Chains By Laurie Halse Anderson Treatment Of Slaves

Slavery. A topic that is extremely debatable due to the fact that the treatment of them varies immensely. The treatment of a slave will vary depending on the type of place they are living, their owners, and much more. In the book, Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson, there are three main placements of the slaves. Within those placements, there are three different lifestyles that the slaves live. The placements in which the slaves live are a plantation, a small farm, and a city. First, there is the plantation. For the slaves working at the plantation, there is something that occurred often enough that it stuck in my brain as I was reading Chains. That occurrence is the slaves being beaten. In some cases it was because they didn’t finish the extreme …show more content…
As for the slaves that did their work on a small farm, their life was extremely difficult. They had the workload of working on a plantation, but only a fraction of the slaves to get the job done. Basically, they had a lot to do, and not a lot of people to do it. It was a common event for slaves to get beaten on small farms as well. In Chains, it exerts, “You are a slave, not a person,” (Curzon 41). This is one example of how slaves, especially ones living on small farms, are treated more as rag dolls than humans. Their owners expect them to do a week's worth of tasks in only one short day. They don’t take into consideration the fact that the slaves usually aren’t getting fed properly, they aren’t sleeping comfortably, and they are constantly on an emotional roller coaster. Adding on to all of this, if the slaves don’t get the jobs finished, they will sometimes get beaten to where they are on the verge of death. In other words, small farm slaves live a rough life. The last placement of the slaves in Chains is the big city, or to be more specific, New York. The city slaves usually don’t do the same type of work of a slave that lives on a plantation or small farm. They do …show more content…
There is one recurrence between the three though, which is the owners beating the slaves for basically any mistake they make, or any work they don’t get done. I also feel that out of three there is one that is easier than the others, and there is one that is significantly more difficult than the others. With all things considered, living life as a slave would be a very difficult task in it of itself, not taking into consideration the other added factors that have to be dealt with, for example, their