Working hours
The average slave would work on the slave plantation from dawn until dusk, although they could be called upon at any time, especially during busy periods such as the harvest. Nearly all field slaves would have the weekend 'free' but they would have to use this time to catch up with their own work, such as looking after their plots of land and other domestic jobs. Domestic slaves would work more unpredictable hours, as many were based in the 'Great House' (as the plantation owner's house was often called). This meant that they more subject to the plantation owner’s constant domestic demands, which did not stop at weekends.
A lifetime of hard work
Slaves were used throughout their lives for work, with only babies and young children being taken to the fields with their mothers to sleep or to be cared for by an older woman. By the age of three children were set to doing “fun” tasks such as gathering rubbish, usually under the watchful eye of an older woman, who would be too old to work in the fields.
The gang system
In the sugar plantations of the West Indies a gang system was operated. The First Gang had the most physically fit of adult male and female slaves, who were forced to carry out the hardest work. The Second Gang included slaves between twelve and eighteen years of age, the stronger older people and breastfeeding mothers or pregnant women. The work was still hard but slightly less physically demanding. The Third Gang included the very old or the very young, carrying out the most simple of tasks, but still being used to make sure that he slave owner got value from his slaves almost from the time they could walk to the time of serious physical decline.
The slave-driver
All of these gangs were supervised by a slave-driver, a more favoured and trusted slave who had to ensure that the slaves were worked as hard as possible. The slave-driver would be under a white overseer and both would both punish those who they thought were not working hard enough.
Hazards and dangers of the plantations
Each of the three main plantation types - rice, sugar and tobacco - required different ways of working and each had particular dangers for the slaves forced to work in them. In the South Carolina rice plantations, the hazards of the job included the unhealthy swamps that made up the rice fields and the poisonous snakes that lived there. The work had a different pattern to that of sugar and tobacco. The working day could be shorter as each worker had a set task to complete per day rather than work in the gang system, but the mud and the swamps made the job exhausting. Sugar cane fields were painfully hard work with dangers from the tools and the natural hazards. At harvest time the work was so hard and constant that many slaves fell ill through being overworked.
Craftsmen and artisans
Some slaves would be given better positions or more material favours if they had a talent for more skilled tasks, with some reaching a craftsman or artisan position in the plantations. These slaves would generally have slightly better living conditions and could make more money or barter by selling goods locally, thus improving their lives a little further.
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