Summary Of Give Me Liberty By Eric Foner

The Old South was the largest and most powerful slave society the modern world has known. To describe the relationship between the master and slaves in the American South, was that the masters did have all of the power in this relationship at the beginning, but later in time, the enslaved then exerted some of that power. “Planter not only held the majority of slaves, but they controlled the most fertile land, enjoyed the highest incomes, and dominated the state and local offices and the leadership of both political parties” (Foner 411). In 1850, according to the Table 11.2 on page 411 in “Give Me Liberty” by Eric Foner, shows the numbers of slaves that were owned by slaveholders in each family (in rounded numbers). The ownership of slaves provided

Slaves were put into all types of work. “The 125 slaves on one plantation, for instance, included a butler, two waitresses, a nurse, a dairymaid, a gardener, ten carpenters, and two shoe-makers. Other plantations counted among their slaves engineers, blacksmiths, and weavers, as well as domestic workers from cooks to coachman” (Foner 425). Some slaves were put to fuel the steamboats by cutting woods, labor in coal and iron mines, in the southern ports the slaves manned the docks, also laid the railroad tracks. The local authorities put slaves to construct and repair bridges, roads and other facilities. The federal government also had the slaves build forts and other public building located in the South. Furthermore, slaves were too owned by businessmen, merchants, lawyers, and civil servants. By 1860, in the Upper South, two hundred thousands slaves worked in the industry, especially in the ironworks and tobacco factories. Many small farmers and manufacturers would rent slaves from plantations with their permissions of the slave's owners to go do some labor with them. Some, but not many, owners would trust their slaves with extensive responsibilities. For an example, a slave named Simon Gray, was put him head of a riverboat crew on the Mississippi by his owner to handle the responsibilities of being in charge of selling his lumber at urban markets, be in charge of both white and black workers (bending the law), and handle the large sums of fortune. But Gray’s experience was very typical. According to studies, there was a large majority of slaves, seventy-five percent of them were women and ninety percent were the men that were working in the field. “The largest concentrations of slaves, however, lived and worked on plantations in the Cotton Belt [(South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi)], where men, women, and children labored in gangs, often under the direction, of an overseer and perhaps a