What did slaves do for fun?

During their limited leisure hours, particularly on Sundays and holidays, slaves engaged in singing and dancing. Though slaves used a variety of musical instruments, they also engaged in the practice of "patting juba" or the clapping of hands in a highly complex and rhythmic fashion.

What games did slaves play?

Slave children played with dolls, balls and jump ropes, and also engaged in hopscotch and ring games. But since there was no possibility of purchasing toys from stores, children or their parents made their own. Discarded yarn was used to form balls. Corn husks or sticks and rags were used to create dolls.

What do slaves do in a day?

At planting or harvesting time, planters required slaves to stay in the fields 15 or 16 hours a day. When they were not raising a cash crop, slaves grew other crops, such as corn or potatoes; cared for livestock; and cleared fields, cut wood, repaired buildings and fences.

What was daily life like for slaves?

Life on the fields meant working sunup to sundown six days a week and having food sometimes not suitable for an animal to eat. Plantation slaves lived in small shacks with a dirt floor and little or no furniture. Life on large plantations with a cruel overseer was oftentimes the worst.

What did African slaves do in their daily life?

The vast majority of plantation slaves labored in the fields, while a select few worked at domestic and vocational duties in and around the owners' houses. Each situation brought its own set of demands, hazards, and perks regarding not only labor, but also quality of food, clothing, and shelter received.

The Real History of Slavery - Southern Negro

What did slaves drink?

Palm wine and beer made from barley, guinea corn, or millet were used widely. The alcoholic content of these beverages is less than 3% (Umunna, 1967). For the most part the drinking of beer and wine was one of acceptance without moral or immoral implications.

Did slaves ever get a day off?

Slaves, especially those in the field, worked from sunrise until sunset. Even small children and the elderly were not exempt from these long work hours. Slaves were generally allowed a day off on Sunday, and on infrequent holidays such as Christmas or the Fourth of July.

How many hours did slaves sleep?

Sixteen to eighteen hours of work was the norm on most West Indian plantations, and during the season of sugarcane harvest, most slaves only got four hours of sleep.

What do slaves do in their free time?

During their limited leisure hours, particularly on Sundays and holidays, slaves engaged in singing and dancing. Though slaves used a variety of musical instruments, they also engaged in the practice of "patting juba" or the clapping of hands in a highly complex and rhythmic fashion.

What are three things that slaves were not allowed to do?

Slaves could not testify in court against a white, make contracts, leave the plantation without permission, strike a white (even in self-defense), buy and sell goods, own firearms, gather without a white present, possess any anti-slavery literature, or visit the homes of whites or free blacks.

What did slaves do for kids?

Slave children, under their parents and masters, lived in fear of punishment and isolation. Though circumstances widely varied, they often worked in fields with adults, tended animals, cleaned and served in their owners' houses, and took care of younger children while their parents were working.

What age did slaves start working?

At the age of sixteen, enslaved boys and girls were considered full-fledged workers, tasked as farm laborers or forced into trades.

What job did most slaves have?

The vast majority of enslaved Africans employed in plantation agriculture were field hands. Even on plantations, however, they worked in other capacities. Some were domestics and worked as butlers, waiters, maids, seamstresses, and launderers. Others were assigned as carriage drivers, hostlers, and stable boys.

What music did slaves listen to?

Slave music took diverse forms. Although the Negro spirituals are the best known form of slave music, in fact secular music was as common as sacred music. There were field hollers, sung by individuals, work songs, sung by groups of laborers, and satirical songs.

What songs did slaves listen to?

What did they punish slaves with?

Slaves were punished by whipping, shackling, hanging, beating, burning, mutilation, branding, rape, and imprisonment. Punishment was often meted out in response to disobedience or perceived infractions, but sometimes abuse was performed to re-assert the dominance of the master (or overseer) over the slave.

How long did slaves usually live?

As a result of this high infant and childhood death rate, the average life expectancy of a slave at birth was just 21 or 22 years, compared to 40 to 43 years for antebellum whites. Compared to whites, relatively few slaves lived into old age.

How did slaves cut their hair?

some slaves wore their hair long and bushy on top and ...others cut it short, or combed and parted it neatly, or shaved it at the back or at the front, or trimmed it to a roll.

How much did slaves get paid a day?

Let us say that the slave, He/she, began working in 1811 at age 11 and worked until 1861, giving a total of 50 years labor. For that time, the slave earned $0.80 per day, 6 days per week. This equals $4.80 per week, times 52 weeks per year, which equals pay of $249.60 per year.

Did slaves work in the rain?

Slavery and the Making of America . The Slave Experience: Living | PBS. Although slaves on the Eustatia Plantation often had to work through showers, on many days in the account book, the overseer notes that slaves did not work because of rain.

What time did slaves wake up to work?

The enslaved population at Mount Vernon typically worked from the time the sun rose in the morning until it set in the evening, with about two hours off for meals in between. During the winter, slaves toiled for around eight hours each day, while in the summer the workday might have been as long as fourteen hours.

What religion did most slaves follow?

While most Africans brought to the New World to be slaves were not Christians when they arrived, many of them and their descendants embraced Christianity, finding comfort in the Biblical message of spiritual equality and deliverance.

What did slaves do on Christmas?

On Christmas day, "it was always customary in those days to catch peoples Christmas gifts and they would give you something." Slaves and children would lie in wait for those with the means to provide presents and capture them, crying 'Christmas gift' and refusing to release their prisoners until they received a gift in ...

How much food did slaves get?

Enslaved people created variety in their diets by keeping gardens, raising poultry, foraging for plants, fishing, and trapping and hunting wild animals. ... one [peck], one gallon of maize per week; this makes one quart a day, and half as much for the children, with 20 herrings each per month.

What kind of clothes did slaves wear?

Field slaves dressed according to law or dress codes. Basic garment of female slaves consisted of a one-piece frock or slip of coarse "Negro Cloth." Cotton dresses, sunbonnets, and undergarments were made from handwoven cloth for summer and winter.