9+e.+Life+on+a+typical+slave+plantation

__Life on a typical slave plantation__

Sugar estates varied in size. They ranged from a few hundred to a thousand acres depending on soil, climate and physical geographical conditions. The mixture of industry and agriculture gave good reasons to set up a plantation by a river; so that water could easily by carried to run mills which were used in processing sugar. The largest parts of the estates were fields used for planting the cane.

The rest of the estates were divided into sections used as pastures, woodlands, provision grounds, work yards and living quarters for the plantation owners and their families and other white staff of the plantation such as overseers and bookkeepers. The fields were divided by narrow roads into smaller square plots of about 6 to 9 hectares in order to make it easier for the overseers to control the slave gangs. A work yard was placed in the middle of the cane fielda, making up the work yard were mills, boiling houses, curing houses as well as sheds for blacksmiths and carpenters. Near to the work yard were cattle pens, poultry houses and a small hospital which was also used as a jail house for runaway slaves.There was also a trash house where the crushed stalks were put to dry before they were burnt in the furnace.

Also grown on some plantations but in a much smaller scale than sugar cane was tobacco, cotton,pimento, ginger and indigo, timber ,cocoa and coffee all grown for export.


 * //__How was the sugar made?__//**

The cane juice was carried through lead covered troughs from the mill (where the cane was crushed and the cane juice collected) to storage cisterns at the furnace in the boiling house. The cane juice was taken from the cisterns and strained and stirred in a large copper container where it was heated and a little lime was added to remove impurities. The juice was then skimmed and thrown into a copper container that was heated hotter than the one before. The Raw sugar was shoveled from the cooling trough into hogsheads and carried away to the curing house. After a period of four weeks the holes in the hogshead were plugged and ready to export to Europe

__**Other day to day activities taking place on the plantation**__

The slaves on the plantation were classified according to the work they did. The artisans were the most valuable and fortunate because they were allowed to work for a planter on another plantation for pay. The most unfortunate were the unskilled slaves.

A slave's working day began at 4 am. Work like feeding the poultry and cleaning the cattle pens had to be done before sunrise. At sunrise the slaves assembled for roll call. Breakfast was given a little after 10am, they were given a 2 hour break at 12.30 to attend to personal chores. After the lunch break, work continued until sunset after which another roll call was done and then the slaves were sent to their quarters until 4am the next day. This routine was broken on Sunday mornings when the slaves were allowed to go to the market to sell small animals and provision that they had nurtured in their small provision grounds. They were also given holidays during Christmas week and a few days after crops were harvested.

__**Cultivation and harvesting of crops**__

The yearly cycle of cultivation began in spring with planting new cane.The first gang of slaves had to open the soil to a depth of 15 centimeters. This task was even more difficult if old roots had to be removed first.Once the field was planted, the first and second gangs were busy weeding, hoeing and replanting. Towards the end of March, there was a rush to complete work that could not be done during crop time. This was during the rainy season when much work could not be done on the crops. This period was called 'dead time'.

During the 5 months of crop time the working hours lengthened from a 16 and a half working day to an eighteen and a half working day.Most plantations used a shift system which alternated between cutting cane and working in the factory. Factory work was dangerous and hot since the cane had to be fed into the boilers by hand. Many slaves suffered terrible burns while working in the boiling house.

The following are drawings showing the layout of a slave plantation.