Aspects of Slavery and Freedom Seeking in North Carolina
Earth- General Labor
Most of the work done on plantation were done by enslaved people and divisions of labor were not a restricted as one may think.
"In apportioning tasks, slave masters ignored distinctions of age and sex. The very young and the very old, males and females, worked in the fields. Females dug ditches, cut down trees, cleared wild land and worked on highways. Some plantations were manned entirely by a work force of women."
One a typical plantation or small farm work began in the morning, "When the day begin to crack, the whole plantation break out with all kinds of noises [humans and animal life], and you could tell what was going on by the kind of noise you hear." In regards to labor most things were done with routines that was guided by military discipline. "Bells and horns! Bells for this and horns for that! all we knowed was go and come by the bells and horns!"
Movies often depict enslaved labor in cotton fields more than any other task. Such illustration is not false, as many enslaved persons worked cotton fields; however, such a depiction is limited and distorted in a non-illuminating way, the amount, variety, and the importance of labor that enslaved persons were forced and expected to do. Enslaved people labored in nearly every task one could imagine. Enslaved people were the driving force of the southern economy and the wealth builder of Northern and international economies.
A focus on king cotton overlooks the differing jobs of enslaved people and, therefore, prevents a comprehensive understanding of the complexities of slavery. It diminishes how enslaved people worked varying and several tasks and the skill required to complete those tasks. It dismisses how enslaved people worked in all seasons, and not only during growing seasons. They worked in the late fall and winter months. Thus, they worked in all weathers—the blistering cold and freezing rain to the hot and humid days of July. In short, it is important to note that enslaved persons worked beyond agriculture. This section will peek into the labor in which the enslaved people engaged beyond agricultural tasks.
Enslaved people in North Carolina not only cultivated that which grew from the soil of the earth but extracted that which grew from within the earth.