bloody and hierarchical social relation.
Introduction: During the 1800’s, Slavery was an immense problem in the United States. Slaves were people who were harshly forced to work against their will and were often deprived of their basic human rights. Forced marriages, child soldiers, and servants were all considered part of enslaved workers. As a consequence to the abolition people found guilty were severely punished by the law.