In a separate study, Fogel observes the following

In a separate study, Fogel observes the following

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

U.S. masters also designed a wide array of positive incentives to promote the productivity of slaves. . . .  A favorite device was the awarding of prizes to the individual or the gang with the best cotton-picking record on a given day or during a given week.  Year-end bonuses, often distributed at Christmas, were another common device and could be quite substantial.  One Louisiana planter, for example, distributed gifts averaging between $15 and $20 per slave family in 1839 and 1840, with the amount of the gift made proportional to the planter’s view of the performance of each of his slaves.  Not all gifts were this large ($20 in 1840 was about one-fifth of per capita income; a bonus of the same magnitude today would be about $1,000), but $20 was by no means an upper bound.

Indeed, many large-scale planters had elaborate systems for rewarding exceptional work that not only recognized outstanding performances by field hands but generally led to substantial income differentials between ordinary field hands on the one hand and exceptional workers, especially drivers or artisans, on the other. (Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994, p. 191)

Fogel further notes that slaveholders often allowed slaves to grow food for their own use and to sell some of that food for their own profit:

Most U.S. planters allowed slaves to supplement rations with vegetables raised in gardens or by rearing small livestock and often purchased eggs, chickens, and vegetables raised by slaves for use on their own tables [i.e., on the slaves’ tables].  There were also masters who rewarded top hands by allowing them plots of up to a few acres to grow cotton or other staples on their own time, with the proceeds of the sales of these crops accruing to the hands. . . .

A recent study by Phillip D. Morgan of the practices of planters in the low country of South Carolina, where the task system predominated, revealed that despite legal injunctions prohibiting slaves from producing and marketing on their own account, the practice was widespread.  An industrious slave could sometimes finish his daily task by 2 P.M.  Such slaves accumulated property at a high rate.  Morgan estimates that in one county the average recorded accumulation of mature males was over $300, which is similar to the estimates of the wealth of industrious slaves in Jamaica. (Without Consent or Contract, pp. 192-193)

Slaves in Southern cities had additional opportunities to advance themselves. This was no small number of people either. In 1860 there were some 400,000 slaves living in cities, "and many additional thousands were hired out by their owners" (J. G. Randall and David Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1969, p. 75). J. G. Randall and David Donald, citing the research of Richard B. Morris, point out some of the opportunities that were available to these slaves:

By the nature of their employments and the conditions of their service, as Richard B. Morris has pointed out, these urban and industrial slaves were a step removed from plantation service. . . . many of them were, despite numerous legal restrictions, "permitted to hold property, receive wages, make contracts, and assume supervisory responsibilities"; in addition, they possessed "some measure of mobility and occasionally a limited choice as to masters and occupations." "In industry slaves were customarily reimbursed for services performed beyond an accepted minimum," Professor Morris continues. ". . . slaves hired to others occasionally received directly a portion of the hiring wages. . . . Masters were often reluctant to force slaves to work as hirelings in occupations they disliked or for masters whom they found uncongenial." An increasing number of slaves were permitted to hire their own time--i.e., to work at whatever employment they pleased, paying their masters an annual rental. Such "nominal slaves" were able "to control their earnings, separate property, or occupational choices." (The Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 76)

Most slaves were provided with good housing for that era.  The Northern abolitionists’ claim that slaves lived in inhumane housing was unfounded.  The “houses of slaves compared well with the housing of free workers in the antebellum era” (Fogel and Engerman, Time on the Cross, p. 116).  Some slaves who worked in Southern cities had private homes "that rivaled those of country slaveholders in space and rustic luxury" (Owens, This Species of Property, p. 147). On "many of the farms the slave cabins were not much inferior to the master's cabin," and on some plantations "they were nearly as comfortable as the overseer's cottage" (Kenneth Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South, Vintage Books Edition, New York: Vintage Books, 1989, p. 293).  According to information from the 1860 census, there were 5.2 slaves per house on large plantations, whereas there were 5.3 persons per house in free households, and most slave families, like most free families, lived in a house by themselves and didn’t have to share the house with others (Fogel and Engerman, Time on the Cross, pp. 115-116).  In fact, Fogel and Engerman point out that the typical slave cabin probably provided more sleeping space per person than did the homes of most workers in New York City over twenty years after the war:

As late as 1893, a survey of the housing of workers in New York City revealed that the median number of square feet of sleeping space per person was just thirty-five.  In other words, the “typical” slave cabin of the late antebellum era probably contained more sleeping space per person than was available to most of New York City’s workers half a century later. (Time on the Cross, p. 116)

Good relations often existed between slaves and slaveowners. As one example of this fact, let's consider the relationship between Confederate soldier Henry Kyd Douglas and one of his family's slaves named Enoch, who had left the family and had gone to live in Pennsylvania as a free man. When Enoch found out that Douglas had been wounded and captured and that he was being held in a Union prison camp, he wrote to Douglas and offered to send him money. Douglas was deeply moved by the offer:

I was surprised about this time to receive a letter from Enoch, whom I have spoken of as my father's colored coachman. He had gone off from home and was living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, working for his living, in freedom, but harder than he ever did in his life. He wrote to say that he heard I was wounded and in prison and was having a hard time, and he had laid aside several hundred dollars and would send it to me, or as much as I wanted, if I were suffering or needed it. His letter was in his own untutored language, but its words were verily apples of gold. I did not need his money, but I hope I wrote him a letter that left no doubt of my appreciation and my gratitude. (Henry Kyd Douglas, I Rode With Stonewall, Marietta, Georgia: Mockingbird Books, 1974, reprint, p. 255)

Another case in point is that of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America himself. Davis cared deeply for his slaves, and they for him. When Davis had to leave his plantation suddenly in order to assume duties as the Confederate president, "He made a touching farewell speech to his quickly assembled slaves, who responded with expressions of devotion. . . ." (Rembert Patrick, Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet, Louisiana State University Press, 1944, p. 27). Davis was deeply concerned about the fate of his slaves when federal forces torched and plundered the Davis estates in Mississippi. Davis even sent money, in fact $3,000, to pay for supplies for his slaves to ensure they received proper care. The year before Davis died, he received a letter from one of his former slaves, James H. Jones, who had since become a Republican and had had a successful career in the intervening fifteen years. Jones told Davis, "I have always been as warmly attached to you as when I was your body servant" (William J. Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, Vintage Books Edition, New York: Vintage Books, 2000, p. 691). Jones went on to say that he always defended Davis from "any attack of malicious or envious people" (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, p. 691). William J. Cooper gives us additional information about Davis's relations with blacks:

Without question he respected individual blacks and in turn received their respect. His dealings with his slave James Pemberton and with Ben Montgomery as both a slave and a freedman illustrate such a relationship. Inviting Davis to attend the Colored State Fair in Vicksburg in 1886, Montgomery's son Isaiah said he knew Davis would have an interest "in any Enterprise tending to the welfare and development of the Colored people of Mississippi." "We would be highly pleased to have you here," Isaiah Montgomery asserted, " and he closed "with best wishes for your continued preservation." (Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 690-691)

At a time when many Americans, in all parts of the country, still opposed allowing blacks to testify in court, Davis favored allowing them to do so. He expressed this view in a letter to his wife in which he also expressed concern about the welfare of their former slaves:

I hope the negroes' fidelity will be duly rewarded and regret that we are not in a position to aid and protect them. There is, I observe, a controversy which I regret as to allowing negroes to testify in court. From brother Joe [Joseph Davis], many years ago, I derived the opinion that they should be made competent witnesses, the jury judging of their credibility. (Jefferson Davis: Private Letters 1823-1889, selected and edited by Hudson Strode, New York: De Capo Press, 1995, reprint, p. 188)

Few people know that Davis and his wife informally adopted a mulatto (part-white-part-black) orphan during the war. For those who care to know, the child looked like a young African-American boy, except that his skin was slightly less dark than the skin of most other black children; his facial features and hair were clearly African-American. Mrs. Davis rescued the young boy from a cruel guardian and brought him with her to live at the Confederate White House in Richmond. His name was Jim Limber. Davis and his wife raised him as one of their own children. Jim Limber and the other Davis children played together as normal siblings. Even in family letters, Jim's new family spoke lovingly of him, and he expressed his love for them. Sadly, after the war, the Davises had to give up custody of the child when a disreputable Union officer threatened to take him from them (Felicity Allen, Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart, Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1999, p. 24).

Davis was a kind, decent Christian man who treated blacks with respect, and many blacks knew it. During a trip through the western part of the Confederacy, Davis got off his train at Griswoldville, Georgia, in order to meet with a group of slaves who had gathered in the hope of seeing him. These men worked at a local pistol factory and had come to the train station because they wanted to meet Davis. Informed of the gathering, Davis got off the train and circulated among the group, shaking each hand and speaking to each man individually (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, p. 494). When Davis returned to Richmond, Virginia, after the war, he was not only cheered by whites but also by blacks. One observer noted that Davis was "greatly touched" by the sympathy shown to him by the blacks in the crowd. In fact, some blacks climbed up on his carriage, shook and kissed his hand, and called out "God bless Mars Davis" (Allen, Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart, pp. 486-487).

Many other examples of good relations between slaves and slaveholders could be cited. For example, there were numerous instances during the war when slaves hid food from Union troops and then gave the food to their masters and their families (who in turn shared it with them). One such instance occurred when Union forces occupied Charles and Mary Jones' plantation on the Georgia coast. When the Union troops took over the plantation, a slave named Sue hid potatoes from the troops in order to feed the Jones' children (Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, p. 322).