The Sugarcane Day
"It appears to me we get it on all sides, struggle as we may...I never grieve over spilt milk. As soon as I saw the damage I set out to repair it as soon as possible..,By the middle of next week there will be no trace of the storm...My loss is so much less than it was in 1856 that I now look upon this as but a trifle. Then I lost cabins, stables, cribs, corn mill. Everything was swept away except my house and the sugar house. It has taken years to build up again." -William F. Weeks to Alfred C. Weeks, October 4, 1860
To
make "beautiful sugar," required a large number of laborers
to work the vast acreage that made sugar a profitable crop. The work day
began between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. with "before-the-day jobs,"
such as feeding livestock, before going to the fields from sunup to sundown.
In the fields there was a midmorning break of about half an hour for breakfast,
and then at midday one and a half to two hours lunch break. After sundown
there might still be non-field jobs to do with the animals and other chores
about the plantation buildings. Slaves generally worked five and a half
to six and a half days a week, usually with time off, either half a day
on Saturday and all day on Sunday, or sometimes only half a day on Sunday.
This was a fairly common schedule except on a Louisiana sugar plantation from October through December, during the grinding season when cane was harvested, hauled to the mill, and made into sugar. Then it was not uncommon to work sixteen or more hours a day, seven days a week. This is the main reason for the slaves' familiar fear of being sold "down the river to Louisiana." Slaves often worked half the night, every night, in addition to their day work. Once the sugar mill was fired up at the beginning of harvest, it was kept going twenty-four hours a day until grinding was complete, as it still is today.
Not all of David Weeks' 164 slaves worked the cane fields or sugar house. Some made clothes, usually two sets of clothes a year for each slave. Others did laundry, prepared food, or were personal servants for the Weeks family. Some were put in charge of livestock, either work animals or race horses and carriage horses. Others were responsible for the gardens, both the ornamental gardens around the main house, and also the great fields of corn, turnips, or sweet potatoes, to feed all the people living on the plantation.
History l Visit l Education l Events l Support l Shop l Contact l Site
Map |