The former enslaving class tried to limit the amount of time families spent tending to their own crops or gardens, constraining their economic possibilities. Enslavers went to extreme lengths to restrict freed people’s leisure time and their right, as one woman put it, “to ’joy” their freedom, including by playing, dancing, and drinking in their own time.86 Planters tried to shut down venues and business establishments that catered to Black people looking to have a good time.87 Enslavers resisted the end of the corporal punishments that were the linchpin to slavery.
