Life under slavery in the United States - Essay Example

Although slavery was later abolished using peace treaties, it is clear that during the slave period, most slaves experienced serious suffering harsh living conditions under their masters’ care. African-Americans were used as slaves in the 17th century even during the American Revolution and during the adoption of the Constitution in 1787. During this era, there were clear guidelines on when slaves started their work schedule and when it ended on a daily basis. Slaves worked for long hours whereby work started before, dawn, and ended after sunset with only a two-hour break.

They worked under constant supervisions with threats of punishment by overseers regardless of who their owners were. There were submitted to harsh conditions and despite their lack of freedom, they were not always rendered powerless victims, as they were able to start important institutions (Reese 208). Europeans settled in America and invested in sugarcane and tobacco plantations, which had thrived in areas like the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. When European merchants were sailing, they adopted such practices into their new settlements.

This early plantations needed labor and the Europeans disliked the labor required in the plantations and the indigenous people refused to work on it, and this led to forced slave labor (Rodriguez 33). There was a massive expansion of the population that was enslaved in Americas, which was possible due to the transatlantic slave trade. The population increased because slaves barred more children and cotton farming started benefiting from the slavery in America in 1800 and it spread to other states (Elkins 35).

Slavery was met with resistance as slaves sometimes ran away and hid in forests or visited relatives in other plantations. Some were able to escape slavery for good but some were unlucky as they were severely punished, and others were even shot to death or bitten by the owners dogs