Worksheets and No Prep Teaching Resources Reading Comprehension Worksheets Black History and Blacks in U.S. History A Nation Divided (1840-1861)

Slave Life Black History and Blacks in U.S. History

---

Slave Life
Print Slave Life Reading Comprehension with Fifth Grade Work

Print Slave Life Reading Comprehension with Sixth Grade Work

Print Slave Life Reading Comprehension

Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 5 to 6
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	5.9

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		brutality, improvment, undermine, presented, humanity, desirable, overseer, provided, genuine, disrespectful, brutal, generally, decency, disgraceful, outdoor, exhaustion
	content words:		United States

---

Slave Life By Mary L. Bushong

---

¹     Do you know what a slave is? Any person could be a slave. It is someone who has no control over his or her life. They can be bought or sold and have nothing to say about it. Slavery has occurred in almost every culture since the beginning of time, but what we are going to talk about here is slaves in the United States.
 
²     There was nothing easy about the life of a slave. They generally worked either in the house or in the fields. For house slaves, all the cooking and cleaning was done by hand. They were often the ones to take care of any children of their master. While they sometimes received better food, their working days were longer because of lights in the house.
 
³     Field slaves would work from dawn until dusk. The work was back breaking, and overseers often did not care if a slave was worked to death. Until the early 1800's slaves were cheap. If one died, they would just go to the slave market and buy another one.
 
⁴     If a slave was thought to be disrespectful or did not do their work correctly, punishment was often brutal. It was not unusual for them to be beaten or whipped. One slave, who eventually escaped slavery, was hit in the head with something heavy that the overseer threw at her. She nearly died, but recovered after several months. She suffered from terrible headaches the rest of her life. Other slaves were punished with starvation, sold to a harder master, or possibly sent to a slave breaker.

Paragraphs 5 to 12:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable

---

Weekly Reading Books

Create Weekly Reading Books Prepare for an entire week at once!

---

Feedback on Slave Life

Leave your feedback on Slave Life   (use this link if you found an error in the story)

---

Black History and Blacks in U.S. History

Black History and Blacks in U.S. History

---

A Nation Divided
(1840-1861)

A Nation Divided (1840-1861)

---

United States

United States

American Government         Black History and Blacks in U.S. History         Children in History         Government Careers         Hispanic Heritage         How Can I Help?

Immigration         National Parks and Monuments         Native Americans         Presidents of the United States         Women's History

---

United States History

A Nation Divided (1840-1861)         A New Nation (1776-1830)         After the Civil War (1865-1870)         American Revolution         Cold War (1947-1991)         Colonial America (1492-1776)         Lewis and Clark (1804-1806)         Pearl Harbor         Spanish American War (1898)         The 1890's         The 1900's         The 1910's         The 1920's         The 1930's

The 1940's         The 1950's         The 1960's         The 1970's         The 1980's         The 1990's         The 2000's         The Civil War (1861-1865)         The Great Depression (1929-1945)         The United States Grows (1865-1900)         The War of 1812         Wild, Wild West         World War I (1914-1918)         World War II

---

50 States

Fifty States Theme Unit

---

Document Based Activities

Document Based Activities

Copyright © 2025 edHelper