Summary: What Was Like Under Slavery

In the 1800s era, free blacks, slaves, and whites alike all faced deadly infirmities with basic medicine. During this time, diseases ravaged both the North and the South, however, the South seemed to get the worst of it. The South would have cases of malaria, yellow fever, cholera, bilious remittent fever, autumnal fever, tibircuois and respiratory diseases. It was common for breakouts of these illnesses, although some plagues seemed to affect one race worse than the other. Yellow fever tended to affect whites with European heritage while cholera affected both free blacks and enslaved blacks. Enslaved blacks tended to have higher mortality rates than that of free blacks and whites. Based on recent studies, researchers found that slave mortality rates were about 350 per thousand among slave infants, versus white children. …show more content…
In addition to the study, the crucial fact is that “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” (“What was Life Like Under Slavery”). Based on the mixture of poor living conditions and rampant maladies, slaves were at a higher risk of death than whites. Slave women, who suffered from the “disease” of childbirth had a high risk of death and got little care from their master. While a slave owner's slave was in childbirth, or the weeks adding up to the birth, they would show very little concern for the slave’s health. They did not give them extra rations to support themselves and the child, and they would even make the woman work in the