American Antebellum Slavery essays

American Antebellum Slavery essays Images in contemporary life, mostly from Hollywood, have tended to portray the life in the American south as a natural aristocratic society, however this reflection of slave life could not be wider of the mark. Thankfully, much literature has been written over the years regarding the notorious subject, which has provided a much more accurate reflection of plantation life, representing the slave owners as arrogant, selfish, brutal, and uncaring for human existence. There is a great deal of literature available, explaining the nature of slavery in the antebellum South, however much of it overlooks the relationships between the slaves and the slave owners. Peter Kolchin, in his book, American Slavery, focuses on this in particular detail; therefore it is a good source of information when examining the slave-slave owner relationships. Southern slaves, as Kolchin observes, suffered an extraordinary amount of interference in their daily lives . Slaves were regarded by their masters, first and foremost, as property, therefore the slave owners assumed a lot of direct control over their property, and this interference ultimately shaped the everyday lives of the slaves themselves. Forms of law exist in all societies, that is undisputable, however in the antebellum South, the laws that were imposed on slaves were worryingly detailed. Forced upon by their masters, slaves were denied the smallest of freedoms, including what time they had to get up in the morning, and how often they could visit their neighbours on social visits. Slaves were regularly referred to as children, who needed constant guiding to keep them in line. This guiding took many forms as slave owners interfered with the naming of slave children and limited the contact that slaves had with fellow slaves on neighbouring plantations. Although these forms of intervention shaped the lives of the slaves, there was no more effective measure of int ...