Monday, April 16, 2012


House slaves usually lived better than slaves who worked on the fields, and had more luxuries than most. In the autobiography Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave (1847) he explains how different it was being a house slave compared to the rough life of a field slave, he explains how house servants had far better food and decent clothing. Harriet Jacobs, another house slave from North Carolina explains how not all slave owners were so generous to their house servants. His owner’s mistress would stand in the kitchen while the servants would clean and wash the dishes and pots and then after they were finished doing everything she would spit in all the kettles and pans to ensure that none of the slaves ate any of the food that was left over.  Jacobs adds on saying that she would make sure that the slaves could get nothing to eat except what she chose to give them and weighed down the slaves by the pound and ounce three times a day to make sure nobody broke her rule. The mistress gave them no chance at all to eat without her permission.  She knew exactly how many biscuits a quart of flour would make and the exact size they each should weigh so nobody could eat any wheat bread from her flour barrel. Although this particular house slave didn’t have privileges, most house servants and their living accommodation was better than other slaves, in some cases the servants were treated like the slave- owners children. Another house slave, Lewis Clarke, also believed that some house slaves were worse off than field slaves because in his case him and his family were constantly exposed and dealt with the hardships of the slave-owners and their families. The families would always throw all their anger out on the servants and all house slaves had far more rules and duties than any other slave, they faced more because they were always around the slave-owners. The more compassionate owners would sometimes even begin a friendship with the house slaves and although it was illegal, they would educate the house slaves usually from the women of the family. From the all the good that came out of serving as a house slave, freedom was promised and later granted.

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