Just as working conditions varied among the slaves, so too did the quality of the food, housing, clothing, and medical care they received. Indeed, the degree to which slaveholders supplied these basic necessities for their charges was hotly debated in the pre- Civil War period. Northern abolitionists often railed against the slave system for providing slaves with substandard shelter and starvation diets. It was an article of faith among certain Northerners that slaves were poorly dressed and that what little medical care they were given was worse than useless.

Slave owners, on the other hand, defended their institution, dismissing the abolitionists' examples as outright lies, far from typical, or inflated out of proportion. They argued that masters generally gave their slaves plenty of food, good housing, and more than adequate clothing and medicine. This generosity stemmed from a desire to protect their investment as well as...