2 - The Slave Workhouse

Summary

In many ways, the workhouse epitomized the brutality of urban slavery. Enslavers sent their slaves to the workhouse for punishment, most often in the form of whippings and paddling. Sometimes they had their slave labor on the treadmill, a dangerous contraption that often lead to injury, including permanent disability. The workhouse also served as a slave pen for slaves awaiting sale – a place for safekeeping slaves who might otherwise runaway before being sold away to New Orleans or some other strange place. In addition, the workhouse was a prison. Captured runaway slaves were lodged in the workhouse. Convicted slaves, like Nicholas, served the terms of their convictions there because the city council restricted the jail to whites and free blacks only.