Slave Life
The Middle Passage_Numerous amounts of South Carolinian slaves experienced a grueling journey
known as the Middle Passage, the immigration of slaves to the New World.
"Slaves were forced to wallow in their own excrement and were placed at
the pleasure of the crew" (Berlin, 103). The length of their journey
varied upon the climate. "The survivors arrived in the New World
physically depleted and mentally disoriented" (Berlin, 104). Upon
arriving, slaves underwent "seasoning", "the process of breaking the
will of enslaved Africans in an effort to make them docile"
(Quote:Turner, 37).
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The filth, the stench, the loss of life, the disease, the packing of men in spaces so tight they could neither turn, nor stand, nor squat, nor sit, is beyond human comprehension. Yet such were the conditions that…people were forced to bear during the hellish journey from Africa to the New World__the journey known as the Middle Passage or Maafa (“the massive disaster”).
-Description from a Slave
-Description from a Slave
Charleston Slave Auctions_After undergoing "seasoning", slaves were sold in Charles Town auctions.
Auctioneers listed slave origins, since slaveholders had preferences.
Most preferred indigenous West Africans, skilled in rice cultivation.
Usually, they would pay high prices for these slaves and less for novice
ones. Slaveholders were interested in rice cultivation, because it
improved their finances.
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The Slaves from the River Gambia are preferr'd to all others with us [here in Carolina] save the Gold Coast.... next to Them the Windward Coast are preferr'd to Angolas.
-Merchant Henry Laurens
-Merchant Henry Laurens
South Carolina Slavery
_In the 1700s, slavery began to revolve around the cultivation of rice.
"Rice planting became extremely profitable and Charleston rice
exports rose from 10,000 pounds in 1698 to over 20 million by 1730"
(sciway3.net). English slaveholders depended on their slaves to
manage the rice. In fact, slaves outnumbered colonists by 2:1. However,
the conditions in which slaves toiled were hazardous and many died
soon after being placed in the rice fields.
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_"During the summer months, rice crops waved over fields of thousands of
acres in extent, and upon a surface so level and unbroken, that
in casting one's eye up and down the river, there was not for
miles, an intervening object to obstruct the sight"
-G.S.S., "Sketches of the Santee River," The American Monthly Magazine, October 1836
-G.S.S., "Sketches of the Santee River," The American Monthly Magazine, October 1836
Accounts
Writer of the Slavery Epoch | "negroes, anckle and even mid-leg deep in water which floats an ouzy mud, and exposed all the while to a burning sun which makes the very air they breathe hotter than the human blood; these poor wretches are then in a furness of stinking putrid effluvia: a more horrible employment can hardly be imagined" |
Zamba, King turned slave | "Under the influence of a powerful sun, this practice naturally produces what is called marsh miasma, which engenders fevers of a dangerous nature: fatal, indeed to white men in most cases; and even negroes, in some seasons, suffer greatly from it." | 1775 Account | "When winnowed it is ground, to free the rice from the husk; this is winnowed again, and put into a mortar large enough to hold half a bushel, in which it is beat with a pestle by negroes to free it from its thick skin; this is very laborious work." | Charles Ball, runaway slave | "Watering and weeding the rice is considered one of the most unhealthy occupations on a southern plantation, as the people are obliged to live for several weeks in the mud and water, subject to all the unwholesome vapours that arise from stagnant pools, under the rays of a summer sun, as well as the chilly autumnal dews of night." |