Life Expectancy:     Slaves were a group of people that were treated worse than any other living thing. The beatings and  long hours in the field did not help the life expectancy of slaves; as a result the death rate for slaves was high, especially for infants. Infants rarely made it past their first birthday, and those who  survived still had a death rate twice that of white babies.

    As a result of a high death rate, the life expectancy was around 21 to 22 years, if you exceeded your 14th birthday. The life expectancy of whites was 40 to 43 years, almost a 20-year difference. Few slaves lived into old age. A contributor to the high death rate was undernourishment.  Little concern was shown for mothers or infants by slave owners. They were given no extra rations and still had to work in the field even 1 week after birth. This led to stillbirths or birth defects.  Another result was that the average weight of a newborn was 5.5 pounds.

Mintz, S. (2003). African American voices. Retrieved November 2, 2006, from Digital History Web site: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/black_voices/voices_display.cfm?id=20

Created by : Darrien

picture found at: www.blog.speculist.com/.../LifeSpanmedium.jpg