What was life like for slaves in early colonial America?

Slaves in early colonial America could be bought and sold, and their families could be separated.

They were usually not paid for their hard work, could not choose how to make a living, or decide where to live.

At the whim of their owners, slaves could be beaten, imprisoned, tortured, or even killed if they “misbehaved.”

How did free slaves in Colonial America lead a normal life? For free blacks, being free did not mean living freely. State laws in every region restricted the rights of free blacks, often limiting their ability to earn a living. In Maryland and North…
Who owned slaves in Colonial America? In the North and South, many slave owners were whites who owned small farms. Usually there were about twenty slaves on these farms. Other southern slave holders owned large plots of land, or…
What kind of work did slaves do in Colonial America? In the South, most slaves worked on cotton, tobacco, and rice plantations. Slaves also worked in Louisiana's salt mines, rope factories in Kentucky, the iron factories of Virginia, and the North Carolina cotton…
How were slaves controlled in Colonial America? Virginia was the first colony to create slave codes, or laws, and the other colonies followed suit. These laws stated that slaves were property, not people, and could be sold at any time;…
What did slaves eat in Colonial America? Typically, slaves were given very small amounts of food, which might include meat, flour, milk, lard, cornmeal, and greens. Throughout the South, their major staple was corn. Although rice was available, it was…
Where did slaves in Colonial America live? For field slave families, home was a small one or two room cabin where as many as twelve people might live. Archaeologists excavating seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sites found that slave dwellings in those…