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After being freed, Milly Green benefitted from being able to read. She was able to find work as a teacher and midwife. Alice would also grow up to work “cookin’ for well-off white folks.” Because she had grown up in the master’s house, Alice understood the manners and customs expected by white families. A DAY’S WORK FOR A HOUSE SLAVE For most of the time that slavery was legal in the United States, a majority of enslaved people were domestic slaves. Most families owned small farms with just two or three slaves, not the plantation life so often seen in films such as Gone With the Wind . Slaves worked to keep the household running. Slaves did small scale farming and planting, as well as domestic chores such as cooking, cleaning, and laundry. On larger plantations, some female slaves were taught a specific trade, such as being a seamstress. In a smaller home, a domestic female slave would take responsibility for all of the necessary work. Cooking during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and most of the

DID YOU KNOW ? African American spirituals are a type of American folksong often associated with slavery. They were very popular in the late eighteenth century. African slaves were accustomed to music as a key part of life and brought this tradition with them. The call and response hymns did not require literacy and brought the group together around a common song.

nineteenth century was very different from today. Pots and pans were made from heavy cast iron. It required skill and strength to lift and maneuver them into place. Cooking took place over an open wood fire, either in the fireplace or outside

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WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN SLAVERY