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Some portray slaves as having plenty to eat, while others portray "the fare of the plantation [as] coarse and scanty". [2] For the most part, slaves' diet consisted of a form of fatty pork and corn or rice. [2] Cornbread was commonly eaten by slaves. [3] Produce from a vegetable patch or garden could also be added to the rations. [4]
Sprawling Southern plantations have long attracted visitors with their stately mansions and carefully manicured gardens. “When you're going through those massive houses and looking at the ...
While enslaved, people on plantations found ways to supplement their meager food rations by cultivating slave gardens. [5] These slave gardens were usually near the slave cabins or remote areas of the plantation, and provided slaves with three benefits: nourishment, financial independence, and medicinal uses. These slave gardens allowed ...
A majority of plantation owners and doctors balanced a plantation need to coerce as much labor as possible from a slave without causing death, infertility, or a reduction in productivity; the effort by planters and doctors to provide sufficient living resources that enabled their slaves to remain productive and bear many children; the impact of ...
According to the 1840 United States census, one out of every four families in Virginia owned slaves. There were over 100 plantation-owners who owned over 100 slaves. [2] The number of slaves in the 15 States was just shy of 4 million in a total population of 12.4 million and the percentage was 32% of the population.
Plantation slavery had regional variations dependent on which cash crop was grown, most commonly cotton, hemp, indigo, rice, sugar, or tobacco. [3] Sugar work was exceptionally dangerous—the sugar district of Louisiana was the only region of the United States that saw consistent population declines, despite constant imports of new slaves.
Slave gardens were an integral part of plantation life. The gardens were made near slave quarters and fenced in with saplings, branches, and vines, and root cellars were located underneath the slave homes. Based on the observations of travelers, the gardens were small in comparison to the other gardens on the plantation. [24]
Enslavers gave field slaves weekly rations of food, including meat, corn, and flour. If enslavers permitted, enslaved people could have a garden to grow themselves fresh vegetables. [ 1 ] Otherwise, they could only make a meal from their rations and anything else they could find.