Relationship Between Slave Owners and Slaves, Essay Example

Throughout the times in which the United States of America allowed individuals to have slaves to call their own, there were certain duties that slave owners would make their slaves do. These work activities often involved manual labor, such as digging ditches, killing hogs, shelling corn, cutting straw, tending stables, stripping tobacco, etc. These work activities often times involved a variety of slaved working long hour shifts without breaks in order to get the day’s work done in  within a given amount of time. On the other hand, however, slave owners hardly ever did any manual labor. Seeing as how these slave owners had dozens of people working for him or her, slave owners simply ensured that things ran smoothly. For example, they would tell slaves what to do and when to do them. Also, they would ensure that the slaves were doing their jobs at all times, and if they were not, there were bound to be grave consequences. Because of the manner in which this system was run, there was no way for a slave to have the opportunity to move up the socio-economic ladder. In a similar fashion, there was no way that a slave owner would have ever been removed from his or her “throne.”

Needless to say, there were a number of things that slave owners made the slave do that the slave owners themselves would have never done. The slaves were not allowed to argue or complain about what they were being told to do, so they usually just did as they were told in order to avoid any conflicts.