Two labor systems emerged in the Caribbean , and both were eventually transferred to colonial North America, where they became the primary means of extracting labor from African and, later, African American slaves. Slaves in the Caribbean cultivated sugarcane using gang labor.
Which colonies used the task system?
Beginning in the late 1660s, colonists in the Chesapeake colonies of Maryland and Virginia imposed new laws that deprived blacks, free and slaves, of many rights and privileges. Each day, slaves were required to achieve a precise work objective, a labor system known as the task system.
What did the first gang do on the plantation?
In the early summer the First and Second Gangs prepared the fields for planting, turning over the soil with hoes. Then in the late-summer and early-autumn the First Gang would plant the sugar cane , often using the cane-holing process. William Clark, ‘Planting Sugar Cane,’ Ten Views in the Island of Antigua...
Where was task system used?
The task system of work, used at Henry McAlpin’s Hermitage Plantation, was very different. This system was commonly used in coastal Georgia and South Carolina where rice was a major crop. Every activity on the rice plantation was divided into specific tasks. Rice Culture on the Ogeechee, Near Savannah, Georgia.
What Labor did slaves do?
Besides planting and harvesting , there were numerous other types of labor required on plantations and farms. Enslaved people had to clear new land, dig ditches, cut and haul wood, slaughter livestock, and make repairs to buildings and tools.
When was the task system used?
The task system, in which workers were paid not by the hours they worked but by the number and quality of specific tasks they performed, was common in the industrial economy of late nineteenth-century North Carolina .
What was the task system quizlet?
The task system is a reference within slavery to a division of labor established on the plantation . It is the less brutal of the two main types of labor systems. The other form, known as the gang system, was harsher.
What were the 2 types of slaves?
There have been two basic types of slavery throughout recorded history. The most common has been what is called household, patriarchal, or domestic slavery .
How many hours did slaves work?
Slaves were whipped if they did not work hard enough. During harvest time, slaves worked in shifts of up to 18 hours a day .
What skills did slaves have?
Skilled slaves arrived with knowledge of a wide range of traditional African crafts— pottery making, weaving, basketry, wood carving, metalworking, and building —that would prove valuable in the Americas, particularly during the preindustrial colonial period, when common household goods, such as thread, fabric, and soap, ...
Why was the task system used?
It was an aspect of the constellation of skills and technologies used in traditional African rice cultivation . The slaves used this knowledge to bargain with the plantation owners to gain more control over their work. It gave the plantation owners a greater knowledge of this new and non-indigenous form of farming.
Where did the task labor system originate from?
The task labor system also had its origins in the Caribbean , and was transferred to the English North American colonies. Although the task labor system was evident throughout the Southern colonies, it was most common in South Carolina, first with the cultivation of indigo and later with rice cultivation.
How much did slaves get paid?
Wages varied across time and place but self-hire slaves could command between $100 a year (for unskilled labour in the early 19th century) to as much as $500 (for skilled work in the Lower South in the late 1850s).
At what age did slaves start working?
Generally, in the U.S. South, children entered field work between the ages of eight and 12 . Slave children received harsh punishments, not dissimilar from those meted out to adults. They might be whipped or even required to swallow worms they failed to pick off of cotton or tobacco plants.
How long did slaves live?
A broad and common measure of the health of a population is its life expectancy. The life expectancy in 1850 of a white person in the United States was forty; for a slave, thirty-six .
What divided and united white Southern society?
The Civil War divided the nation into two regions economically and socially, the North and the South.
