How did slaves get food?
Enslaved people hunted, fished, and trapped wild animals to supplement their diets and to sell. Animal bones, excavated from the cellar of the House for Families slave quarter, reveal many different species, including deer, opossum, and turkeys. Some enslaved men had access to guns for hunting.
What was life like for slaves in colonial America?
Life on the fields meant working sunup to sundown six days a week and having food sometimes not suitable for an animal to eat. Plantation slaves lived in small shacks with a dirt floor and little or no furniture. Life on large plantations with a cruel overseer was oftentimes the worst.
How many calories did slaves eat?
For example, an active male slave weighing about 140 pounds would have needed about 3,600 calories a day – far more than would have been provided by his ration of corn. When meat was provided, slaves got the least desirable cuts, typically heads, vertebrae, ribs, and feet.
What did most slaves do in the American colonies?
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries people were kidnapped from the continent of Africa, forced into slavery in the American colonies and exploited to work as indentured servants and labor in the production of crops such as tobacco and cotton.
What did slaves do in their free time?
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.
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.
Where did most slaves in the American colonies come from?
The majority of enslaved Africans went to Brazil, followed by the Caribbean. A significant number of enslaved Africans arrived in the American colonies by way of the Caribbean, where they were “seasoned” and mentored into slave life. They spent months or years recovering from the harsh realities of the Middle Passage.
Where was slavery most common in the colonies?
Although the largest percentages of slaves were found in the South, slavery did exist in the middle and Northern colonies.
What did the slaves drink?
Slaveowners would make bets on a slave being able to drink more whiskey than any other in order to induce a rivalry among them. Resultant scenes, he said, were often scandalous and loathsome in the extreme. In some cases this was confined to slaves on one plantation.