The Life Of A Slave

An assignment for my United States History class. We have to write an account of slavery in the United States, in essay form. This is mine.

            My name is Kate, and I am a slave on the Hopeton plantation in Georgia. The life of a slave is not one that is sought after. Living conditions are poor. My family is unstable. I work hard every day. My life is terrible.

            When my master bought me and my family, he gave us no cooking utensils. My father had to make us some. Until that time, Mama cooked our food in a hollowed-out pumpkin, which one of the older women had suggested. She called it a calabash. The only thing that Master Hopeton gives us to eat is table scraps. Our house is cramped. Our roof is made of a material called thatch. My family of five shares our ‘house’ with five other slaves. My two sisters and I share a ‘bed’ made of straw.

            My family is very close. In a world where we have little, we have each other. We don’t get to spend a lot of time together. Mama, Papa and I are always working. Eliza and Sammy are only five and three, so they can’t work in the fields. I’ve basically raised Eliza and Sammy by myself, and Mama helped when she could. We get sick often (from all the bad food we must eat if we want to eat anything at all), but Master Hopeton only calls the doctor to see us if our illness prevents us from working for longer than two days.

            Every day, Mama, Papa and I work in the field from dawn until dusk.  Master Hopeton is cruel to all of the slaves, and the overseers are not kind either. I am a water-carrier. I bring the water to the thirsty workers, who are very thankful to me. Mama and Papa are pickers. They pick Master Hopeton’s cotton. In a few years, by the time Eliza is old enough to be a water-carrier, I will be a picker as well.

            I do not like my life as a slave on the Hopeton plantation. I have heard tell of kinder slave owners on other plantations, and I often wish that Master Hopeton could be like them. I wish that the living conditions were better. I wish that my family was more complete. I wish that I didn’t have to work so hard. I wish that I wasn’t a slave.

 

Reviews

[Wolfe Greytome]

A well written, fairly historically accurate piece.