" And as for this article's information on mortality among slaves in South America, "Death rates among slaves in the Caribbean were one-third higher than in the south...and sometimes Latin American slaves were forced to wear iron masks to keep them from eating dirt or drinking liquor." It was cruel to force slaves in Latin America to produce their own food "in their free time" (Digital History), but that was what was expected of them.
So while slaves were dying in huge numbers due to the difficulties of working in the mines and in the sugar cane plantations in Brazil, many slaves in America were actually working indoors in kitchens, doing domestic work, helping white mothers raise the white children. They received, by all accounts, ample food to eat, and even were treated with some dignity in some instances.
While there were no doubt numerous instances of brutality on the part of slave owners, there were also laws in the south, Wahl explains, that protected slaves from terrible mistreatment by their owners. Southern courts "awarded damages more often for injuries to slaves than injuries to other property or persons." Slaves were shielded from brutality "more than free persons,' Wahl continues.
One good reason that slaves were protected in the U.S., and that they were kept reasonably comfortable in many situations is that they were such an important part of the economy, especially in the south. In the book the African slave trade from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, there are several essays written by a variety of authors on the subject of slave trade. Writing in the book is Joseph E. Inikori ("The slave trade and the Atlantic economies, 1451-1870"), whose essay (p. 64-65) points out that from the period...
Would the exploitation of resources in the America have "come anywhere near to what it was, without the availability of slave labor?" Inikori asks. His answer is no, and so that important economic fact also led to the better treatment of U.S. slaves than the slaves were treated in Brazil.
Also, Inikori points out on page 65 that "in some cases, it was slave labor or nothing"; in other words, immigrants from Europe were not arriving in sufficient numbers to do the work that was needed to keep the cotton production as profitable as it was. That goes for the slaves in the West Indies, too, for free labor was simply not available in sufficient quantity to do the work necessary in the sugar plantations, Inikori notes. "It was slavery or nothing," he wrote.
Works Cited
Cooper, Joseph. The Lost Continent: Slavery and the Slave-Trade in Africa in 1875. London:
Frank Cass & Co. LTD, 1968.
Digital History. "African-American Voices: American Slavery in Comparative Perspective."
2006). Retrieved Dec. 2, 2007, at http:/ / the.net/encyclopedia/article/wahl.slavery.us.
Inikori, Joseph E. "The Slave trade and the Atlantic economies, 1451-1870" in the African
Slave trade from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. Pp. 56-85. France: UNESCO, 1979
Wahl, Jenny B. "Slavery in the United States." EH.Net Encyclopedia Retrieved Dec. 2, 2007, at http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/black_voices/voices_display.cfm?id=24.
