38

666 HISTORICAL ANNOTATION

celebrated runaways and rebels, or featured satirical treatments of patrollers, slave
traders, and even slaves themselves. Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black
Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom ( 1977; New
York, 2007), 3-30; Blassingame, Slave Community, 105-48; Paul Finkelman et al.,
eds., Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial
Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass, 3 vols. (New York, 2006), 2:406.
45.13 their monthly allowance of food] A peck is equal to one-fourth of a bushel,
or two gallons. The ration allowed Douglass and the others enslaved by the Anthony
family was only one gallon, or one-eighth bushel of cornmeal per week. Masters
typically distributed staples to their slaves, who were in turn responsible for the
preparation of their own meals. A standard weekly ration for an adult slave was three
to four pounds of pork, and a peck of cornmeal; however, Thomas Auld's slaves
received only half of the standard ration of cornmeal. Slaves supplemented their
weekly allotment by adding vegetables and fruit from a master's orchards, by growing
their own vegetables to eat or to sell, by hunting and fishing, and by taking food
and ingredients from the master's kitchen. House slaves tended to be fed better than
field slaves and would frequently give food to both children and adults who were not
allowed in the master's house. On some large plantations cooking was a communal
activity, but most often a mother would either cook her family's evening meal in the
morning before work hours, place a meal on the fire to cook slowly during the day,
or prepare a meal quickly after returning from the fields. George P. Rawick, The
American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, 19 vols. (Westport, Conn., 1972),
1:67-73; EAAH, 2:30.
45.21-22 yearly allowance of clothing] Adult male and female slaves typically
received clothing allotments twice a year, winter and fall. For each clothing allowance
men received two shirts, two pairs of pants, and during the winter months they
received a jacket and wool hat. Women's clothing allowance consisted of two dresses,
and they were given coats, cloaks, and caps for the colder winter months. There is not
much evidence available about children's clothing, except that often they went without
clothing as they were too young to work; if they did receive clothing, boys would
get shirts that reached below their knees, and girls, prior to puberty, would wear a
one-piece frock. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 49; Miller and Smith, Dictionary
of Afro-American Slavery, 118-20.
46.3-6 The slaves worked. . .the overseer's horn] Work patterns of the slavery
economy followed the rhythmic patterns of the season according to crop productions.
Tobacco was the least intensive of all plantation crops to harvest because it did not
require a rigorous processing regime like sugar. When slaves were not engaged in
growing the staple crop, more time was spent in subsistence activities, and men often
practiced skilled trades on the plantation. Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-
American Slavery, 238-40.
46.14 "turning row,"] The unplanted end of a cultivated furrow where horse or
mule and plow make their turn to go back up a new row.