The Treatment of Slaves in America People have been treated poorly all throughout American history, especially black people. Back when slavery was around, white men had black people for slaves. Slavery started when the British brought slaves from Africa over to Jamestown Virginia in 1619 to help in the production of crops. Only the fittest African 's were chosen to be slaves and taking them away from Africa left Africa in trouble. It ended in 1865 when President Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery and set up laws in the constitution against it. Slaves were the slaveholders ' “property” and were treated as such. Slaves were disciplined, fed and managed by their owners. There were many different types of slaves. Each one had a different job and
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If the slave was disobedient or didn 't work hard enough, they were punished. A type of punishment that was used quite often was lashing. In some circumstances the slaves were forced to lash each other. One example would be if one slave told the master about something wrong another slave did. The master would then make the first slave lash the one who did wrong. Most of the time though, slaveholders did all of the punishing. On the other hand, slaves were rewarded if they did something good. The reward was usually extra water, a treat, or new clothes. Another thing that was common was the rape of slave women. “Many masters took sexual liberties with slave women”, they would rape them and they couldn 't really get in trouble for it because they could do pretty much whatever they wanted to their slaves (“Slavery in America”). Again, if the slave woman resisted and fought back, she was punished, but if she did not, she was rewarded. Slave women were often tiny and frail, so they did not have the strength to fight back. Sometimes, other men would wander onto another slaveholders’ plantation and rape his slave women, which they sometimes reported. Sometimes they didn 't report for fear of the master not believing them and getting lashed for lying. Slaves were allowed to “get married” and have families and some slaveholders encouraged it because that meant they would have more slaves since slavery is hereditary, meaning any children born from a slave is a slave too. Slaves were usually given just enough food, water and other treatments to survive. They didn 't get much over and above their basic human needs. (“Slavery in
If the slave was disobedient or didn 't work hard enough, they were punished. A type of punishment that was used quite often was lashing. In some circumstances the slaves were forced to lash each other. One example would be if one slave told the master about something wrong another slave did. The master would then make the first slave lash the one who did wrong. Most of the time though, slaveholders did all of the punishing. On the other hand, slaves were rewarded if they did something good. The reward was usually extra water, a treat, or new clothes. Another thing that was common was the rape of slave women. “Many masters took sexual liberties with slave women”, they would rape them and they couldn 't really get in trouble for it because they could do pretty much whatever they wanted to their slaves (“Slavery in America”). Again, if the slave woman resisted and fought back, she was punished, but if she did not, she was rewarded. Slave women were often tiny and frail, so they did not have the strength to fight back. Sometimes, other men would wander onto another slaveholders’ plantation and rape his slave women, which they sometimes reported. Sometimes they didn 't report for fear of the master not believing them and getting lashed for lying. Slaves were allowed to “get married” and have families and some slaveholders encouraged it because that meant they would have more slaves since slavery is hereditary, meaning any children born from a slave is a slave too. Slaves were usually given just enough food, water and other treatments to survive. They didn 't get much over and above their basic human needs. (“Slavery in