How+Slaves+Were+Treated

Slaves were treated very badly. Even though some masters treated their slaves a little nicer, it still wasn't respecting their unalienable rights; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. **"Unless blacks can be proved unhuman, they are equal to us. And slavery violates their human rights." David Cooper.** They had no respect and the punishments, and even the smallest mistakes got very serious punishments. For example, for breaking a branch of a cotton plant, you got 25 lashes by whip. The overseer had no sympathy whatsoever; moreover, they were white as well. Small things got such bad punishments. For stepping out of place or going to slow, you would be subject to a brutal whipping. Escaping was one of the most dangerous thing a slave could do, despite the many slaves that escaped from slavery. Being caught would either mean death, or being tortured so severly that you wish that you were dead. Though slavery had such a wide variety of faces, the underlying concepts were always the same. Slaves were considered property, and they were property because they were black. Their status as property was enforced by violence -- actual or threatened. People, black and white, lived together within these parameters, and their lives together took many forms. Enslaved African Americans didn't ever forget their status as property, despite how well some were treated. But it would be an overstatement as well to say that all masters and slaves hated each other. Humans who live and work together are bound to form relationships of some kind, and some masters and slaves genuinely cared for each other. On almost all plantations, slave children and the white children played with eachother. But the caring was nothing more than the situation allowed it to be. Within the narrow confines of slavery, human relationships were various, from contemptious to caring. But the masters and slaves never approached equality.
 * __How Were Slaves Treated?__**

[|A video about how Slaves were treated on the fields.] [|An activity to learn about Slavery]

Slaves were stripped tortured, whipped and even raped. It wasn't uncommon for white slave masters to have children with their black slaves. The term Mulatto means half black, half white. Some of the breeding slaves even were raped by their masters or sometimes even the overseers.



This is a slave being branded. This is one of the punishments and it is a very painful thing. It would be given for Insolence, attempting to run away, bad work, or rebellion.