[DoreenMichele]

I'm sure it varied considerably. I'm certainly no subject matter expert.

I know there was a historical uprising someplace where slaves objected to plans to set them free. I'm unfamiliar with the details.

There is also the fact in some of the Caribbean islands, slavery was so harsh that average life expectancy was 3 years at one point, IIRC. They outlawed the importation of slaves well before they outlawed slavery and during that period the slave population shrank. They were not reproducing fast enough to hit replacement levels.

I read two or three books on the situation in the island or islands in question. Scholars speculate that slaves must have been using some means of herbal birth control as a protest to bringing children into such harsh conditions.

[Ancapistani]

> I'm sure it varied considerably. I'm certainly no subject matter expert.

It did, and I readily admit that I’m not either.

As I understand it, with a few exceptions, the further south an enslaved person lived the worse off they generally were. Further south meant a more agriculture-based economy, with higher labor demands and less “civilization”. More isolation means more opportunity for enslavers to literally work their slaves to death.

I think not recognizing this does a disservice to the people that actually lived through that era.