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Slavery was a deeply rooted institution in North America that remained legal in the United States until It took the abolition movement, a civil war, and the ratification of the 13th amendment to end slavery. Though it did not end racism and descendants of these people are still struggling with discrimination today. Use these resources to teach more about significant figures in the abolition movement, the causes of the Civil War, and how slavery sustained the agricultural economy in the United States for centuries.
While Africans in colonial America held very little social or political power, their contributions supported the Southern colonies and led to their eventual prosperity. Although slavery ended earlier in the North than in the South which would keep its slave culture alive and thriving through the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War , colonial New England played an undeniable role in the long and grim history of American slavery.
From the s until the start of the U. Civil War, abolitionists called on the federal government to prohibit the ownership of people in the Southern states. Join our community of educators and receive the latest information on National Geographic's resources for you and your students. They may have been poor, but they were not slaves, and they were not black. They gained a sense of power simply by being white. In the lower South the majority of slaves lived and worked on cotton plantations.
Most of these plantations had fifty or fewer slaves, although the largest plantations have several hundred. Cotton was by far the leading cash crop, but slaves also raised rice, corn, sugarcane, and tobacco.
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.
Immediate families were often separated. If they were kept together, they were almost always sold away from their extended families. Grandparents, sisters, brothers, and cousins could all find themselves forcibly scattered, never to see each other again. Even if they or their loved ones were never sold, slaves had to live with the constant threat that they could be. African American women had to endure the threat and the practice of sexual exploitation. Evidence of this separation could be found in plantation housing patterns.
These more elaborate residences became fixtures in an enduring plantation mythology. The Georgian and Greek-revival mansions popularized in romantic fiction were more the exception than the rule.
An additional defining element of plantations was their focus on one commercial crop. The success of rice culture was due in large part to the agricultural skills of the slaves, many of whom hailed from rice-growing regions of Africa. An innovative development in rice culture was tidal irrigation. Water was drawn on and off the crop through an elaborate system of dams, canals, and gates. The landscape was dramatically altered, profits soared, and rice planters became some of the wealthiest people in North America.
The plantation system, in a modified form, spread inland, with cotton fueling the expansion. In the early s cotton culture was lucrative, and many planters plowed their profits into acquiring more land and slaves. Thus, medium-sized farms could grow into plantations within a few years. Southern defeat resulted in the emancipation of the slaves and profound changes in southern agriculture.
A common misconception is that when slavery ended, the plantation system collapsed. In reality, plantations were defined more by the size of their workforce than the status of the workers.
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