Most of the cabins were built to contain two families. Sometimes they got old boards and nailed them up over holes, they stuffed the smaller holes with rages. If there weren’t enough boards or no boards they would they would hang up old clothes. When the family grew larger the children slept together (both boys and girls) and until some one got married, that is the way they would sleep. When a person got married another part of the cabin was assigned to them and there future children. The two families that lived in the cabin had to share one fireplace. When it got very warm, they would sleep under trees, until usually in the month of October when it grew to cold to sleep out side. In the rainy season living conditions worsened because the tops were partly open and they had and dirt floors. When it rained the water would come in and the floor would turn to mud. Their bedstead consisted of a board wide enough to sleep on. One end there was a stool and the other placed near the fire. Their pillows were what ever they

The rich southerners owned hundreds of slaves and had large plantations. They often had overseers tend to the work of the slaves. The poor whites or “plain folks” owned the land they farmed and only had a few slaves. They often had to work along side of their slaves to be able to support their families.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 stated that, if any escaped slave was sighted, he or she should be arrested and given to the authorities for that slave to be taken back to the south to be returned to the “rightful” owner. This act also made it easier for patrols to get rich. Patrols were poor white men who live by plundering, stealing, and getting rewards for runaway slaves. Patrols usually ride around near the plantations to try to catch a slave of the quarters or at a free slave. It also made it harder for slaves to reach the north.

In Maryland the slaves are treated with much cruelty in the working field. Still the owners cared more about their slaves than southern slave owners did. The general features of slaver are mainly every the same in every place but the harshest place of all was on the cotton fields of the southern states. In Maryland there is only tobacco fields. And the tasks are not as hard opposed to the cotton plantation tasks. In the fields of Maryland men are very rarely whipped unless the are lazy or not completing there work all the way or the right way. Women got to remain in the house on v

Some topics in this essay:
Slave Act, African Americans, Thanksgiving Day, , living conditions, whipped slaves, falls short, african americans, slave owners, overseer’s horn, overseer calls, pressing cotton,