Fogel and Engerman

Fogel and Engerman

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

While the quality of slave medical care was poor by modern standards, there is no evidence of exploitation in the medical care typically provided for plantation slaves. . . .

That adequate maintenance of the health of their slaves was a central objective of most planters is repeatedly emphasized in instructions to overseers and in other records and correspondence of planters. . . .

Slave health care was at its best for pregnant women.  “Pregnant women,” wrote one planter, “must be treated with great tenderness, worked near home and lightly.”  “Light work” was generally interpreted as 50 to 60 percent of normal effort and was to exclude activity which required heavy physical effort.  During the last month of pregnancy work was further reduced. . . .

Demographic evidence gives strong support to descriptions of pre- and post-natal care contained in plantation rules, letters, and diaries.  Computations based on data from the 1850 census indicate that the average death rate due to pregnancy among slave women in the prime childbearing ages, twenty to twenty-nine, was just one per thousand. . . .  The slave mortality rate in childbearing was not only low on an absolute scale, it was also lower than the maternal death rate experienced by southern white women. (Time on the Cross, pp. 117, 122-123)

In addition, slaves were by no means always confined to their farms and plantations. Many if not most slaves were allowed to visit other estates or to go into nearby towns on a fairly regular basis. A few slaves lived in a state of virtual freedom. As mentioned, some slaves earned money by working on their time off. Slaves were usually free to attend church, and often times they were encouraged to do so. Blassingame observes that many slaves did not have to sneak off the plantation in order to leave for short periods for social visits and the like:

Many slaves did not have to use . . . stratagems. Their masters did not try to restrict their recreational activities as long as they did not interfere with the plantation routine. According to Robert Anderson, "The slaves on a plantation could get together almost any time they felt like it, for little social affairs, so long as it did not interfere with the work on the plantation. During the slack times the people from one plantation could visit one another, by getting permission and sometimes they would slip away and make visits anyway." Similarly, Elijah Marrs said his master "allowed us generally to do as we pleased after his own work was done, and we enjoyed the privilege granted to us." (The Slave Community, p. 108)

The more religious planters not only excused their slaves from work on religious holidays but provided great feasts and recreation on these occasions. "During these periods, which lasted from four to six days," says Blassingame, "planters prepared sumptuous feasts for their slaves" (The Slave Community, p. 107). He continues,

Whole hogs, sheep, or beeves were cooked and the slaves ate peach cobbler and apple dumplings, and frequently got drunk. Often the festival seasons included dances and athletic contests. (The Slave Community, p. 107)

Abolitionists claimed that most slaves worked intolerably long hours.  This claim is repeated in the PBS documentary Slavery and the Making of America.  In point of fact, “the slave work year was shorter than the free work year” (Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, p. 78, original emphasis).  Fogel qualifies this observation by making the argument that slaves were forced to work harder than were free workers; yet, he admits that slaves also earned 15 percent more income per clock-time hour than free workers earned (Without Consent or Contract, p. 79).  In addition, Fogel concedes that on average slaves enjoyed longer rest breaks during the workday and more time off on Sundays than did free workers (Without Consent or Contract, p. 79).  As a matter of fact, many if not most masters gave their slaves part of Saturday off and all of Sunday off (Without Consent or Contract, pp. 77-78).  Not only did slaves work less hours than did free workers, but they also worked less hours than did workers in English textile mills:

Recent studies on the labor routine on U.S. cotton plantations have revealed that the average work week during the spring, summer, and fall was about 58 hours, well below the 72 hours thought to have prevailed in English textile mills during the first quarter of the nineteenth century and also below the 60-hour work week of northern commercial farmers in the United States during the first quarter of the twentieth century. (Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, pp. 28-29)

One frequently runs across the claim that slaves had no legal protection. This is simply not true. I'm not saying slaves had all the legal protection they deserved, but the often-heard claim that they had no protection whatsoever is incorrect. Stampp discusses the legal status of slaves:

"A slave," said a Tennessee judge, "is not in the condition of a horse. . . . He has mental capacities, and an immortal principle in his nature." The laws did not "extinguish his high-born nature nor deprive him of many rights which are inherent in man." All the southern codes recognized the slave as a person for purposes other than holding him accountable for crimes. Many state constitutions required the legislature "to pass such laws as may be necessary to oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity; to provide for them necessary clothing and provisions; to abstain from all injuries to them, extending to life and limb."

The legislatures responded with laws extending some protection to the persons of slaves. Masters who refused to feed and clothe slaves properly might be fined; in several states the court might order them to be sold, the proceeds going to the dispossessed owners. Those who abandoned or neglected insane, aged, or infirm slaves were also liable to fines. In Virginia the overseers of the poor were required to care for such slaves and to charge their masters. (The Peculiar Institution, p. 217)