Life for enslaved men and women

Life and Labor

By the middle of the nineteenth century, millions of enslaved people lived in the southern United States, including a rapidly growing enslaved population in Texas. They were forced to work on farms, plantations, in homes, in towns, and in skilled trades.

On large plantations, many enslaved people worked in groups planting, tending, and harvesting crops such as cotton, sugar, and corn. Workdays could begin before sunrise and continue until evening, especially during busy planting and harvest seasons. Enslavers often set demanding work quotas and punished people who failed to meet them.

Enslaved women performed many of the same agricultural jobs as men. Some women also worked in homes, where they cooked, washed clothes, cleaned, sewed, cared for children, or worked as nurses and midwives. Enslaved children were also expected to work as they grew older.

In towns, enslaved people might be forced to work as blacksmiths, carpenters, cooks, wagon drivers, laundresses, or other skilled workers. Regardless of the type of work they performed, enslaved people had little control over where they worked, what work they did, or whether they would be paid.

Slavery was maintained through laws, threats, and physical force. Enslaved people could not freely leave an enslaver’s property, choose where they lived, or make many basic decisions about their own lives. Enslavers could punish them for disobeying orders, attempting to escape, or failing to complete assigned work.

Families lived with the constant danger of separation. Enslavers could sell husbands, wives, parents, and children to different people, sometimes sending family members hundreds of miles apart.

Enslaved people resisted slavery in many ways. Some slowed their work, broke tools, hid food, or found other ways to resist an enslaver’s control. Others escaped. Some fled toward free states, Canada, Mexico, or other places where they hoped to live beyond the control of their enslavers.

Occasionally, resistance became open rebellion. In 1831, Nat Turner led an uprising of enslaved people in Virginia in which about 55 white people were killed. Turner and other participants were later captured and executed. In response, white mobs and militias also killed many Black people, including people who had not participated in the uprising. Southern governments then strengthened many laws restricting enslaved and free Black people.

Despite the restrictions of slavery, enslaved people created strong families and communities. They worked to preserve relationships even when enslavers threatened to separate them.

Religion was important to many enslaved people. Christianity became widespread among enslaved communities, but people also carried forward traditions and beliefs with roots in different parts of Africa. Over generations, African and Christian traditions sometimes blended in worship, music, storytelling, and other cultural practices.

Enslaved people also preserved and created traditions through songs, stories, food, celebrations, and family customs. Gatherings for worship, storytelling, music, or time with family helped people maintain community and cultural connections within a system designed to control nearly every part of their lives.