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With crops of tobacco, cotton, and sugarcane, the south heavily relied on slave labor up until it was abolished in 1865. During this time it was home to almost 4 million enslaved people by 1860, which made up about one third of the southern population. Enslavement had a wide umbrella of technicalities but the concept was always the same, slaves were considered property because they were black and their role as property was enforced by violence and many forms of torture. The jobs of the enslaved consisted of work like clearing new land, dig ditches, cut and haul wood, farm crops, slaughter livestock, etc.

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The enslaved people brought over began to develop cultures of their own with kinship and family networks. They created systems of illegal trade between communities, linguistic codes. religious congregations, and even social aid organizations. This was a system built for work and production versus community and emotion, which was all achieved while within the bindings of enslavement.

The concept of a family played crucial roles in enslaved people's lives. a persons family connected them to various community networks as well as the benefits of these networks. The family networkings represented a sanctuary in which slaves could feel a sense of belonging which was disconnected from the forced labor that controlled their lives. They were able to create a sense of individuality and love and devotion for those apart of their families which defended from the daily loneliness and desperation of enslaved labor.

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Many African-born slaves practiced traditional marriages, (sometimes polygamous,) with those of the same ethic backgrounds. While in the U.S. a lot of cultural traditions faced changes such as language, religion, name practices, and sometimes bodily scarring. However, in some places like Louisiana or coastal South Carolina, ethic practices thrived which allowed for traditions to be mostly unchanged for decades.

During the Antebellum periods, enslaved people were still determined to express themselves in any way they could. Some of the expressions used were arts, craftsmanship, folktales, and by educating themselves. During the hours they were able to rest slaves would engage in singing and dancing, using their bodies to create rhythm, a well known dance being the patting juba. Despite many obstacles involving the disapproval of cultural activities, slaves created amazing musical traditions and instruments like the banjo that had a huge impact on American music later on.

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Marriage was an extremely important aspect in cultural identity. It connected slaves to their past traditions and gave a sense of protection. But almost nothing under slavery lasted.

When slaveholders would catch onto bonds being formed between slaves they would weaponize those bonds and threaten to sell off a person apart of a community or family. They did this to enable harder work, punish disobedience, or just to establish superiority. Because of this, hundreds of thousands of marriages, many with children, were torn apart by sale "downriver," (down the Mississippi river). These threats wouldn't end after their master passed. A lot of times this could mean more families more families separated because of sale after the master has died.

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Enslaved women were more vulnerable to the threats of being enslaved than men. Enslaved women did mostly the same work as men, working in the fields the entire day. But some slaveholders tended to use female slaves as house servants opposed to men, this was not universal but usually an enslaved woman's experience as a servant was far different from a man's.

Sexual violence, unwanted pregnancies, and child-rearing, (raising children,) all while working in the plantations made enslaved women's lives more prone to disruption and danger. Pregnancies occured from rape did not usually mean a lighter workload for the mother either. Most enslaved women had no choice involving love, sex, or motherhood. On many plantations rape was present, and like the threat of tearing apart families, slaveholders used sexual violence as a form of terrorism to increase production, instill obedience, and hold power. Sexual abuse was not restricted to unmarried women. On many accounts, fairly violent slaveholders would force men to witness the rape of their wives, daughters, and other relatives as punishment, or to show dominance.

A former slave, Harriet Jacobs, wrote her masters attempts to sexually assault/abuse her in her narrative titled, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Jacobs tells that her abilities to successfully defend herself against the sexual attempts and her determination to love who she wanted gave her a stronger sense of freedom.

Enslaved women had no justice since white society did not see sexual violence against black women as a crime. Racist pseudoscientists claimed that black women could not be raped by white men because the sexual organs were not compatible. State law sometimes supported that view and stated that rape could only occur between two white people or a black man and a white woman. The consequences of rape would turn to the victim in the case of slaves. If a slave retaliated from a rapist whether it be any white attacker their actions were seen as crimes.

An enslaved woman named Cilia became a victim of repeated rape by her master, Robert Newson. He raped Cilia hundreds of times resulting in two children and several miscarriages. Cilia became desperate to end the torture and in the fall of 1855 Cilia took a club and beat her master over the head, killing him. Instead of sympathy and consoling the community called for her execution. On November 16, 1855, after a ten day trial, Cilia was hung for her crimes against her master.

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Other enslaved women who worked on Roberts property at the time

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Gender inequality stood different from racial inequality. White women and free women of color were living in a world in which laws, social norms, and cultural practices were all created and dictated by white men. They were denied voting rights and women of all statuses had no direct representation, their husbands were meant to represent the both of them. The reasoning behind it was because the public sphere was too violent, heated, and high-minded for women. In most states, marriage was expected of women and showed self-respect and class. This effectively transferred all of a woman's belongings to her husband, forever, regardless of claim or command. Divorce was an option but it barely ever worked in a woman's favor, and often ruined the woman's standing image in society. Sometimes the pressure after divorce led to suicide.

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Slavery existed for forced labor and dominance, but slaves formed meaningful bonds, maintained old traditions, and bloomed with new culture. They could love, have children, and protect each other using privileges granted by their masters. They were extremely resourceful, intelligent, and were able to create senses of sanctuary in community and freedom, in a place where freedom seemed unreachable.

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“The American Yawp” Google Docs, drive.google.com/file/d/1-LJuyzpz3Yuv7i-ZU_EHkPEm3LLAtn-V/view.

PBS. “Antebellum Slavery.” Pbs.org, PBS, 2019, www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2956.html.

Sambol-Tosco, Kimberly. “Slavery and the Making of America . The Slave Experience: Education, Arts, & Culture | PBS.” Thirteen.org, 2019, www.thirteen.org/wnet/slavery/experience/education/history.html.