Slavery in Antebellum South Carolina Section OneSlavery in

Slavery in Antebellum South Carolina

Section One…Slavery in South Carolina I. Slaves and Work A. Slaves were known by the work that they did. 1. House Servants: cooks, butlers. They were on call 24 hours a day. 2. Yard Servants: worked as blacksmiths, carpenters, etc. They lived in the shop where they worked. 3. Field Hands: worked in the fields and lived in slave cabins on “the street”. By 1850, cotton growing and the plantation system were more than an economic venture in South Carolina, they were a way of life. And slavery was an integral part of that way of life.

Slaves and work continued … B. Field hands were classified once a year by the amount of work they did. The overseer was the person who was responsible for seeing that slaves performed the tasks assigned to them 1. Quarter Hands: very young and very old. 2. Half Hands: boys, girls, mothers with young children. 3. Full Hands: full day of work.

Slaves and work continued … C. Plantation work was organized in two ways: 1. Task System (Rice Plantation): when their daily task was completed they could work in their gardens or hunt and fish. 2. Gang System (Cotton Plantation): they worked from sun up to sun down in the cotton fields.

II. Slave Life A. Most slaves were poorly fed, housed, and clothed. B. The slaves of planters got clothes twice a year and shoes once a year. C. Slave families had gardens and sometimes were allowed to fish and hunt. D. Slave children were often sold to other planters. E. Discipline on the plantation was a system of rewards and punishments.

The men and women slaves received, as their monthly allowance of food, eight pounds of pork, or its equivalent in fish, and one bushel of corn meal. Their yearly clothing consisted of two coarse linen shirts, one pair of linen trousers, like the shirts, one jacket, one pair of trousers for winter, made of coarse negro cloth, one pair of stockings, and one pair of shoes; the whole of which could not have cost more than seven dollars. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) The clothing allowance of the slave children was given to their mothers, or the old women having the care of them. The children unable to work in the field had neither shoes, stockings, jackets, nor trousers, given to them; their clothing consisted of two coarse linen shirts per year. When these failed them, they went naked until the next allowance-day. Children from seven to ten years old, of both sexes, almost naked, might be seen at all seasons of the year.

III. Slave Culture A. The most important unit of slave communities was the family. B. Even though slave marriages were against the law in some states, most owners allowed their slaves to marry. C. Slaves would often participate in an old African wedding custom and “jump the broom” after a marriage ceremony. D. By the early 1800’s, many slaves were Christians and they expressed their religious beliefs through the singing of spirituals.

IV. Free Blacks A. A mother’s legal status, slave or free, determined her children’s status at birth. B. Free blacks, fewer than 10, 000 in 1860, tended to work in cities and towns. C. Free blacks were often discriminated against…they were denied rights or treated unfairly; they could not vote in South Carolina. D. Free black William Ellison, of Statesburg, owned more than 50 slaves.

V. Challenging Slavery A. Slaves rebelled against the slave system by using work slowdowns or running away. Some runaways returned with-in a few days. B. As the number of slaves increased, fears of revolts increased Planters lived in fear that a slave revolt would occur. C. The most violent slave revolt was Nat Turner’s Rebellion which took place in Virginia. -60 white people in the area were killed. More than 100 slaves were killed in an attempt to put down the rebellion. Turner was captured and later hanged. D. In South Carolina, there were two attempted slave revolts. One was the Stono Rebellion and the second was the Denmark Vesey Plot.

VI. Opposition to Slavery E. Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke, raised in a slave-holding family, wrote and lectured against slavery F. Slave revolts, such as the Nat Turner, prompted most southern whites to keep silent about any abolitionist (anti-slavery) views. G. Many South Carolinians started defending slavery as it was attacked by abolitionists.