If slavery was so bad why didn't they just run away?

submitted by sneako from self.AskSaidIt

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[–]Drcolossus 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

I am pretty sure that plenty of slaves did run away and they were subsequently hunted down beaten and/or hanged in front of the other slaves. This would send a very powerful message to the other slaves. Most prisoners chose a shitty life in a cage over the finality of death.

Even if the slave did manage to evade the bloodhounds of a particular slave owner. I think it would be next to impossible to make it all the way to the northern states without someone identifying you as a runaway slave.

It's not like they could change their skin color to blend in. So basically any black person roaming the country side was fair game for anyone willing to capture them and sell them back to the plantation.

[–]Zapped 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yes. If you were black and walking around without a chaperone in the South, you either had to be a free man known to the community or needed a paper from the slave owner letting people know the slave was trusted and allowed for that particular trip. Some owners would let their slaves go on dates to neighboring plantations. My guess as to why they didn't run away more often is that they were either, like you said, treated very harshly, or they accepted what they were born into. Reading and writing was usually not permitted, so that kept their communications and options to a minimum. Also, some slaves were treated somewhat like family. Well, family that was forced to stay on the plantation. It also seems like the farther south you were, the harsher the slaves were treated and the harder it would have been to escape through slave territory into the free North.

[–]Canbot 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

But consider this: no farm, even with zero equipment has 24/7/365 labor to do. There is planting season and harvesting season that requires hard, long backbreaking labor. Sure it's not a lie to say that at some point a slave would work 20 hours a day. But to omit the fact that for the majority of the year that was far from reality IS a lie.

To omit the fact that slaves drag thier feet, as literally every human in slavery would, is a lie of omission. They aren't breaking thier backs working as hard as a farmer who works for himself. Nor should they, but to imply they did is a lie.

I'm not calling you a liar, but most of what you have learned about history, and slavery in particular, came from liars.

I agree with you that slaves must have run away, as I would have done that even if the conditions were not terrible. If only because I would imagine that I could become a Master if only I were free. And there is certainly evidence that run away slaves were hunted, and rewards were paid.

But I also agree with the core premise that slavery was not what it is portrayed in media.

Just food for though, not an argument to your point.

[–]jet199 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

This is why slavery wasn't economically viable in the end. Not only did you have an underperforming workforce you had to pay to feed and house you then had to pay a load of people watch them all the time to make sure they kept working. It's actually not that different to what happened in soviet Russia. Then you start paying people to watch the people watching the workers.

[–]Canbot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

And yet slavery still exists. Sweatshops exist.

It would seem viable, if not efficient. I think people generally underestimate the intelligence that is required to automate. But eventually slavery should be not viable for economics as the intelligent people get around to automating everything.

It will probably always exist in the 3rd world.

[–]jet199 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Sweatshops aren't anything like slavery.

That's just an area where the cost of labour is worth less to the employer than minimum wage. There are a lot of jobs like that which is why employers are replacing them with tech where possible. If you take such a job you usually have other issues which mean you don't mind earing less, such as having a husband who works.

Where slavery exists is in very poor counties where working for food and lodgings isn't considered a bad deal and among the very rich, like the Arab princes, where they can just keep paying wages for endless shit staff without any worry of the cost.

[–]Dragonerne 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Jews also marked you with their familys stamp so that you couldn't move around freely.