Forced to Work

These images show enslaved people laboring in fields in Georgia and South Carolina. Enslavers wanted to make money for themselves, so they forced enslaved people to work long, hard hours without pay. Although most enslaved people did not work in agriculture, many did grow cotton, rice and other products to make money for their enslavers.

NOTE: The overseer in the image “Rice Planting” is black. Sometimes enslavers made enslaved people supervise other enslaved people by making them drivers or overseers, but these people were not free.