Slaves were the commodities to have; the slaves were just as important to the farm if not more as the crop itself. "In many plantation counties slaves outnumbered the free population by at least 2 to 1 and in a few places, as much as 10 to 1" (Meltzer 162). Slaves were able to produce a product for sale on the market cheap, making the master a good profit. "The planter viewed his slaves as tools of production to be used for the greatest profits" (Meltzer 162). Early American farming in the southern states such as Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama relied solely on slaves. "In 1850 the United States census chief estimated that about 2,500,000 slaves were producing the 5 great staple crops" (Meltzer 162). For many of these slaves life was hard.
Life as a slave was harsh, brutal, and dangerous; there weren't any laws that protected slaves, they were protected only as property to the master, not people. Being that slaves were property of the master they could be treated in anyway the master saw fit to treat his property. "Laws for the protection of the lives of salves, are, as they must needs be, utterly incapable of being enforced, where the very parties who are nominally protected, are not permitted to give evidence, in courts of law, against the only class of persons from whom abuse, outrage and murder might be reasonably apprehended" (Douglass 127). "As property, slaves could be bought and sold, traded for other goods, offered as security for a loan, inherited, or given away as gifts, slaves dreaded such transactions" (Berlin 42). By being auctioned off at any given time, or to be given away as gifts, left slave families life uneasy, just knowing that any real feeling of attachment too one another could be broken up by the master for sheer profit. Aware of the insecurity of their domestic life, slaves could not take their families for granted. Many masters used this fear of being spilt up as a tool to make their slaves behave; they would let them know that any wrongful move on their part would split their family up by selling their children or spouse to the highest bidder.