relative difference in the quantity, quality, and variety of food, clothing, housing, and medical care from plantation to plantation. This put slaves in different situations and, therefore, they had no common situation to revolt against. Some slaves were fed a minimum amount of food and others were fed a decent amount of food. Some slaves lived in crude one-room log cabins with dirt floors. John Brown complained: "The wind and rain will come in and the smoke will not go out" (Blassingame 254). Most of the cabins contained at least two families. For example, the 260 slaves on Charles Ball's plantation shared 38 cabins; that is an average of 6.8 slaves per cabin. Some slaves lived in sheds instead of cabins. Slaves usually had to make the furniture and utensils they used. Some slaves slept on the ground or on mattresses of corn shucks without blankets. On the contrary, southern propagandists argued that slaves were much better off than the European peasants and factory operatives. Some modern econo
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