How was slavery in the northern colonies different from the south?

Answer 1

Slavery in the north wasnt really slavery it was indentured servants who worked to get payed the souths slavery was far worse the African Americans were treated like trash they dont get payed they being kept for life and they get abused and neglected..

--ESLcity Answer--

I agree with this answer but only to a point:

While in the early colonies slavery was mainly indentured servants... However, during this early point in American history this was the case in both the North and the South..

Slavery of Africans became prevalent in both the North and the South at around the same time..

Northern slavery grew out of the paradox that in the new world so much land was available, so cheaply, that no one was willing to come to America and sign on to work as a laborer.

The dream that drew Europeans across the Atlantic was owning acres of land or making a fortune in a trade or a craft. It was an attainable dream.

Yet workers were needed in the new continent to clear the land, work the soil, build towns and because of this acute labor shortage -- all the American colonies turned to compulsory labor.

In New Netherland, (which is now modern New York) in the 1640s, a free European worker could be hired for 280 guilders a year, plus food and lodging. In the same time and place, experienced African slaves from the West Indies could be bought outright, for life, for 300 guilders. So...

Don't be fooled to think that all was peaches and creme for Northern Slaves.

In fact, they were treated about the same as those in the south...

Answer 2

In essence, it did not. Lincoln's cleverly written Emancipation Proclamation freed no slaves.

Well generally in the north people were against slavery and they wanted to put a stop to it, (abolitionists) but in the south they were all for it. A lot of southern lifestyles revolved around slavery and they couldn't picture their life without it. A lot of Northerners on the other side found it to be cruel and uncivilized.

Answer 3

It was different because the southern colonies were the more unkind type, they would whip their slaves and sometimes even beat them in public.

Although if the owners did do that they would be cited with a "warning" and a sniker.

The northeren colonies also had slavery but they weren't as brutal! All in all slavery was not right and people such as the Quakers helped t let them know that.

-- Answer ---

While I agree that the last contributor has answered it correctly but only to a point... however, it is important to not under play the harsh treatment that also occurred in the North toward slaves...

Often we get this impression by history books that slaves were in some way treated like family or friends to their owners in the north....

Here is one example from a book written in late 1700s :

"The slaves in Massachusetts were treated with almost parental kindness. They were incorporated into the family, and each puritan household being a sort of religious structure, the relative duties of master and servant were clearly defined. No doubt the severest and longest task fell to the slave, but in the household of the farmer or artisan, the master and the mistress shared it, and when it was finished, the white and the black, like the feudal chief and his household servant, sat down to the same table, and shared the same viands."

[Reminiscence by Catharine Sedgwick (1789-1867) of Stockbridge, Mass.]

Such books were written as a means to absolve its northern ancestors of their guilt. This also was -- so that the North could heap blame for everything wrong with American society on southern slavery.

New England was the center of slave trade in the colonies and that Northerners profited from slavery in many ways, right up to the eve of the Civil War.

Free blacks that lived in the North had no control over their own family arrangements, and they could be put back into servitude for "laziness" or petty crimes, at the mercy of the local authorities.

Like wise, many Northern states aggressively barred black Immigration. In other words if you were black you couldn't live in that state.

--Answer--

The primary difference between Northern and Southern slavery was the nature of the work the slaves were employed in. Southern plantations were far more amenable to large groups of slaves working them than northern farms were - consequently there were fewer northern slaves engaged in agriculture than southern slaves. Northern slavery was also initially far more prone to include people of other than African origin (including some both some from Europe and some Native Americans) - although by the time of the Civil War there were few, if any, northern slaves who were not of African extraction. Treatment of slaves in both the north and the south ranged from brutal and sadistic to merely second-class citizens (albeit without the rights of citizens). Slavery was never benign in either the North or the South.

Answer 4

The main difference between slavery in the North and South is the treatment of slaves and the importance of the slave to its region. Obviously the only foothold and focus of the South was its production on its plantations. Pecking order was highly heeded in the South as well. The larger the plantation, the more slaves were needed, the worse the conditions became for each individual slave. There was a large rift between poor farmers who could maybe afford a couple slaves and the rampant, rich plantation owner who could afford hundreds. It was a business built on blood money. The slave, although regarded as mere property, played a vital role in the South. They were what kept the ball rolling so to speak. In the North, slaves worked on farms as well but they were more treated as servants inside the home guided by the missus of household. Because the North had other focuses and footholds in the economy, lack of slaves would not break the Northern prosperity. The treatment of the slave depended purely upon its owner...there were horrible abuse cases North and South, but we tend to generalize terrible conditions with the South ever since the Civil War... but the entire nation is guilty of slavery, no matter the region.

Answer 5

slavery in the north was harsh more mean then the south