13. Many slaves in Virginia were hired out by their owners
During the 18th and early 19th centuries, large Virginia plantation owners hired slaves to others. Slaves were hired, under contract with the owner, for a specified period of time and at a mutually agreed fee. The fee was paid to the owner. Some owners allowed the enslaved workers to keep some, or even all, of the money thus earned. Support of the enslaved workers became the responsibility of the employer, including food and clothing, and in many cases, shelter. In Virginia, it became standard to hire out enslaved workers for a period of 50 weeks, with New Year’s Day being the starting point. January 1st became known as “hiring day” in discussions of Virginia commerce. Domestic workers, cooks, housemaids, seamstresses, and nannies, were commonly held positions in which women slaves were hired out to others.
Many slave owners demanded that the enslaved workers they hired out be treated fairly and carefully by their employers. An employer who returned a worker in an unhealthy or injured condition could be sued for negligence, or for, in essence, damaging another man’s property. By the beginning of the 19th century, the practice of hiring out slaves had become so widespread in Virginia that new business lines emerged. Brokerage houses and hiring agents, dedicated solely to the hiring of slaves throughout the state, received commissions for arranging the transactions. Richmond, Virginia, became the center of tobacco production, with more than four dozen factories manufacturing cigars, pipe tobacco, and chewing tobacco. Nearly two-thirds of the more than 3,500 workers in those factories were hired slaves. Others worked in coal mines, on the canals, and in the warehouses of the Tidewater.