What food did the slaves eat?

What food did the slaves eat?

Weekly food rations — usually corn meal, lard, some meat, molasses, peas, greens, and flour — were distributed every Saturday. Vegetable patches or gardens, if permitted by the owner, supplied fresh produce to add to the rations. Morning meals were prepared and consumed at daybreak in the slaves’ cabins.

What crops did slaves grow on plantations?

Most favoured by slave owners were commercial crops such as olives, grapes, sugar, cotton, tobacco, coffee, and certain forms of rice that demanded intense labour to plant, considerable tending throughout the growing season, and significant labour for harvesting.

What foods did slaves bring to America?

They brought the kola nut – one of the main parts of Coca-Cola – to what is now the United States. West Africans chewed the nut for its caffeine. Enslaved Africans also brought watermelon, okra, yams, black-eyed peas and some peppers. These foods are commonly eaten in the U.S. today.

Did African slaves bring rice to America?

Slaves may have brought key cash crop with them. In colonial America, slaves from west Africa made many a plantation owner rich by growing a particular high-quality variety of rice. Rice became a cash crop for plantation owners, however, with the advent of a high-quality variety of rice in 1685.

What food were slaves given in a plantation?

Slaves received only enough food to keep them alive. Most plantation owners gave a ration of food at the beginning of the week. It consisted of corn, fat, and possibly a bit of bacon, Slaves might also receive bread, flour, some vegetables, and some buttermilk. Because this diet was low in vitamins and minerals, many slaves became ill. Some could grow their own vegetables or do some fishing on Sundays. Still, most slaves were hungry

What did most enslaved people on plantations work as?

Aside from working the large cotton plantations, slaves also worked on farms raising tobacco, corn and livestock. In cities, slaves worked as laborers and craftsmen. Some slaves lived and worked part of the year on their owner’s plantations and, when plantation work slowed, lived in town and worked for hire.

What were the conditions like on slave plantations?

On some plantations the owners would provide the slaves with housing, on others the slaves had to build their own homes . Slaves that had to build their own houses tended to make them like the houses they had had in Africa and they all had thatched roofs. Living conditions were cramped with sometimes as many as ten people sharing a hut.

What was the slaves diet like?

For the most part, slaves’ diet consisted of a form of fatty pork and corn or rice. Historian U.B. Phillips found that slaves received the following standard, with little or no deviation: “a quart of cornmeal and half pound of salt pork per day for each adult and proportionally for children, commuted or supplemented with sweet potatoes, field peas, syrup, rice, fruit, and ‘garden sass’ [vegetables]”. [2]