The conditions in which slaves existed in the nineteenth century varied from region to region—and even from house to house. Wise slave owners recognized the value of slaves as human capital, since by 1860 slaves were worth approximately $1,800 each. As such, while most slaves travailed in the fields cultivating crops, dangerous work, such as roof repair, was often hired out to more expendable labor sources.
Most slaves resided in the Deep South, an area stretching from South Carolina and Georgia to Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. This region became known as the “black belt” for its abundance of slaves.
Hard work was a mainstay of the slave lifestyle. Since slaves did not earn wages like other workers, their source of motivation was an overseer—often another slave who had been given increased responsibility—who wielded a whip to flog the unproductive or inefficient laborers. Physically, emotionally, and legally, slaves were reduced to property, given no civil or political rights.
Slaves did not even have the right to legally enter into marriage, although many slave owners allowed their slaves to participate in unionizing ceremonies and to live as married couples. Most slaves practiced some form of religion, usually a hybrid faith mixed from Christian and African elements. They often incorporated the African “responsorial” system of punctuating sermons with verbal agreement. Most slave children in the Deep South lived in two-parent households, where forced separations did not happen very often.
Forced separations typically occurred when a slave owner died or encountered financial difficulties. In these situations his slaves were often sent to auction. Most auctions were multi-purpose events, selling humans alongside cattle and horses. No regard was given to keeping families together at these auctions. In fact, it was rare that families who came to auction together stayed together.
These terrible auctions, along with the appalling conditions most slaves dealt with daily, fed the growing abolitionist movement. The dispute over slavery would eventually be resolved, but not before the country turned on itself in civil warfare.