Civil War Slavery America has been in many wars, and one of which was the Civil War. The Civil war was between the North and the South, The North being anti slavery, and the South, wanted slavery. We obviously don’t have slavery anymore, but what was it like for a slave? Slaves worked backbreaking labor, working daybreak to sun down, nonstop. They had Sunday off, that is, if they were lucky. They had to obey their masters without question (unless, of course, they wanted punishment), and spoke quietly when whites were near. Disobedience resulted in harsh punishment, and vicious beatings with whips. Slaves that were caught in the event of an escape were sometimes given a spike to the ankle, and some wore collars with bells on them. Worst of …show more content…
Well, you would be right. Most did so by working slowly or poorly, or quietly sabotaging tools. A bigger revolt, rather, was by a slave by the name of Jemmy led about 20 slaves to attack a store, resulting in the deaths of two white men. They took whatever they could find in the means of weapons, and the small group grew steadily to nearly 100 slaves. They then went on a killing spree in Florida, successfully killing thirty whites. Some slaves escaped in a not as violent way, like going along the Underground Railroad. It was neither underground, nor a railroad. It got named that because it had to be carried out in secret. Railway terms were used with the road, such as people who aided were called conductors, and stopping places were called stations. It went through 14 Northern states up to “The Promised Land’, AKA Canada. The hardest part, however, was NOT traveling through the Railroad, but rather escaping the workplace itself. Before 1850, you were generally killed if you were found escaping or sometimes tortured in public to warn and frighten other slaves. The person who helped the slave escape’s punishment wasn’t so brutal, and was typically a fine for a loss of ‘property’ and possibly a short prison sentence. In 1850, penalties became much harsher. Both blacks and whites could be executed if having helped a slave escape. If you were lucky, you just had a longer jail