bore chiefly upon the time when his service would end. He could always entertain a reasonable hope of final improvement in his condition, but, while his term lasted, he stood practically upon the same footing as the meanest slave, in the duties to be performed by him. On the whole, the work of the latter could not have been very burdensome. We have the testimony of those who had observed the operations of both the Virginian and the foreign systems, that the negroes in the Colony were not required to labor for as many hours as the common husbandmen abroad, nor were they pressed as hard in their tasks.[1] Side by side in the field, the white servant and the slave were engaged in planting, weeding, suckering, or cutting tobacco, or sat side by side in the barn manipulating the leaf in the course of preparing it for market, or plied their axes to the same trees in clearing away the forests to extend the new grounds.[2] The same holidays were allowed to both, and doubtless, too, the same privilege of cultivating small patches of ground for their own private benefit. In the matter of food, however, the negro did not enjoy the same advantage as the white servant, the substance of his fare being plainer and less costly;[3] his meals consisted of hominy, mush, maize-bread, pork, potatoes, and other vegetables,[4] —victuals which were, perhaps, more palatable than those in
- ↑ Beverley’s History of Virginia, p. 220. “I can assure you, with great truth, that generally their slaves are not worked near so hard nor so many hours in a day as the husbandman and day laborers in Eng land.” Again, “The work of their servants and slaves is no other than what every common freeman does,” p. 220.
- ↑ For an illustration of the intimate association of white servants and negro slaves in their work, see Records of York County, vol. 1684-1687, p. 206, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Beverley’s History of Virginia, p. 219.
- ↑ Hugh Jones’ Present State of Virginia, p. 40.
