A cobbler in Massachusetts one time said. “We are worse treated than the slaves of the south” . The free-laborers were non forced to America in ships. stripped of their civilization. their linguistic communication. and their freedom. The free-laborers were non enslaved. I do non hold with the shoemaker’s statement. but instead believe the Southern slaves were treated worse than Northern labourers. It may hold been true that labourers in the North had rough on the job conditions. but they did nevertheless. have their freedom. The labourers were non treated as if they were belongings.

Slaves were treated more as pets than people. frequently times abused and ordered to execute difficult labour. The slaves had no signifier freedom whatsoever. Every facet of their lives was controlled by their proprietor. what times they eat. slumber. or work. Their lives consisted of modus operandi. making the same thing every twenty-four hours. particularly slaves working at cotton mills. It is unreasonable that a adult male with freedom can reason that he is worse treated than a adult male without freedom. Slaves were forced into bondage and frequently had barbarous penalties if they made errors.

If slaves were treated so much better why. is it that free labourers did non fly to the South so that they could go slaves. Slaves were treated a batch worse. sing that they were treated as belongings. took attention of ill. and had no freedom. Slaves were considered belongings. and they were belongings because they were black. Their position as belongings was enforced by force. Enslaved African Americans could ne’er bury their position as belongings. no affair how good their proprietors treated them. Although. some may state Masterss and slaves did non ever hated each other.

Human existences who live and work together are bound to organize relationships of some sort. and some Masterss and slaves truly cared for each other. But the lovingness was tempered and limited by the power difference between slaves and proprietors. In The Slave Ship: A Human History. Marcus Rediker says “Within the narrow confines of bondage. human relationships ran the gamut from compassionate to disdainful. But the Masterss and slaves ne’er approached equality” ( Rediker. 2007 ) . Slaves could hold received lovingness or condescending proprietors.

Northern labourers did non even have proprietors. The diets of enslaved people were deficient or hardly sufficient to run into the demands of their heavy work load. Their vesture and bedclothes were minimum every bit good. In 1860. households having more than 50 slaves numbered less than 10. 000 ; those having more than a 100 numbered less than 3. 000 in the whole South. The typical Southern slave proprietor possessed one or two slaves. and the typical white Southern male craftsmans owned none. Slaves in the lower South were frequently sick housed. sick fed. and ill cared for.

It was more profitable to maintain them at work on cotton than let them clip to construct a nice shelter. It was more profitable to works every inch of land in cotton than to assign infinite for places. In the lower South the bulk of slaves lived and worked on cotton plantations. Most of these plantations had fifty or fewer slaves. although the largest plantations have several hundred. Life on the Deep South plantations was besides characterized by atrocious master-slave relationships. Owners were frequently absent. and superintendents were paid by how much cotton they produced. non by the status of the slaves they supervised.

An article on Antebellum bondage provinces “On lower South plantations. like those of the upper South. both work forces and adult females slaves were expected to labor in the Fieldss from ’first light’ to ‘full dark’” ( Jacobs. 2000 ) . Because work forces were stronger and able to work harder. the plantations frequently had a much larger figure of male slaves than female. This made the possibility of matrimony little for the slave work forces. In the cotton and sugar South. slaves were normally worked in packs supervised by black drivers and white superintendents with whips.

The gait for ploughing. hoeing. weeding. or picking was set by the superintendents. and if a worker fell behind. he or she felt the sting of a cilium. Slaves had no freedom and were invariably being ordered to make things. If slaves tried to get away they would be brought back to their maestro to acquire round. whipped or even killed. To implement the slave codifications. governments established “slave patrols. ” These were normally locally organized sets of immature white work forces. both slave proprietors and little husbandmans. who rode approximately at dark look intoing that slaves were firmly in their quarters.

Although some plantation owners felt that the slave flatfoots abused slaves who had been given permission to go. the slave patrols however reinforced the sense of white solidarity between slave proprietors and those who owned none. They shared a desire to maintain the nonwhite population in cheque. Jacobs provinces. “These antebellum slave patrols are seen by many historiographers as ancestors of the Ku Klux Klan. which likewise tried to train the freed inkinesss. The Klan helped reenforce white solidarity in a clip when the category lines between ex–slave proprietors and white beefeaters were fall ining because of slavery’s end” ( Jacobs. 2000 ) .

At the top of the southern societal hierarchy were plantation proprietors. After were white yeoman husbandmans. followed by black freewoman. and of course slaves were at the really bottom. The free labourers weren’t treated wondrous but when was the last clip you heard of a free labourer stripped bare and put on show at carnivals and auctioned like an animate being. The slaves were treated a batch worse than free labourers. The labourers were non put in the same state of affairss as the slaves. They were non bought and sold. separated from their households. or be forced to subject to sexual progresss by their proprietors.

The labourers could travel wheresoever they wanted without being under the menace of being lynched if they happen to by chance look at a immature white adult female. The labourers would non merchandise their freedom for a hot repast and a warm and dry topographic point to kip. The heat and humidness of the South created wellness jobs for slaves. Unsanitary conditions. unequal nutrition and grim difficult labour made slaves extremely susceptible to disease. “Slaves were lacerate apart from their households. marched around in handlocks and ironss. and even branded” ( Good. 2011 ) .