How most Slaves actually lived

[MaryP]

I have yet to ever defend slavery. Stop fabricating.

Even this bit is not to defend slavery, it is to defend those who actually put slaves into decent quarters and dressed them properly and fed them decent meals.

I am feeling wonderful that not all of the rich in the South mistreated slaves.

Yet we find plenty of old photos of quarters the slaves lived in and you may as well admit it that a good many slaves lived in decent homes and had decent and healthy food off the farm.

Take a look at soul food sometime, Robert. Oxtail, pigs feet, pig ears, chicken feet, chitlins. That's what the slaves got from the Big House--the parts they couldn't use. Their clothes were hand me downs from the owners if they were elite house help. Otherwise their clothes were made from old gunny sacks and equally cheap material.

I visited a still functioning plantation in South Carolina that had stayed in the same family since slavery days. We passed the slave quarters, now modernized, which were tiny cabins set right next to each other in a row, and the man giving us the tour bragged how some of their employees living there descend from their slaves who never left after the War. He pointed out one cabin and told us a family of thirteen was just raised there. That cabin couldn't have had more than two rooms, if that. I've had living rooms larger than that cabin. And down south, it is still a totally acceptable way for black employees to live. I can't imagine 13 kids and their parents trying to live in it. And that's in 2010!

So you console yourself with what Monticello's house slaves lived like. (He had 200 slaves; I don't think they would all fit in that house, do you?) Their field hands didn't live like that, but Jefferson didn't want some shack next to the Big House. Understandable.

You're right a human being was a big investment, but those plantations operated for profits, and the slaves, who Jefferson saw as naturally inferior to other races, didn't get anymore than was necessary to survive and stay productive. That was what it was really like.

 

[armycowboy]

Show me where I express any happiness slaves were whipped? I dare you to actually support something you say.

More like all this because you are trying to lessen the evil of slavery by highlighting one aspect of one part of the country. Pretty disgusting actually.

If you're awaiting intellectual honesty from the OP, you're in for a long wait.