73.74.122.201: Rice was a southern crop and this doesn't really have anything to do with task system slavery.

2025-03-06T10:25:35Z

Rice was a southern crop and this doesn't really have anything to do with task system slavery.

New page

The '''task system''' is a system of labor under [[slavery]] characteristic in the Americas. It is usually regarded as less brutal than other forms of enslaved persons' labor. Under this system, each enslaved person is assigned a specific task to complete for the day. After that task is finished, the enslaved person is then free to do as he or she wishes with the remaining time. The other form, known as the [[gang system]], was harsher.<ref>Judith Carney, ''Black Rice,'' (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001): 98-101</ref> The gang system forced the enslaved people to work until the planter said they were finished and allowed them almost no freedom. Whether planters organized their enslaved people on the task or gang system had much to do with the type of crops they harvested. Tobacco, rice and sugar cultivation was organized into gangs since those crops required considerable processing and supervision. Coffee, cotton, and pimento were comparatively hardier plants where extensive supervision was unnecessary, leading planters to favor the task system on their plantations.<ref> Philip D. Morgan, "Work and Culture: The Task System and the World of Lowcountry Blacks, 1700 to 1880," William and Mary Quarterly 39, no. 4 (October 1982), 568;''Black Rice'' : 99</ref>

==See also==
*[[Gang system]]

== References ==
{{reflist|3}}

[[Category:Slavery in North America]]
[[Category:Slavery in South America]]
[[Category:Slavery in the Caribbean]]
[[Category:Slavery in the United States]]

Task system - Revision history

73.74.122.201: Rice was a southern crop and this doesn't really have anything to do with task system slavery.