SLAVERY –info and history

[Keito "O" Family Historian]

SLAVERY – THE PECULIAR INSTITUTION
In a nation founded upon, and committed to, the ideals of personal liberty,
slavery was indeed the peculiar institution. The practice, which was once widespread in
both the North and the South, would become the wedge that would drive the nation
apart and into its greatest tragedy—the Civil War.
African slaves were first brought into the American colonies in the early 1600s,
and they were a vital cargo link in what is known as the Triangular Trade. They were
not, however, the only source of forced labor in early America. Caucasian indentured
servants came to the colonies by the hundreds, and, although they were not human
property like the Africans, they frequently suffered similar limits on their freedom. Unlike
most of the Africans, however, they could eventually earn freedom from their masters.
Native American Indians were also used as slaves during the colonial era, but their
familiarity with the land provided them easy opportunities to escape, and they
frequently fell victim to various diseases to which they had little immunity. Because of
their resistance to tropical diseases, familiarity with staple crops like rice, and their ease
of purchase, Africans soon became the most common source of forced labor.
Slavery was common in most of America during the 17th and early 18th centuries,
but by the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it was primarily limited to the South.
Because the Southern economy was based on agriculture, lots of manpower was
needed to work the fields. Most white Southerners did not own slaves, and the ones
who did usually owned fewer than five. Plantations with slave populations as large as
Travellers Rest’s were rare.

Since most slaveowners possessed small acreage and few slaves, the slaves and
masters frequently worked side by side in the fields. On large plantations, drivers and/or
overseers usually managed slaves. Regardless of whether they lived and worked on a
small or a large farm, slaves had to perform the same types of duties.
Slaves were responsible for cooking meals, cleaning houses, washing clothes,
performing maintenance tasks, and working in the fields. Once they had completed their
duties for the master, slaves returned to their homes in the slave quarters. Once home,
the slaves had to carry out the same sorts of activities for themselves that they had
spent the day doing for the slaveowners.
Though they were forbidden by law to marry, many slaves “jumped the broom”—
forming a symbolic and spiritual union—and had families of their own. Once in the
quarters, surrounded by family and friends, the slaves did manage to form their own
culture. Slaves established this unique culture by blending their various African
traditions with those acquired in America, and this slave culture has influenced
Southern and American culture.