The Cotton Pickers

The Cotton Pickers

African American slavery painting

Two African American women on a cotton farm stopping for a moment, reflecting on their experiences and thinking about what their lives have become. Their facial expressions portray their feelings greatly. The woman to the left seems weary and sad while the woman to the right looks as though she is trying to hide her exasperation and despair behind a composed expression. The gloomy, foggy colors show even more emotion of the two women. The majority of slaves during the Antebellum period worked on cotton farms day after day. Slaves would try to improve their lives however they could, by breaking tools to slow down the work day or even poisoning their masters. If they were caught, the consequences were not light. They would be whipped or given shackles, and sometimes the masters would threaten to sell them. Slaves lived in constant fear of both physical and emotional violence. Women were also not safe from sexual harrassment from their slaveholders. To a master, reproduction was an advantage, as more people, more slaves, and therefore, more labor. Women would get pregnant as soon as nineteen and then be forced to bear a child every couple of years. The slaves that worked in the field had limited options for clothes. They typically had to follow dress codes and mainly consisted of cotton dresses, like the ones pictured. They also had to endure long work hours, anywhere from eight to fourteen hours per day depending on the time of year. Carrying around a bag or basket for that long is no easy task. Exhaustion and improper nutrition were factors that lead to many different diseases among the slaves, causing their life expectancy to continure to decrease overtime. This picture illustrates just how vast the plantations were. All that can be seen is an endless field of cotton to be picked. The slaves lived in the agony of repeating the same daunting tasks day in and day out. These ladies did not deserve to be treated as they did. It is important to understand images like these that show the real emotion of what those people went through during the Antebellum period. It is crucial to reflect upon the past and help continue learning about what exactly they all went through during that terrible time.

Winslow Homer

“Slavery and the Making of America . the Slave Experience: Men, Women & Gender: PBS.” Slavery and the Making of America . The Slave Experience: Men, Women & Gender | PBS, https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/slavery/experience/gender/history.html.

Jacksonville, Florida State College at. “African American History and Culture.” Lumen, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-fscj-africanamericanhistory/chapter/life-as-a-slave-in-the-cotton-kingdom/.

Fine Art America

September 2, 2018

Sarah Livingston