‘Various Means of Providing for Their Own Tables’: Comparing Slave Family Economies in the Antebellum South

Abstract

Recent scholarship has changed our understanding of African‐American slaves’ experiences by shifting our focus from the external factors of slavery (what slavery did to men and women in bondage) to slave agency (slaves’ determination in creating their own autonomous culture). While this has been a positive development, there is a danger in forgetting the framework within which slave culture was created. This article seeks a middle ground by examining the ways in which certain external factors of slavery determined the extent to which slave families could develop internal economies and engage in independent production. Comparing slave families’ experiences in three distinct cash crop regions of the antebellum South, this study’s findings indicate that the varied nature of work patterns and crop‐specific labor incentives in different regions served to either encourage or thwart the development of slave family economies.