Assignment number two: Pre & Post Civil War

                Slavery, it wasn’t just hard work. Slavery was combined with forced labor and abuse. During the forced labor regime of white supremacists, slaves were considered property . They may have been compared to a bird, sitting in a cage waiting for the right moment for someone to open the cage and quickly fly away into the open.  Some slaves stated that their life with the white people wasn’t as bad as others. They were treated with respect; in fact they believed that they were family. When looking into specific passages from When I was a slave narratives, edited by Norman R. Yetman, we notice that many slaves had different sorts of labor, or “forced labor”.

Pre-civil war work culture, we can look into an interview which took place in Baltimore, Maryland. Mrs. M.S Fayman was interviewed by an individual whose first name was not provided, however we do have a last name; Rogers. Fayman was eighty seven years of age.  Fayman was a kidnapped slave. She was kidnapped from private school. Fayman states she was never considered a slave by her master; she was not forced to live in a forced labor regime. In fact he saw her more of a teacher rather than a slave. She taught the French language to the children of her master.  If Fayman did not see herself as a slave, does not mean that she did not live under the white supremacist culture. She had no other choice. If slavery was not practiced she would have never been teaching the French language to the children of her master. In fact she would probably have had a job where she was paid for what she had to offer.  

                During her life as a slave, she had most privileges of the household. However she was never permitted to leave the plantation. “ I had all privileges of the household accorded to me with the exception of one- I never was taken off nor permitted to leave the plantation”(Yetman 37). This quote clearly describes that throughout slavery, slaves were living under the white supremacist culture. They were not family. They were property.  The civil war began in 1861 it stretched throughout 1865.  Fayman waited seven years after the civil war to visit the plantation where she was once a slave.