How did slaves keep clean?

Like Black populations in the Caribbean and West Africa, enslaved people in the US viewed the front yard “as an extension of the house, where most of the daily domestic activities outside of work occurred.” Formerly enslaved Tennessean Annie Young noted her job comprised doing dishes and sweeping the yard, specifically ...

How did slaves make soap?

Georgia Giwbs (a former slave) said that the process of making the lye to create the soap included slowly mixing water with oak wood ashes to create an oak ash lye to begin the task of laundry. In some other instances, women made their lye soap via animal skin as opposed to ashes.

How did slaves wash clothes?

Slaves were required to keep their own clothing clean. If slaves washed their clothing items it was after working all day in the field, and then they were required to wash the clothing at a stream.

What did slaves have to sleep on?

Most slaves' cabins would have been outfitted with pallets for the adults to sleep on—children often slept on the floor—and perhaps wooden boxes or stools for sitting. There might be some rudimentary utensils used for cooking, and bowls or gourds from which to eat.

What did slaves drink?

in which slaves obtained alcohol outside of the special occasions on which their masters allowed them to drink it. Some female house slaves were assigned to brew cider, beer, and/or brandy on their plantations.

Photos Of Slavery From The Past That Will Horrify You

What did slaves do for fun?

During their limited leisure hours, particularly on Sundays and holidays, slaves engaged in singing and dancing. Though slaves used a variety of musical instruments, they also engaged in the practice of "patting juba" or the clapping of hands in a highly complex and rhythmic fashion.

What did slaves do in the winter?

In his 1845 Narrative, Douglass wrote that slaves celebrated the winter holidays by engaging in activities such as "playing ball, wrestling, running foot-races, fiddling, dancing, and drinking whiskey" (p.

How long did slaves usually live?

As a result of this high infant and childhood death rate, 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 did the slaves eat?

Weekly food rations -- usually corn meal, lard, some meat, molasses, peas, greens, and flour -- were distributed every Saturday. Vegetable patches or gardens, if permitted by the owner, supplied fresh produce to add to the rations. Morning meals were prepared and consumed at daybreak in the slaves' cabins.

How often were slaves whipped?

Sometimes slaves are kept in the stocks two or three weeks, and whipped twice a week, and fed on gruel, because they run away or steal. Slaves have to go to the fields after being whipped, when their skin is so cut up that they have to keep all the time pulling their clothes away from the raw flesh.

How many hours did slaves sleep?

Sixteen to eighteen hours of work was the norm on most West Indian plantations, and during the season of sugarcane harvest, most slaves only got four hours of sleep.

Why did slaves have no clothes?

Franz Louis Michel, a Swiss visitor to Virginia in 1702, wrote in his report that enslaved Africans “are entirely naked when they arrive, having only corals of different colors around their necks and arms.” Many slave-ship captains argued that clothing prevented them from keeping their captives clean and free from ...

How did slaves wear their hair?

Plaits, braids and cornrows were the most convenient hairstyles to keep their hair neat and maintained for a week. Enslaved people who worked indoors were forced to wear their hair in one of those styles or a style similar to that of their slaveowner if they did not cover their hair with a scarf, kerchief or wig.

Did Africans use soap?

African black soap (ose dudu) originated with the Yoruba people in Nigeria and the Yoruba communities in Benin and Togo. The Yoruba words ose (soap) and dudu (black) literally translates to the black soap. It is also called anago samina in Ghana.

What was old soap made of?

Ancient Mesopotamians were first to produce a kind of soap by cooking fatty acids – like the fat rendered from a slaughtered cow, sheep or goat – together with water and an alkaline like lye, a caustic substance derived from wood ashes. The result was a greasy and smelly goop that lifted away dirt.

When was soap first used for bathing?

Evidence has been found that ancient Babylonians understood soap making as early as 2800 BC Archeologists have found soap-like material in historic clay cylinders from this time.

What did slaves do to get punished?

Slaves were punished by whipping, shackling, hanging, beating, burning, mutilation, branding, rape, and imprisonment. Punishment was often meted out in response to disobedience or perceived infractions, but sometimes abuse was performed to re-assert the dominance of the master (or overseer) over the slave.

How many hours did slaves work?

On a typical plantation, slaves worked ten or more hours a day, "from day clean to first dark," six days a week, with only the Sabbath off. At planting or harvesting time, planters required slaves to stay in the fields 15 or 16 hours a day.

Did slaves get days off?

Slaves were generally allowed a day off on Sunday, and on infrequent holidays such as Christmas or the Fourth of July. During their few hours of free time, most slaves performed their own personal work.

How much did slaves get paid a day?

Let us say that the slave, He/she, began working in 1811 at age 11 and worked until 1861, giving a total of 50 years labor. For that time, the slave earned $0.80 per day, 6 days per week. This equals $4.80 per week, times 52 weeks per year, which equals pay of $249.60 per year.

How much food did slaves get?

The men and women slaves received, as their monthly allowance of food, eight pounds of pork, or its equivalent in fish, and one bushel of corn meal.

How did slaves cook their food?

Slaves could roast potatoes in hot ashes while wrapped in leaves, like they would with cornbread or ash-cake, or cook them over the fire with other foods. Nellie Smith, a former slave from Georgia, remembered her grandmother would bake potatoes alongside a roast.

Did slaves work in the rain?

Although slaves on the Eustatia Plantation often had to work through showers, on many days in the account book, the overseer notes that slaves did not work because of rain.

What did slaves do when it wasn't cotton season?

For example, they could work as carpenters and loggers. Solomon Northup and many of his fellow cotton picking slaves were also hired out to grow sugar cane. He spent September through January working the sugar cane fields and making sugar in the sugar mill. Sugar cane required work 24/7 with very few breaks.

What were slaves not allowed to do?

There were numerous restrictions to enforce social control: slaves could not be away from their owner's premises without permission; they could not assemble unless a white person was present; they could not own firearms; they could not be taught to read or write, nor could they transmit or possess “inflammatory” ...