The weather and soil conditions in the North prevented plantation-oriented agriculture. Northern slaves in the pre-Revolutionary era were employed as skilled and unskilled workers on farms and ships and in factories and shipyards. Agriculture was the predominant industry in the South, and slaves were deemed the cheapest, reliable labor for working the land. Two types of work plan were imposed on slaves: the Gang Plan and the Task System. In the former, large groups of slaves toiled in the fields under the supervision of an overseer. In the latter, slaves were given individual tasks to fulfill. Urban slaves tended to work under the Task System. In the South, only favored slaves were excused from toiling in the fields. As you may recall, the slaves on Colonel Lloyd's plantation thought it was an honor to run errands and perform assigned tasks around the big plantation manor.
Because British law did not specify the status of slaves, the colonists created their own slave codes, and these codes varied from state to state. In general, they denied civil rights to slaves, and punishment meted out to slaves was often harsher than that given to whites for the same crime. In effect, there were two different legal codes — one for whites, another for blacks.
The end of the Revolutionary War saw the beginning of a large increase in the number of freed blacks. About 5,000 blacks who fought against the British during the war were emancipated by their masters. Following independence, many Northern states instituted universal emancipation within their states. As a result, the number of freed blacks grew rapidly, as did the restrictive codes placed on them. Freed blacks were immediately seen as an economic threat to Northern whites, and these written and/or unspoken codes were designed to keep blacks subservient. Douglass, for example, was a victim of Northern racism when he attempted — and failed — to find work as a caulker in New Bedford even though he was well qualified and had his own tools.
