Slavery Paternalism

For slaves, slavery meant incessant toil, harsh punishment, and constant fear that their families would be destroyed by sale. Slaves were the legal property of their owners. Their few legal rights were rarely enforced. Slaves could be bought and sold by their owners at will and had no voice in the governments that ruled over them. They could not testify in court against whites, sign contracts or buy property, own firearms, hold meetings apart from whites, or leave a farm or plantation without permission. By the 1830s, it was illegal to teach slaves how to read and write. Although these laws were not always enforced, the entire southern legal and governmental system was designed to enforce the slave masters’ control over the slaves’ bodies and labor.

During the early nineteenth century, some southern states passed laws to prevent slave mistreatment, and their material conditions did improve. Many slaves supplemented the food owners provided by raising crops and livestock, gathering, and hunting. They had better diets than slaves in the West Indies and Brazil. Paternalism contributed to slaves’ material improvements over time. And the increasing price of slaves encouraged planters to care for their slaves’ basic well-being. Yet, slavery was tightened in this period, and states passed laws making it harder for owners to free their slaves and for

Slaveowners used a variety of methods to maintain order and discipline and persuade slaves to work productively. Masters could inflict almost any kind of punishment, and it was the rare slave who was not whipped at some point in his or her life. Even minor infractions invited whipping. Owners used subtler methods, too. They exploited divisions among the slaves, especially between field hands and house servants. They created incentives for hard work, such as time off or even cash payments. The threat of sale was the most powerful weapon owners had, since sale disrupted families and slave