Frederick Olmsted Slavery In The South

Great Essays
Frederick L. Olmsted journeys throughout the American South during the mid-1950’s gives readers an inside “scoop” on what conditions were really like for many slaves during the pre-Civil War years as they labored on various cotton, sugar, and rice plantations. His personal accounts and impressions of the slave system across the southern states – from Virginia to Texas - are well documented in a collection of his journals, “The Cotton Kingdom.”
While many, as well as Olmsted did, had a preconceived notion of what it was like to be a slave in the south, after spending time on several plantations, farms, and homes of Southerners of all classes, and interviewing travelers, plantation owners, overseers, and even the slaves themselves, one can see
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One of his first surprising observations during his time spent in Richmond, Virginia was that of the relationship between black and white women and their children. “I am struck with the close cohabitation and associations of black and white – negro women are carrying black and white babies together in their arms; black and white children are playing together (Olmsted 38).” He also observed that black servants could go almost anywhere with their masters, including the white sections of rail cars when traveling. Olmsted seemed quite taken with the physical appearance of “Mulattos” or mixed race slaves, commenting; “that they were “fine-looking” and he was surprised at the number of them (Olmsted 38).” His perception must have been that most slaves should not appear so hansom and he compares the Mulattos to the usual field workers who, he states, “appear dull, idiotic, and brute-like (Olmsted …show more content…
These “show” plantations welcomed Northerners often making it appear that living conditions for slaves were not as awful as what most Northerners or the anti-slavery population believed. He found it somewhat difficult to find slaves living in terrible conditions as many Northerners thought they did. On many of the plantations he observed there were slave settlements with houses or cabins, that yards and gardens, and even pens with livestock (65). On more than one occasion, the owner or master of the plantation served almost as a paternal figure. The slaves loved their master and were always willing to do some task for a reward. As Olmsted writes about one plantation owner: “his manner towards them was paternal – familiar and kind; they came to him like children…constantly wanting to be encouraged and guided (Olmsted 44).” They were housed clothed and fed for their labors but if given money or rewards in excess would spend it unwisely on tobacco or illegal alcohol, not unlike rebellious

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