Triangular Trade Dbq

Improved Essays
The Transatlantic Slave Trade, which occurred between the 16th and 19th century, transported 10-12 million slaves to the Americas. The triangular trade created revenue for many countries, including Portugal, Britain, Spain, France, The Netherlands and the United States. Once taken from their homeland, the enslaved would be shipped to the Caribbean or to the USA. If taken to the United States, most likely they would be sent to states in the Antebellum South. These states were Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.

The Antebellum South period (1812-1861) was a time where living conditions for slaves was extremely harsh and inhumane. Slaves working in more demanding roles were left to live in small constructed homes,
…show more content…
Most of these structures would be made with wood, giving them a run down cabin look. In some scenarios, the slaves would be forced to build the house themselves. These cabins would often be overcrowded, some even housing multiple families/generations in one space. Little to no furniture or amenities are provided in the house. The floors would usually be dirt, which made conditions extremely unsanitary, leading to a fast paced spread of disease. Slaves frequently have to take care of their meals as well as keeping up with daily tasks/chores. If a slave owner organised meals for the slaves, they wouldn’t be healthy, merely to keep them alive. If not, women mostly prepared food grown from their own gardens or small farming areas made by slaves. If allowed by their owner, slaves could hunt and fish for a more beneficial diet. Malnutrition and food scarcity is a recurring issue in the Antebellum South for slaves. Along with nutrition, slaves would encounter issues with clothing. Slaves received a limited supply of clothing that would be made out of rough materials designed for durability, rather than comfort. Mostly, shoes would only …show more content…
The vast majority of slaves worked in the fields doing agriculture. Specifically working with cotton, tobacco, and rice plantations. Day to day life was very repetitive, consisting of early morning starts, preparation for the day, morning work, lunch, afternoon work, dinner, personal time (if any), and then sleep. In depth, slaves would awake typically to a horn or bell before sunrise. Preparation of themselves would happen quickly. The preparation ranged from having a wash, making a simple meal with leftovers or cornmeal, and cleaning the living quarters. Field slaves would then be working as soon as the sun started rising. Work tasks included hoeing, planting, weeding, harvesting crops, and carrying supplies. House slaves would most likely begin cooking breakfast for their master’s family, cleaning the house, and tending to the family. Field slaves normally had increasingly more gruelling work, as they were out in the sun for over 12 hours. House slaves were considered ‘lucky’ because they had less draining work, but in reality this would put them at greater risk in most situations. Particularly for women, as working in the house meant you were in the proximity of the slave owner. Sadly, higher chances of sexual assault would come with being in the house. Lunch would come around, giving the slaves approximately an hour to eat the food given (mostly cornbread or vegetables). Once work

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Slaves in the 1800s were treated not as people, but as property. They would use them to help cultivate cotton in the plantations. The slaves were given enough food to keep them alive and working and shelter that was nothing beyond a shack next to the plantations. There would be slave trades or auctions out in public. They would trade slaves from plantation to plantation just as you would with cattle.…

    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Slavery existed in all the British American colonies. Africans were brought to America to work, with an emphasis on agriculture. In Virginia, most of the slaves brought worked in tobacco fields. Men, women, and children worked from sunup to sundown, with only Sunday to rest. Only having one day of rest was hard considering that most of the kind of work they did was hard, backbreaking work.…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Life In Southern Colonies

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Slaves were watch under overseers who were men hired by planters to watch over slaves and to direct them into work. Slaves worked for 15 hours a day, they lived in small one room cabins with only sleeping cots, and ate a quarter bushel of corn and a pound of pork. Enslaved Africans kept many customs and beliefs from their homeland such as Islam or music. Most of enslaved Africans had a struggle to maintain their culture. The enslaved Africans fought against their enslavement.…

    • 675 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Slaves worked entirely for a whole full week with no days off except on a Sunday. They were expected to use this day one out of the whole week to grow their own food in their own special lots. However, sometimes this was not always easy for them. At various times, some of their plants would not be tended or taken care of until they had their one day off from working. Many would suffer from hunger.…

    • 1283 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Most of the slaves worked on land as farmers and they worked for crops and got food. They worked on farms and sometimes lived on farms. Most people there lived in villages. it was bad across the medieval places. It was used by church state law which means of demonstrating and punishment but its legality changed depending the number of factors like country date church state.…

    • 123 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Slaves were fed badly and paid poorly by the owner. Even thought the slave could buy him/herself it would take years for them to buy themselves. Even though servitude and slavery means almost the same it's not. One means to be born or bought which is slavery andservitude means you have to work for them for 7 years or sometimes depends on the owner that you have. Slaves and servants were both sent to the new world to work on houses and store and much more.…

    • 394 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Some slaves worked in the houses or skilled crafts work but most of them were farmed laborers. In the Caribbean and Brazil, most of them planted, harvested and processed sugar, working almost year round and working from sun up to sun down. It was one of the most horrific times in history because these slaves were removed from their culture and their homes.…

    • 756 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    They worked from sunrise to sunset and rarely had a day off, if lucky once a month. They would spend their limited free time mending their huts, relaxing and making pots and pans. The slaves were not allowed to read or write, and only some were allowed to go to church. They had no choice, no freedom and no money. They had to do exactly what their…

    • 2057 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Slaves did what they could to improve their small food and clothing problems. Some planters offered more food or better conditions. There is a quote about slavery and it reads: “The punishments were whipping,putting you in the stocks{wooden frames to lock people in} and making you wear irons and a chain at work. Then they had a collar put around your neck with two horns,like cow’s horns so you could not lie down.... Sometimes they dig a hole like a well with a door on top.…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The life as a slave was horrific at the minimum. Slaves worked some time as much as over twenty hours in one day. The southerners would sell these cotton products to…

    • 773 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Although a majority of slaves lived peaceful lives under kind masters, some slaves were abused by their masters who tried to make the slaves’ lives terrible by forcing them to work long, hard hours. With the change of the plantation system between 1700 and 1830, the quality of life for the slaves increased significantly. Before the change in the system, a majority of slaves were young, African men who had been brought from Africa or the Caribbean to work on tiny, isolated farms. Most a slaves had no way of communicating with one another and had difficulty settling down in a family due to the lack of women on the farm.…

    • 707 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Depending on where the slaves and servants lived made them have different types of jobs they may have. Those whom lived in the Southern region would normally harvest tobacco, while in northern areas they would harvest rice. Once the indentured servants had been freed they began to write about their experience they would compare their timed served as “slave” or “sent to hoe tobacco plants from dawn to dusk”. They could also be forced to do simple jobs around the home like cooking or cleaning for their masters. For those in the South the indentured servants and slaves would spend the majority of their day tending to the tobacco plants similar to a 9 to 5 job today but only much harder and without breaks, while those of the North had a system of do the amount of work you are told to do that day and the rest of the day is yours.…

    • 1257 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Food shortage was never to problem for many of these plantations. Slaves had the opportunity to hunt for their food as well as growing their own personal garden to provide for their families. The extra food they had left over was often sold it in market for profit. Owners made small attempt to keep disease down by telling the children that they could not eat with field hands. Meaning that they needed to wash up before they were allowed to have super.…

    • 730 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The environments for slaves varied between the colonies in America and different parts of the…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Enslaved African Culture

    • 1837 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Most of the cooking done by enslaved Africans occurred outside in the yard, typically in communal settings (Battle-Baptiste 2007; Heath and Bennett 2000). This allowed them to engage in social activities while cooking, doing their chores, or taking care of livestock (Heath and Bennet 2000). Historical records illustrate that for enslaved Africans, eating was a social activity. Planters were constantly frustrated that their slaves took such a long time to eat when it only took them 15 to 20 minutes, showing a difference in cultures (Battle-Baptiste…

    • 1837 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays