Lmao, I did not expect to see this on the forum this morning.
I understand it's a rather shocking OP, given the general progressiveness of this site.
I'd say that slavery conditions varied widely. Some house slaves were treated as well as if they were the slave owner's own child. Some field slaves were malnourished, beaten, and slept in overcrowded shacks.
I think I have some data which indicates latter cases were vanishingly rare. The fact that I have nearly everyone else disagreeing with me in this thread, yet only responder has been able to provide a couple anecdotes (one seemingly quite good, mind you), indicates that there simply isn't the breath of data required to make the case that a large number of slaves were treated poorly.
In fact, I've provided data that shows slaves were growing significantly taller, and thus at least the vast majority of them were not malnourished. The beaten point seems to only ever have anecdotal evidence (which could be true, but people have the capacity to lie, especially if they get reparations, attention and sympathy for doing so). Perhaps the "slept in overcrowded shacks" is right -- I haven't seen any data on this.
Difficulty of work would also depend on the type of crop and if the owner was rich enough to purchase better equipment.
Well I provided the data that showed the average yearly slave hours, and that was compared to the 2015 study which showed that children could basically match harvest rate. I think that's enough data to show that the average slave didn't work to the bone. Of course, you'll get the exception where the slaves were, but it all averages out to a pretty reasonable amount of work.
