Psalms 37:34,37 (The Living Bible)
The life as a slave was extremely difficult. I would like to share some of the conditions of a slave's life.
Every year, slaves usually received maybe one or two shirts, maybe one or two pairs of pants , one jacket, one pair of socks, one pair of shoes, an overcoat, and a hat. The food slaves usually received were cornmeal, salt herrings, and eight pounds of pork or fish each month for food. Their place of residence consisted of houses which were usually wooden shacks with dirt floors, but sometimes these houses were made of boards nailed up with cracks stuffed with rags. The beds were collected pieces of straw or grass, and old rags, and only one blanket for a covering. A single room could have up to a dozen people-men, women, and children.
When a slave was only 12 months old his or her mother could be sold far away. When a child slave was four, they sometimes had to work as babysitters . When a child slave was around the age of five, they would run errands and carry water to the field slaves. Around the age of eight, slave children would be expected to work on the plantation. Over 32 percent of outside marriages between slave men and women were canceled by their masters, this would be the result of slaves being sold away from the family home, this lost of income would never be beneficial to slave owners to lose any of their stock (one of the terms used for slaves). A slave husband could be parted from his wife, and children from their mothers.
Slaves could be killed for murder, burglary, arson, and assault upon a white person. Plantation owners believed that this severe discipline would make the slaves too scared to rebel. In South Carolina one slave owner would put nails in a barrel sticking out on the inside of the barrel, then put the slave in and roll him or her down a very long and steep hill. Another punishment slave owners used was to whip their slaves. Other slave owners in Virginia smoked their slaves. This involved whipping them and putting them in a tobacco smokehouse. Some other punishments were getting beat with a chair, broom, tongs, shovel, shears, knife handles, the heavy end of a woman’s shoe, and an oak club.
In the South many slave owners never wanted their slaves to become Christians or have no understanding of the bible for they knew this knowledge would help them gain independence and rebel against their slave owners. This was one reason why most plantation owners did what they could to stop their slaves from learning to read. In the South, black people were not usually allowed to attend church services. Black people in the North were free to attend church, learn to read and write, as well as pray for their sisters and brothers in the south to be free. Drums, which were used in traditional religious ceremonies, were banned because overseers worried that the slaves would use them to send messages to others slaves.
Many blacks in America waited patiently on God to free them of their wicked slave owners. They never stop dreaming of having a wonderful future in spite of the inhumane bondage they had to endure. They continued to serve God in their hearts and depended on righteousness to prevail on their behalf. Slave owners in the south wanted to keep blacks ignorant of their future in America. They knew that "if a black man could be educated, that mentally and industrially, there would be no doubt of his prosperity."(Booker T. Washington) Even with their hands and feet bound in bondage they had enough knowledge to understand the concept of hope, believing, if they had an upright heart before God, wait patiently, that the future generations of African Americans would write the end of black history and their would be a happy ending for Arican Americans in this country.
I know your hands may be tied right now to some circumstance that you want God to quickly free you from. But be patient and keep traveling along the path He has set for you. In due season He will honor your steadfastness during these difficult times. Remain blameless before Him obeying His word in spite of every obstacle. "Throw aside every non-essential and cling only to the essential."(Booker T. Wahington) Become a person of peace, allowing the Lord to go before you and fight every battle. You have a wonderful future ahead of you, never let the wicked works agaisnt you hinder the process of your sucess in God. Wait I say on the Lord, there is a wonderful future ahead for you. A future that will bring you the means to a happy ending!
"I have learned that sucess is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life, as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to suceed." Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)
This post is on-time. I understand that the Slaves had two things to hold onto, their Faith that God would change their lives and the dream of better days to come. This makes me like towards my father for hope of better days to come.
ReplyDelete