Gibson/Papenfuse Race and the Law in Maryland Image No: 29 Enlarge and print image (69K) << PREVIOUS NEXT >> |
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Gibson/Papenfuse Race and the Law in Maryland Image No: 29 Enlarge and print image (69K) << PREVIOUS NEXT >> |
tobacco was a major export crop.155 When the western lands were developed, they were devoted to wheat, a seasonal crop that is less labor intensive than tobacco.156 Indeed, the concentration of slaves in the lands first developed in southern Maryland may have been a factor in preserving tobacco rather than wheat as the staple crop there.157 Lumber was harvested on poorer land, and slaves worked in felling trees and related tasks.'58 Some industry was beginning and slaves worked in the first companies making iron, but the overwhelming majority remained on tobacco plantations.159 B. Changes in Living Conditions of Slaves The concentration of slaves in large holdings produced significant differences in the nature of slave life. The master was no longer a co-worker whose need to grow sufficient crops to feed himself and the slave required him to work in the fields. The master became a manager, more remote from the person and the tasks of his slaves. The revival of white immigration during the first half of the eighteenth century found white servants in a different role. Although some white servants did field work when their master was unable to afford slaves, the white servant on a plantation with slaves tended to be an artisan or an overseer. 16° Not only were black-white relationships changed, but increasing population and its concentration made possible more social relationships between slaves. Family relationships could be disturbed by sale or disposition on the death of the master, but the purchaser or the children of the master were likely to live in the same area. ... As generation followed generation, Afro-Americans in Maryland and Virginia created an extensive kinship system. More households, especially on large plantations, included two parents and their children. Although most households did not include kinfolk other than the immediate family, other relations lived in adjacent huts. Mothers and children worked in the tobacco fields with kinfolk, ate and celebrated with many relations, and invited kin who lived elsewhere to share in the festivities. Afro-Americans forcibly separated from relatives managed to maintain contact with them. And finally, slave resistance whether expressed in the field or by running away was fostered and encouraged by kinfolk.161 The African slave may have faced new difficulties of adjustment. In the seventeenth century, all slaves were physically isolated, but in the eighteenth there were two different classes working side by side - - the African and the Afro-American. Masters often preferred the native born slave, sometimes giving them positions as overseers or training them as artisans. The African slave, even after learning the new language, would remain to some extent an outsider. Almost all slaves were illiterate. Even if the master was literate or employed a tutor for his own children, he saw little advantage in expending the effort to teach his slaves. Consequently, our picture of slavery in the colonial eighteenth century comes from statistics, laws, court cases and references by masters rather than from slave accounts. 27 |